https://www.vikings.com/news/max-bredeson-fullback-career-unique-intersections

Max Bredeson's Career Open with Vikings Includes Unique Intersections

EAGAN, Minn. — Max Bredeson will have the opportunity to write his NFL story with shifts and motions before snaps, lane-clearing blocks for running backs and quite possibly some catches based on everything seen so far at Vikings Training Camp.

If he crosses the goal line at some point, it's OK by him — as long as it's a sound football play. If a teammate scores while he's on the field, Bredeson will show off his wheels as a former high school center fielder in the race to congratulate the player who scored.

Sounds like fullback material, huh?

Much of that is familiar fullback material for Vikings fans who helped send two-time Pro Bowler C.J. Ham off into the sunset in Week 18 (with a TD for the Duluth native against the Packers) and a special retirement ceremony alongside Adam Thielen in March, a month before Minnesota selected Bredeson in the fifth round.

Bredeson has connected with Ham on multiple occasions, including the UNRL Celebrity Softball Game featuring Thielen, Ham and current Vikings, as well as at practices. Bredeson said he spoke with Ham Wednesday, just a couple of days before Minnesota visits the New York Giants to open the 2026 preseason slate at noon (CT) Saturday.

Bredeson, who walked-on at Michigan before becoming an integral part of the Wolverines team, has looked NFL ready and capable of handling a multitude of assignments as he starts writing the first pro chapter.

The league's schedule-makers haven't shied away from storylines, but there's no way they could have factored in all the early Bredeson subplots.

Let's start with the setting for his first NFL game: MetLife Stadium was the home turf for Max's older brother Ben for three seasons. Ben started 25 of 35 games played for the Giants before joining Tampa Bay in 2024.

The Buccaneers are opening their preseason at the Jets tonight (at MetLife Stadium), so parents Mike and Debra will be able to catch both sons' first preseason games of 2026 with one trip. And get this: Max and Ben's older brother Jack, who started the trio's pipeline from Hartland, Wisconsin, to Ann Arbor as a pitcher, works in the New York Mets front office.

Next week, the Vikings will host the Ravens for two joint practices, as well as the second preseason game for both squads. Baltimore selected Ben in the fourth round in 2020, and he appeared in 10 games as a rookie.

Fast-forwarding to the regular season, the Vikings open against Max's home state Packers — Max grew up following college football more devotedly than his attention on the NFL. He was a Badgers backer (including during Andrew Van Ginkel's time at Wisconsin) before switching to Michigan when Jack suited up in the Maize and Blue, but Minnesota hosting Green Bay in Week 1 should be special for a few reasons.

In Week 3, Max and the Vikings will visit Ben and the Bucs, and Minnesota's Week 4 hosting of Miami falls on Max's 24th birthday.

This is the perfect time to mention Max was a guest on KFAN's 9 to Noon last week with Voice of the Vikings Paul Allen and "Mad Producer" Eric Nordquist. P.A. suggested the Vikings should scheme up a TD as a b-day present for Bredeson. If so, it would mark Bredeson's first personal trip to the paint since high school.

"I mean, it would be like a touchdown popping out of a cake if Kevin O'Connell could craft a touchdown for you that game," Allen said. "What do you think?"

"I've always taken pride in getting the team touchdowns, so I may not have had touchdowns at Michigan, but I do take a lot of pride in that I helped a lot of the guys score," Bredeson said. "I don't like taking touchdowns as rewards — only when they're schematically correct. Whenever that time comes, I'll be ready to go do it."

Bredeson told Allen and "Nordo" that Ham already has been "a great mentor to me."

"I couldn't say enough great things about C.J. and what he's done to help me so far," Bredeson said. "He's definitely helped me just kind of get an edge to get ahead a little bit. When C.J.'s in attendance, you better have the chin strap buckled up a little extra tight, and I think there were some good plays I was able to show him."

The full interview can be easily listened to here (it starts at the 40-minute mark) to hear Max's backstory and his influences from within and beyond his family.

After seeing Ben voted as a two-time Wolverines football captain, Max made the family the first set of siblings to hold the designation.

"That was the greatest honor of my life, being voted as captain there, just because it was the respect that my teammates had for me," Max said. "Just knowing that the vote of my teammates, that I was the guy to lead them out of the tunnel, it was also super special to me because my brother was a two-time captain there, so for us to both have that title is pretty special. It's something I'll always hold very highly in terms of the things that have happened in my football career."

Max also noted Jack's impact on Ben's career and Max's progress so far.

"He's kind of the unsung hero that people forget about, so I couldn't say enough great things about Jack," Max said.

Max has watched extensive film of 10-time Pro Bowl/two-time First-Team All-Pro fullback Kyle Juszczyk, who began his career with Baltimore in 2013 before heading to San Francisco in 2017, as well as Alec Ingold, whose past four seasons in Miami included a trip to the Pro Bowl under former Dolphins Offensive Coordinator Frank Smith, who was hired this offseason as Vikings Assistant Head Coach.

The Giants, by the way, have two fullbacks on the roster, led by Patrick Ricard, who joined Head Coach Jim Harbaugh in heading up I-95 from Baltimore this offseason. Ricard picked up the baton when Juszczyk left for the West Coast in 2017 and has garnered six Pro Bowls and a First-Team All-Pro through nine seasons (he teamed with Ben in 2020). Ricard's dimensions — he is listed at 6-foot-3 and 300 pounds — are usually mentioned pretty early in conversations about him, which usually include pondering the athleticism shown at that size.

"The fullback community is a small community. Some people are in touch, and it's kind of like a running a thing of, 'Ricard's kind of his own animal.' He kind of does his own thing," Max said. "He's 300 pounds and he moves so well. It's so impressive. You try and take as much as you can from that tape. There's some things you can't replicate. There's some things you can. There's some things where you're like, how is he doing that at 300 pounds?"

O'Connell and Vikings coaches have been pleased with what Max has been able to do, pointing out how quickly he has picked up elements of the offense.

"Since he got here, obviously the mental approach, his ability to — I mean, there's different types of players, right? And there's very few that can sit in a meeting room, don't need walk-through reps, don't need a rep of it to then start applying their own high-level awareness that we know they have, but sometimes it takes a little time, depending on the position. He's already shown he can apply that," O'Connell said. "And then I think it's been great seeing the physical side of it because you just never know from a standpoint of the different types of runs we're doing. You guys have seen it. We're asking him to do a lot of different alignments and movements and things like that, and then he's still able. He's always been really good getting fit in space on blocks, but he's also been a really physical presence for us to help get runs started."