BFlo loves himself some Elijah Williams

[StickierBuns]

https://twitter.com/Vikings/status/1963677209085829624

This is crazy how KAM knocked these UDFAs out of the park in 2025. I thought some might be moved to the PS after cutdowns, but they love them all that made the final roster. Only 22 years old. 6'3", 290 lbs with quickness and movement. Only going to be better next year. Kept rockin' it from the tryout all the way through preseason. 'Just kept building and he's going to keep developing' -BFlo

[MaroonBells]

Vikings youth on the DL is exciting. I've seen guys flash and never fully light up, so we'll have to wait and see, but each of these guys has looked really good at times. Pretty sure it was Redmond's performance last year and then again in camp this year that prompted the Harrison Phillips trade. 

Elijah Williams is 22
Drake-Rodriguez is 25
Ingram-Dawkins is 22
Jalen Redmond is 26

[purplefaithful]

How this hasn't been a major talker all summer is beyond my limited comprehension. Not only did he make the 53, but he made it arguably within the strongest group of the team. 

Kudos to DL coach Dixon for finding the guy, recruiting him here and coaching him up.

WHAT A STORY!

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How rookie defensive tackle Elijah Williams, the Vikings’ unlikeliest player, made the team

Williams, undrafted out of Morgan State, went from a three-day tryout to the Vikings’ season-opening roster. Not even famous longshots Adam Thielen or C.J. Ham did that.

Vikings defensive tackle Elijah Williams was not among the 329 players invited to the NFL scouting combine. He was not among 257 players selected in this year’s NFL draft. He was not among 18 undrafted rookies the Vikings guaranteed money to after the draft.

Yet Williams, a four-year standout for Morgan State, an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) program in Baltimore, was one of the 53 players to make the Vikings’ Week 1 roster.

“I’m really still trying to process it,” Williams said. “It’s almost as if I’m still sort of in a dream. But I understand that I have to come every day, keep my head down, continue grinding, because this is only the start.”

Williams took the unlikeliest of paths to make the season-opening roster as a tryout player just four months ago. He reported to the Vikings facility for a three-day rookie minicamp in May, guaranteed nothing but the workout clothes he was given. He couldn’t even try out in pads, since NFL rules prevent padded practices before late July.

“I came to the tryout knowing, ‘Alright, we’re not going to be doing much,’” Williams recalled. “I just gave it my all and tried to not make the same mistake twice.”

After the draft, Vikings defensive line coach Marcus Dixon, a fellow HBCU graduate from Hampton University, quickly reached out to Williams, Morgan State’s career leader in sacks (31) and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2024. The Vikings were among a handful of NFL teams, including the Ravens, Giants and Jets, pursuing Williams, according to his agent Dwayne Treece.

But Williams picked the Vikings and Dixon, who needed only the first practice of the three-day tryout to tell coach Kevin O’Connell that they had something in this 6-foot-3, 298-pound defensive tackle.

“The effort,” O’Connell said, adding Williams “had a little pop to him throughout the drills, and that’s really what’s shown up throughout training camp.”

Defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, the 32-year-old, two-time Pro Bowl selection, first noticed Williams as a diligent and eager rookie. Williams sat in the front of every meeting room and asked “a lot of questions,” Hargrave said.

Before long, the rookie became a topic of conversation among veterans impressed by his preseason plays.

There was the exhibition opener against the Texans on Aug. 9. Williams defeated a pass blocker so abruptly that he stopped moving, thinking the ball must have been thrown.

“I guess he thought it was a screen,” Hargrave said. “You can just kind of tell he was special.”

During the preseason finale on Aug. 22, Williams leveled a Titans returner while sprinting downfield on the kickoff team. “That’s what got everybody lit,” Hargrave said. “The whole sideline got crazy on that one.”

Williams suffered a hamstring injury in Nashville that could keep him from playing in Monday night’s season opener in Chicago.

