You might have missed when the Minnesota Vikings poached cornerback Dylan Mabin from the Las Vegas Raiders’ practice squad. Nobody could blame you. He was one of several nameless bodies to cycle in and out of a desperate cornerback rotation near the end of a dying 2020 season. Mabin played just 33 snaps in two games you probably want to forget: Week 16 against the New Orleans Saints, because the defense gave up more than 50, and Week 17 against the Detroit Lions, because its meaninglessness reminded you that the 2020 Vikings failed.
Still, those weeks were a milestone for the young product of Macedonia, Ohio. One of the least noticeable transactions to the fans was the most important development in that young player’s career. Such is the fate of so many roster-bubble and practice squad players. Over the weekend, I sat down with Mabin to talk about his journey through football as a small schooler, undrafted rookie, and sudden Vikings starter.
The Mabins are a football family. His father, Howard, played at Louisville. His brother Jordan played in the NFL. His cousin, Dorin Dickerson, played in the NFL. Dorin’s father, Ed Dickerson, coaches at West Florida. Football runs deep in Dylan Mabin’s world. It should be no surprise that he was playing football since before he can remember.
Dylan Mabin first played organized football around seven years old. “The very first play I ever got in, I got tackled, I just started crying,” Mabin said. “It didn’t even hurt, but I just started crying. I came to the sideline, and my brother [Jordan] was like, ‘Are you actually hurt?'” Dylan said no, and Jordan told him to “get back in there.”
“From that point on,” he said. “I just fell in love with the game.”
That wouldn’t be the last time Jordan’s guidance would play a role in Dylan’s life. “He kind of laid the blueprint of how to do things and how to get to where I wanted to get,” Mabin said of Jordan, 10 years his elder. Jordan’s NFL career mostly bounced from team to team, but he lasted for five years, including a year in the CFL with the Montreal Alouettes. In the grand scheme of things, that’s no slouch of a career. “I’m trying to be like that one day. He’s always been somebody I look up to.”
Mabin was easy to miss at Nordonia High School. “Growing up, I was kind of underdeveloped, like I didn’t really peak until high school. So I wasn’t recruited that hard.” Mabin said of his journey to pro football. Mabin ran track but wasn’t quite fast enough to make a living at track. His eventual 4.41 speed was good enough to have a future in football, but Mabin was mostly overlooked as a teen. “I didn’t even play until my senior year. I didn’t have junior year tape or anything.”
Mabin played wide receiver and some free safety if the need arose but wanted to switch to cornerback in college. “When I would go to college camps and whatnot, I would play corner just because I knew that’s what I wanted to play in college,” he said. “So I really didn’t play corner until I got to actual college.” So a one-year starter at the position he isn’t playing at your football camp isn’t going to be overwhelmed by offers.
Mabin didn’t get any FBS attention. But Fordham University, a Jesuit FCS school in the Bronx, was there early in the process. Of the few offers Mabin did get, Fordham was among the first, and after a successful visit, he enrolled. As a raw cornerback with speed and not much else, Mabin toiled through his first training camp. This was the first experience he had outside of a handful of summer football camps, but he managed to grind his way to a backup job.
His first game in uniform was a high-flying shootout against Army, where Mabin was thrust into action faster than anyone expected. “I wasn’t even 18 yet,” Mabin said. “Our starting corner got hurt at halftime, so they just kind of threw me out there.” This would become a theme of Mabin’s football playing career. In this instance, he broke up a couple of passes and felt good about where he was on the totem pole. Fordham won 37-35.
“At that point, I was like, oh, I’m about to be the starter!” Mabin thought. But when the intended starter returned, Mabin relinquished the job. It wasn’t until more than halfway through the season that Mabin would start, but after that he started for the rest of his college career. Things hadn’t really kicked into high gear yet. In fact, Dylan Mabin wasn’t even thinking about an NFL future until his sophomore year of college.
Mabin’s defensive backs coach Tim Cary pulled him aside that year. Cary told Mabin that he’d put several players into the league and that Mabin could be the next one. To that point, Mabin wasn’t doing any extra work. Not that he was doing anything less than what was expected of him, but he wasn’t dedicated like a player who thought he’d make it to the league. Once Mabin had that talk, that’s when he knew he needed to “live, eat, breathe football,” he said. “I only really have one shot at this, so I have to give it everything I have.”
