Late Bloomer Giving Vikings Super Bowl Hope...
Everson Griffen Is the Redemption Story Fueling the Surprise Vikings' Success"It takes a man a long time to grow up." — Everson Griffen
Perhaps the most important aspects of a professional football player's life are neither skill nor hard work. Rather, the key to success—that intangible that steers him toward a long Hall of Fame career—is how he learns to live and grow outside of his sporting career. How he makes decisions, how he builds a community and how he matures.
Maturation, after all, is never guaranteed. Everyone grows and ages; but for some, bad decisions and mistakes overpower talent and drive, leading to a life of regret.
For Minnesota Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen, maturation wasn't just a choice—it was the defining experience separating a Pro Bowl career (and this season, a Super Bowl pursuit) from the tabloid-headlining, cliched fall from grace so often tagged to the rich and famous.
Griffen, who recently turned 30 amidst his best professional season to date, spent much of his early adulthood overcoming a path of pitfalls and falling just short of actualizing his potential. He endured love, loss and hard decisions before realizing that the only way to excel on the field was to discover and live out his purpose away from it.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2751193-everson-griffen-is-the-redemption-story-fueling-the-surprise-vikings-success?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial
Hurry-up Vikings, we ain't getting any younger!
"In college, I could've maybe won Defensive Player of the Year and all of that, but I was just a young boy partying," Griffen says. "It was about, OK, I know I have to do enough to get drafted and I know I'm better than a lot of people … but I wasn't really locked in like that in college. In the NFL, you can't just show up and play. You gotta study, you gotta work out, you gotta practice hard."
The Vikings chose Griffen in the fourth round with the 100th pick.
"I should've gone higher, but I was a knucklehead," Griffen says. "Character issues. I was a wild cannon."
Looking back now, Griffen says he's thankful. Had he been drafted in the first round and received a lucrative contract, Griffen said he probably wouldn't even be playing football.
As a rookie in 2010, Griffen was tested by defensive line veterans like Jared Allen, Pat Williams and Brian Robison. He played on special teams and was often frustrated by his lack of playing time.
"We were a little hard on him," Robison says, laughing. "He'd come in, snot-nosed little rookie, a little cocky, so we had to knock him down a few notches. It was fun, but definitely seeing him mature over the years has been great. Now he's not afraid to ask questions, whether it's about football or life. He'll talk to guys and figure out the right way to do things."
"We're just now starting to see the best of him," Patterson says. "He's gonna continue to get better and better because he's figuring this game out. And most importantly, he's figuring life out. We all do, right? When I got here, my first focus was his talent, but the reason he hasn't been what he could be is because he wasn't right . But once we got him right, now the whole world is starting to see this amazing talent that this guy is."
Whether that is cycling through his movement training on the field three hours prior to game time, wrestling with his sons after practice or crowd-sourcing baby names via a T-shirt after a monstrous sack, each moment is the embodiment of who Griffen is today: a standout defensive end, a relentless worker, a team leader, a devoted father and husband—all titles he has earned and worked toward through years of evolution and change.
And amidst it all, he remains a joyful man who embodies love—and still finds time to have fun.
Griff really has come a long way from his rookie year and most of it is in the maturity dept. Remember the arrests by the campus cops and shit that next year...long ways. Good for him.
The Vikes almost passed on Griff staying when they went after Michael Johnson as their
long term DE, but he left Minnesota without a deal. Man, getting Johnson would've been a huge mistake
for the Vikes.
@"HappyViking" said: The Vikes almost passed on Griff staying when they went after Michael Johnson as their long term DE, but he left Minnesota without a deal. Man, getting Johnson would've been a huge mistake for the Vikes.
Sometimes its better to be lucky than good...
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