Defensive coordinator Brian Flores described an unexpected ascension that kept impressing coaches. Williams is the first Vikings rookie to make a Week 1 roster after a tryout in recent memory. A team spokesperson could not find another example within the past decade.

Other tryout players, such as receiver Adam Thielen and fullback C.J. Ham, famously made Vikings rosters, but not immediately after their rookie training camp.

“He really took advantage of his opportunities, and just built and built all the way through training camp,” Flores said. ”It was one of those things early on where it’s, ‘He’s making a couple good plays. Maybe we have something here. Maybe it’s a practice squad.’ Then it’s like, ‘Whoa, hold on, hold on a second,’ and it just kind of built and built.”

Hargrave, a 10th-year veteran on his fourth NFL team, said this is his first rookie teammate to make a Week 1 roster off a tryout. He quickly bonded with Williams over their HBCU connections; Hargrave attended South Carolina State.

“That’s little bro,” Hargrave said of Williams. “This might be the first time I’ve had something like that where we got three HBCU people in the same room,” including Dixon, the D-line coach.

As Williams emerged, a 2024 team captain — defensive tackle Harrison Phillips — was shown the door. General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah traded Phillips to the Jets on Aug. 20, less than a week before roster cutdown day.

Dealing Phillips opened a spot for Williams, acquired two sixth-round picks and cleared over $11 million in cap space spread across the next two seasons. Defensive tackle Jalen Redmond will replace Phillips in the starting lineup.

“I’m always trying to be ahead of what could possibly come,” Adofo-Mensah said, “and then you look at a really deep, deep D-line room and thinking about a possible rotation, different things like that. Just trying to maximize our resources and best way we can.”

While unknowingly on his way out, Phillips helped the revamped Vikings D-line, including Williams, Hargrave and Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, get up to speed with their new surroundings and playbook.

“Hitting him up about where to go, how to do things,” Hargrave said. “It was sad to see him go. It’s a crazy business. It’s so unexpected, but we just wish him the best and try to bring Elijah along with us.”

STRIB

[MaroonBells]

Defensive tackle Jalen Redmond will replace Phillips in the starting lineup.

Picking nits here, but I'm pretty sure Hargrave is replacing Phillips at nose and Redmond will be playing one of the 5t/4i positions.

[Bullazin]

Media gets a lot of flack, but these are the stories that make the game more interesting

[purplefaithful]

Media gets a lot of flack, but these are the stories that make the game more interesting

True...Locally I am noticing that (outside of Souhan) this generation of writers is light years ahead of the Reusse's and Hartmans who used to dominate the pages. 

Hell, just about all of the Strib sports writers predicted this week that the Vikings would win 10-12 games this year.

[JustInTime]

How this hasn't been a major talker all summer is beyond my limited comprehension. 

   

I know why.

[purplefaithful]

I know why.

You think?

I dont know, maybe for some..

U know I'm not much of a KAM supporter (yet) but as a fan I could still root for the player and the coach teaching him up. 

Either way, a great story and maybe this generations Johnny R???! 

Long ways to go, but a fan can dream

[greediron]

How this hasn't been a major talker all summer is beyond my limited comprehension. Not only did he make the 53, but he made it arguably within the strongest group of the team. 

Truly a great story.  I think he got hurt and disappeared from the radar a bit.  After Baldy's breakdown, I was looking for more of him, but then he went off radar.

But yeah, he was the reason HP was traded.  That is a pretty good start for a tryout signee.  If Brosmer ascends to QB2, this could be considered one of the best every "drafts".

---

You think?

I dont know, maybe for some..

U know I'm not much of a KAM supporter (yet) but as a fan I could still root for the player and the coach teaching him up. 

Either way, a great story and maybe this generations Johnny R???! 

Long ways to go, but a fan can dream

Not sure he will ever eclipse Randle, different positions, less glamor.  JR was a wrecking ball, Williams seems more of an interior plugger while the edge guys get all the sacks.