An opportunity to do that came his junior year. Fordham’s kick returner had graduated, and they needed a new one. In a special teams meeting, the staff asked anyone who thought they could win the job to stand up. Mabin had done some returning in high school, so why not? “Probably more [stood up] than how many should have stood up,” he said with a grin, “there were a couple of frauds in there. They know who they are.”
As a relatively unknown cornerback-slash-kick-returner from Fordham, Mabin mostly knew he wouldn’t get drafted. However, that didn’t deter him. He embraced his path through the ranks of college free agency. “I knew eventually I was going to be able to get my chance,” he said. “I was really just waiting.”
Dylan Mabin got an invite to the then-Oakland Raiders’ camp. That year, the Los Angeles Rams and Raiders did joint practices, so Mabin played against Blake Bortles and the rest of the Rams’ B squad. He recalls one particular play where he got to play an “inverted” coverage (i.e., the cornerbacks play safety and vice versa). Los Angeles ran all verticals, putting Mabin in a difficult spot. “[Bortles] tried to look me off,” he said, “but I saw it, I read it, I went over and intercepted it.” In training camp, there is often a rule: You pick it, you house it. As Mabin ran the interception back 90 yards, his teammates ran with him. “That’ll always stick with me,” Mabin said. “That’s one of my favorite highlights ever.”
The very next practice, Mabin slipped and fell awkwardly, and he felt a pull in his groin and abdomen. The pain wasn’t so bad at first, and he tried to grit his teeth and play through it. He could have gutted out the entire season, but he spent that year on the scout team. The pain got to the point where he couldn’t run or even walk. Ultimately, Mabin was diagnosed with a sports hernia and had to repair it surgically.
There are moments in every NFL player’s career that challenge them to their very core. Recovering from surgery changed Mabin’s entire outlook for two months. “It really taught me to be patient with myself to overcome things like that.” Mabin continued, “When you’re used to being Superman, and then you have to call your mom and ask, ‘Can you bring me a glass of water, I’m in pain, I can’t move.'” Through that experience, Mabin learned how to slow down.
The Raiders moved to Las Vegas before Mabin got any in-game action. He’s no stranger to waiting his turn, but his promotion to the Raiders’ active roster came in classic chaotic NFL fashion — the call came in an October matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Raiders had a COVID-19 outbreak on their offensive line, and safety Johnathan Abram was also held out due to exposure. “When I walked in [to the locker room], and I saw my name on the depth chart, I was like, why is my name on the depth chart?” Mabin thought it could have been a mistake.
Nobody directly informed Mabin that he’d be moved to the active roster until a meeting later that week when special teams coach Rich Bisaccia told him to “pay attention, you might be in there.” Hardly a formal promotion. Mabin played a few special teams snaps in his first-ever NFL action but wouldn’t play from scrimmage until he converted to purple.
Mabin’s time on the Las Vegas active roster was short-lived, but last season was rife with surprises. Around then, Mark Fields was dealing with a punctured lung, and the Vikings were starting to run out of bodies at cornerback. It was a Tuesday in early November, the players’ off day, so Mabin had chosen to lift weights at the Raiders’ facility.
At 6:30 that morning, Mabin’s agent called to tell him that the Vikings were considering signing him. It wasn’t official yet, so Mabin spent the rest of that day wondering if this would be the last day he spent in Henderson, Nev., where the Raiders practice. “I had to lift, knowing that this might be my last time in here.” He was on a plane to Minneapolis that night.
Being a part of the Vikings’ defense last year was a whirlwind for everyone, Mabin included. “It was very chaotic,” he said. “I was already familiar with the system. [Mike Zimmer disciple Paul Guenther was still the defensive coordinator in Vegas.] For me, it was getting used to the fact that I was a part of the active roster.”
Practice squad players spend their days getting torched by superstars day in and day out. Mabin was grateful: “As a practice squad guy, you’re trying to get better, and there’s really no way to get better other than covering the starting receivers.” Teams don’t give nearly as many reps to their active players as practice squad players since the active players need to stay fresh for a game.
After football, Mabin wants to go into coaching or possibly a career in politics. But that is in the unforeseeable future. For now, he will try to crack a 53-man roster for the third time in his career. He’ll have to steal a spot from Kris Boyd, Parry Nickerson, Tye Smith, or even Harrison Hand (who is making that a difficult task). Mabin has been overlooked before. What’s another uphill battle?
