Vikings Territory: Vikings Player Lands Top 5 Endorsement From Terrell Davis

Press release from Vikings Territory:

July 8, 2021

Amid the last few weeks, Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks has been showered with Top-3-in-the-league linebacker kudos. Rankings are rampant during this downtime of the offseason, after mandatory minicamps but before training camp. It gives the digital stratosphere time to analyze players, position by position, establishing expectations and a pecking order for the upcoming season.

did it for linebackers a while back, followed suit in June

Well, now another powerhouse voice agrees with the third-best designation for Minnesota’s linebacker – and that’s Terrell Davis, a Hall of Fame running back from the Denver Broncos. On NFL.com’s Total Access, Davis ranked the league’s top five linebackers in order:

Davis also coined Kendricks “underrated” while assigning the ranking.

With his contract, Kendricks exists on the Vikings depth chart in an advantageous financial manner. He signed a five-year, $50 million deal in 2018 – a fair sum for the UCLA alumnus at the time. Since then, though, Kendricks emerged from a cocoon as one of the league’s top defenders.

The 29-year-old is also one of the longest-tenured players on the Vikings roster – with only Harrison Smith (130), Adam Thielen (105), and Anthony Barr (87) playing more games than Kendricks. He’s been on the field for 85 Vikings games since 2015.

And believe it or not, he was the best pass-coverage player on the Vikings in 2020 when adjudicated by passer-rating-against.

Kendricks’ running mate, Anthony Barr, will return to his side in September. Without core playmakers on the Vikings defense last year, Minnesota experienced its worst defensive season since 2013. The single aspect of defensive operations that was commendable was third-down acumen. Zimmer’s bunch ranked ninth-best in the NFL for defensive third-down percentage, a vast discrepancy from the fourth-most points-allowed metric that sullied 2020.

This press release was produced by Vikings Territory. The views expressed here are the author’s own.