Viktor
Well-known member
- Mar 19, 2019
- 2,552
- 0
Perhaps the biggest change Vikings Head Coach Mike Zimmer wants to see from a season ago is an enhanced running game for Minnesota’s offense.
And he’s tasked Rick Dennison to lead the charge of improving a rushing attack that ranked 27th in rushing attempts (357) and 30th in yards per game (93.3).
But Dennison, who is the Vikings offensive line coach and run game coordinator, once thought he wasn’t going to be working in the NFL. Chad Graff of The Athletic recently profiled Dennison, who has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering.
Graff wrote:
But his background in science is more than a fun anecdote forgotten once he began coaching. In a league of men with a singular focus, consumed solely and entirely by football, Dennison stands out. To understand the man charged with fixing the Vikings biggest problem, it’s helpful to know his interests that reach far beyond the football field, the ones that drove him to take a job at Converse after playing in the NFL, to dream of building a submarine, and to get enjoyment out of helping his ninth-grade daughters with geometry homework.
All of that has earned him a hard time in meeting rooms from colleagues who can occasionally be taken aback by his vocabulary and wide range of factoids.
“He’s too smart,” Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Advisor Gary Kubiak said of Dennison, his former teammate and assistant going back three decades.
“You can tell he’s like a professor out there,” Zimmer said of his first few weeks watching Dennison coach the offensive line.
Dennison has three Super Bowl rings from his time in Denver with Kubiak. He was also a linebacker for the Broncos from 1982-1990.
Graff’s full profile on Dennison can be found here.