Matt Daniels says that the first time he met Jalen Reagor, he literally bumped into him. The Minnesota Vikings hired Daniels as their special teams coordinator in the offseason. Like Kevin O’Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips, Daniels coached under Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams last year. He’s young and energetic, but he really lights up when talking about Reagor.
“As soon as he got in the building, he came to me, we dang near just kinda ran into each other,” says Daniels, laughing. “I was talking to somebody, ‘Man, I need to talk to Jalen Reagor,’ and as soon as I walked out of the coach’s locker room” – he paused to clap his hands together – “he was right there.”
Minnesota’s special teams unit has undergone an overhaul in training camp. Greg Joseph is still the kicker, and Kene Nwangwu will return kicks, but rookie punter Ryan Wright beat out Jordan Berry, 31, and they traded for Reagor a week ago. He will replace Ihmir Smith-Marsette, Minnesota’s fifth-round pick last year, who they surprisingly cut after acquiring Reagor.
Safe to say, Daniels advocated for the Reagor trade.
“I was salivating over this guy when he was coming out of college back in 2020,” said Daniels. “Between him and CeeDee Lamb and Brandon Aiyuk, I had those guys really at the top of my list as the top punt returners coming out of that group. And honestly, Reagor was No. 1 in my book. What he offers is an immediate guy that spooks the punt team.”
Coaches don’t use words like spook lightly. They tend to end up on the opposing team’s bulletin boards. The Vikings haven’t had a punt returner who haunted opposing special teams players since Cordarrelle Patterson.
“[Reagor] has the speed to race to the edge,” says Daniels. “He can attack vertically. He’s a guy that’s very confident back there. Just getting to know him, since he got in last week, he immediately approached the meeting saying, ‘I want to be the guy.'”
Daniels laughs to himself while recalling this interaction. “I’m like, ‘You’re the guy. You’re the guy,'” he says, beaming. “He immediately wanted to start connecting with his blockers. I thought that was really important.”
The Vikings didn’t fully know what they had in Patterson. He turned out to be more of a hybrid gadget player than a pure receiver. But the special teams coordinator at the time, Mike Priefer, always called him the best return man in the league. Reagor likely will start the season as the WR4, and he’s unlikely to surpass Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and K.J. Osborn on the depth chart. Still, Daniels may be Reagor’s biggest fan outside of his friends and family.
“For a guy to come in with that attitude and that mindset, wanting to connect with his blockers, getting to know them,” says McDaniels, “we’ve already had a lot of meetings talking about what he likes to do so that the schematics are aligned with what his strengths are. So for him to come in and do that really shows a lot in terms of who the person is and how he goes about his work ethic, and what his process looks like.
“We’ve been getting extra work before practice and after practice, working catches and working on setting up the return. I like where [Reagor is] at right now. He’s a guy that’s going to be a problem when the ball is in his hands.”
It’s good that Reagor has an ally in Daniels because the old regime indirectly had the opposite reaction when they heard Reagor’s name mentioned. Around here, Reagor is known as the player the Philadelphia Eagles took over Jefferson in the 2020 draft. And they weren’t wrong. Imagine if the Vikings had traded Stefon Diggs and taken Reagor. They’d have to watch Jefferson light it up for the team that walloped them in the 2017 NFC Championship while they figured out who to put next to Thielen.
But that’s the upside of having a new staff. They see players with fresh eyes and don’t carry the baggage that Spielman and Zimmer did. Under the old regime, it probably wouldn’t have worked out for Reagor in Minnesota. However, now they landed a first-round talent and have placed him in a low-pressure situation offensively while filling a hole on special teams. At least one guy on the staff is pretty happy about that.
