The three wide receivers that lead the NFL in receiving yardage are familiar names. Ask anyone that follows football in even the smallest capacity and they will be able to tell you the names Antonio Brown and Julio Jones; every fantasy football player in the world has had DeAndre Hopkins on their team at some point. But fourth on the list may give some pause. The answer isn’t A.J. Green or Larry Fitzgerald; he’s not even on the New England Patriots or New Orleans Saints.

Next on the list with only seven less yards than Julio Jones is Minnesota Vikings wideout Adam Thielen. You may not have known his name before this year, but you wouldn’t be alone.

Thielen Diggs

Photo: Brace Hummelgarn/USA Today Sports

Even Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer didn’t expect much from him when they plucked Thielen, who wasn’t invited to the NFL Draft Combine and borrowed $200 so that he could participate in a regional combine, as an undrafted free agent from a workout camp after he ran a 4.45 40-yard dash. The wideout is a true success story, grinding his way from practice squad to special teams to a breakout season last year to becoming one of the key cogs of a 10-2 Minnesota Vikings team.

“Well, he kind of did come out of nowhere to be honest with you, was an undrafted free agent out of Mankato State, came to a workout camp here and [the Vikings] ended up signing him to a free agent rookie contract; he played special teams early in his years and then kind of continued to improve,” Zimmer said about the unassuming wide receiver who accepted an internship selling dental equipment before making the Vikings practice squad in 2013. “Adam is a great competitor, tough guy, very smart, understands how to run routes and I think those things have all continued to develop as he’s become more mature.”

 

Thielen, who had only three catches for 29 yards last September when the Vikings beat the Panthers 22-10, isn’t the only player you might not be familiar with on a Vikings team that is more than happy to fly under the radar even as they boast both an offense and defense ranked in the top five.

“I like it,” said Zimmer this week. “I like it when, I think it’s my mentality too when you’re always trying to prove people wrong and we have some guys like that. [Stefon] Diggs was a fifth-round pick and we’ve got some guys in there, Rashod Hill was an undrafted guy, Adam was undrafted and, you know, Case [Keenum] was the third-team quarterback. So those are all good qualities to me.”

Stefon Diggs, who has 42 catches for 630 yards and five touchdowns, broke out last season along with Thielen; center Pat Elflein is a rookie third-rounder that has started every game; you’ll probably recognize their starting right tackle as the scapegoat of Super Bowl 50, former Panther Mike Remmers. Their roster is littered with players that were deemed “not good enough” or perhaps never given chances, and no player on the roster exemplifies that more than quarterback Case Keenum.

Vikings

Photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images

Keenum, on his fourth NFL team, was signed as backup insurance this offseason; the former Houston Texan had the 27th best passer rating in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams in 2016 and was not expected to battle Sam Bradford for the starting job. The Vikings traded for former first overall pick Bradford before the 2016 season when their own first-round pick Teddy Bridgewater dislocated his knee and tore his ACL in a late August practice session, but it was Keenum who would be carrying the pail in 2017 after Bradford reaggravated his own knee injury in Week 5.  But now, after seven consecutive wins, 2,700 yards and the eighth-best passer rating in the NFL, Keenum is playing too well to be replaced by a returning Bridgewater.

“I think I heard someone say that Case Keenum is doing a great job of managing their offense,” Panthers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks said Monday. “And I quickly said that he’s not managing the offense, he’s running the offense and he’s doing an extremely excellent job of that. They’re running the ball well; I think you look at that balance that they have and the things that they’re doing with [Latavius] Murray and also [Jerick] McKinnon, and with [Kyle] Rudolph, one of the top tight ends in the league, they have a lot of balance in what they’re doing so, I think he’s doing an excellent job.”

Even their two-headed monster out of the backfield didn’t get the job until Week 4 when first-round pick Dalvin Cook tore his ACL and forced Murray, who himself was a sixth-round pick by the Raiders in 2013, into the starting lineup. Murray and McKinnon have combined for over 1,300 total yards from scrimmage, including two weeks ago when they rushed for a combined 107 yards against the Detroit Lions, a team that held Carolina to only 28 yards on the ground in Week 5.

“It’s no different than what we faced with Atlanta, no different than what we faced with New Orleans,” Ron Rivera said. “You’ve got to understand what the tendencies are with those types of backs. That’s really the thing you try to do and as a signal caller, as a play caller, you have to be aware because that’s going to dictate, in terms of the types of defenses you want to play based on who’s back there.”

You just have to figure out who’s back there first.

 

Josh Klein on Twitter
Josh Klein
Editor-In-Chief at The Riot Report
Josh Klein is Editor-In-Chief of The Riot Report. His favorite Panther of all time is Chad Cota and he once AIM chatted with Kevin Greene. Follow Josh on Twitter @joshkleinrules.