Dalvin Cook is a superstar. He’s my pick for the most complete running back in football. His game is so effective and multi-faceted that I once compared him to a literal shapeshifter. He’s electrifying, versatile, and, unfortunately, misses about three games a season due to injury.
In an offense that asks for as much versatility and vision out of its running backs as Kevin O’Connell‘s does, the role of Robin to Cook’s Batman is a vital to the team. And although there appears to be an entrenched incumbent in that role, Kene Nwangwu has started to turn heads.
The second-year speedster out of Iowa State flashed exciting potential in his rookie season, but it was mostly relegated to special teams. We all watched him dust defenders on his way to two kick-return touchdowns. We dreamt about what that might look like on offense if he could just learn to play the position.
Nwangwu boasted an incredible athletic ceiling coming into the league, but he simply didn’t look natural as a running back. NFL.com draft analyst Lance Zierlein puts it bluntly in his pre-draft profile on Nwangwu.
“Height, weight and speed all work in his favor, but when the ball is in his hands, there just isn’t much about his running style that feels natural. Nwangwu has open-field speed to hit a crease and go, but he’s often indecisive with the ball in his hands as he lacks a runner’s instincts and fails to anticipate run-lane development.”Â
And that mostly describes the player we saw as a rookie. Incredible straight-line speed, doesn’t really know how to be a running back.
Fast forward to this past Sunday, however, and there’s a reason that many Minnesota Vikings fans are jumping on the Nwangwu hype train. Nwangwu went from looking like a track star who’d never worn pads to a bonafide NFL running back.
Nwangwu ran with a decisiveness and toughness that we’d yet to see from him. He showed patience to read his blockers and navigate traffic. He stuck his nose in a few times to secure first downs and embrace contact. Nwangwu varied his speed in the open field to catch defenders off-guard rather than running like a kid holding down the R2 button in Madden. And he did so while still being one of the most explosive athletes on the team.
Vikings fans, we may have stumbled onto something special here.
Vision is the biggest obstacle for any running back in O’Connell’s offense to overcome. The McVay coaching tree asks its running backs to read their blocks and the flow of play before picking their gap to stick their boot in the ground. It’s not unlike the Kubiak zone running scheme we’ve grown accustomed to, and it’s as much an art as a science. Developing a knack for this makes players like Cook, who do it seamlessly, so effective.
We saw signs that Kene Nwangwu is capable of this. Or, at the very least, may be more capable than his competition in this department.
I’ll spoil Luke’s question by saying it wasn’t through the gaping hole.
Alexander Mattison has been a more than capable RB2 during his time with the Vikings, but a few big statistical afternoons filling in for Cook and being someone’s clutch pickup off the fantasy waiver wire have inflated his value.
Mattison can run with power and has adequate speed for the position, but he has routinely left something to be desired in the vision department. Maybe I’m overstating it, but I guess I’m still not over fourth-and-inches in Seattle in 2020.
Some fans have speculated that the Vikings should cut or trade Mattison after seeing Nwangwu and rookie Ty Chandler both look effective against Las Vegas. The talk even led to Mattison clapping back at fans on social media.
I’m certainly not proposing that the Vikings treat Mattison like dead weight and send him to another squad for a bag of chips. To do so would be foolish. Even if he isn’t second on the team in carries this season, there’s certainly a place on this team for Mattison.
But Nwangwu inserted himself into the conversation in a way few expected. We’ve seen three years of Mattison being the same player: a solid and capable running back with questionable decision-making at the line of scrimmage. But Nwangwu has shown a lot of growth in a short period of time, and if he can continue this trajectory, he’ll surpass Mattison before too long. Nwangwu has shown that he’s ascending and has yet to hit his ceiling.
He may be too good to keep on the bench. Nwangwu’s improved play demands meaningful snaps in this running back rotation, and he needs to continue making the most of his opportunities to spark a true position battle behind Cook.
If he does, watch out, because he just might win it.
