Lunchbreak: Odenigbo Tabbed as Vikings Top 'Homegrown Player'

[Viktor]

Rosenthal wrote:


Minnesota's defensive end position was among the league's best in the last decade, with stellar production from Jared Allen to Everson Griffen to Danielle Hunter. Is Odenigbo up next? A fourth-year, seventh-round pick who has been cut by three different teams, Odenigbo doesn't have the profile of a premier player.


But he sure looked like one on the field down the stretch, recording 7.0 sacks and 27 pressures in under 400 snaps. The Vikings don't have much depth behind him, so the team is betting big on Odenigbo to deliver.


Odenigbo met with the Twin Cities media on a Zoom call almost a month ago and was asked if he will be the starter opposite Hunter in 2020. He said he is "taking that approach."


Griffen, who voided his contract earlier this offseason, remains unsigned as a free agent.


Odenigbo played 368 total defensive snaps in 2019 as a situational pass rusher, but he made the most of it with a career-high 7.0 sacks, which ranked third on the team.


He was used more in the final month of the season, playing at least 30 snaps in each game from Weeks 14-17. Odenigbo, who recorded three sacks in the final three games of the season, didn't hit the 30-snap mark in the first 12 games of the season.


A Vikings 2017 seventh-round draft pick, Odenigbo endured a winding road before his strong 2019 season. He was on Minnesota's practice squad for his entire rookie season and did not make the 2018 roster out of training camp.


He spent parts of the 2018 season with Cleveland and Arizona before linking back up with the Vikings on Oct. 31 of that season. He made the 53-man roster out of training camp in 2019 and then produced his best season in a limited role.


While Rosenthal's pick for Minnesota was a seventh-round pick, his selections for the other three NFC North teams were all first-rounders.


Rosenthal tabbed Bears linebacker Raquon Smith [eighth overall pick in 2018], Lions tight end T.J. Hockenson [eighth overall pick in 2019] and Packers safety Darnell Savage, Jr., [21st overall pick in 2019] as players he expects to take a jump in 2020.