What’s your favorite NFL draft “character concern” story?
I’m not talking about something genuinely horrific, like domestic violence or drunk driving. I’m talking about the weird stuff. Robert Nkemdiche falling out of the window. Laremy Tunsil’s gas mask bong. Will Levis putting mayo in his coffee and eating bananas with the peel on.
The reality of the NFL draft is that these franchises spend a lot of time and money trying to vet and learn everything they possibly can about these guys. They’re about to spend major draft and monetary assets to procure their services, and they’d like a pretty good idea of who they’re getting into business with. It’s also true that, despite some players having “character concerns,” those often can be just another part of the cost/benefit analysis decision makers are weighing when they take a player.
Not all character concerns are the same. Some guys just don’t love football, while others may have serious red flags that they could be harmful to society. The sad thing is NFL teams tend to be more scared off by the former than the latter. However, from the outside looking in, fans and even NFL media often don’t have the type of insight into these players’ backgrounds that NFL teams do, and guys get tagged with these ambiguous “character concerns,” sometimes in ways that may not be fair to the player.
All that preamble is for me to make this point: Walter Nolen is a defensive tackle out of Ole Miss and a bonafide freakazoid. Suppose these “character concerns” are the type of thing that a good coaching staff, strong veteran leadership, and a great organization could ever solve. Then, Minnesota is exactly what he needs to reach his sky-high potential.
Let’s start with what makes him worth drafting in the first place.
Power and explosion. Nolen’s first-step quickness and ability to explode off the ball immediately pops when you watch him. He’s got excellent balance and body control. He also has a knack for regaining composure when initially knocked off balance and finding a way to win the rep. Nolen’s got reps all over his tape of blowing up gaps and tossing around SEC linemen to blow up the interior against the run. Some of his bully-ball reps against these other grown-ass men are legitimately hysterical.
In the passing game, he’s more athletic than a technician. Still, I will choose to look at that as a glass half full, and I think that should get NFL teams excited. He’s already a very productive third-down player, and this is without a truly comprehensive pass-rush plan. PFF draft scout Trevor Sikkema described his combination of floor and upside as a three-down player. Sikkema points out that coaching may never set in to make him a premier interior pass rusher. However, if it does, he could go from disruptive to dominant as a pass rusher.
Based on tape and athleticism alone, Nolen should be gone long before the Vikings pick. If we’re going strictly by on-field scouting, consensus agrees he’s not only a top-15 pick but the type of guy Kwesi Adofo-Mensah shouldn’t even think about trading back from with him on the board. But that black cloud of ambiguity hangs over Nolen’s head, leading some of the latest mocks to drop him out of the first round entirely.
Based on what I could gather, one of the biggest publicly available red flags with Nolen is that he’s never stuck it out in one program. Nolen has been at six high school or college programs in the last seven years. That doesn’t portend a guy who will be a longtime franchise stalwart. We all know the type of person who seems to keep having problems everywhere they go. At a certain point, people like that need to look in the mirror and realize that maybe they’re part of the problem.
However, I don’t think it’s fair to apply that carte blanche to Nolen based on the information we have at hand. In Dane Brugler’s “The Beast” Draft Guide, he talks a bit about Nolen’s nomad lifestyle. Nolen transferred his sophomore year of high school from his original school in Northern Mississippi to IMG Academy, an athletic prep school and five-star factory.
A few months later, Nolen moved back because his family wanted him close to home during the COVID-19 pandemic. He transferred to a school in Memphis and played for one season before transferring out because they fired his coach. He finished his high school career at his final stop to win a state championship at Powell High in Tennessee.
So far, he’s bounced around a lot, but I don’t see any major cause for alarm.
He signed with Texas A&M out of high school as a prized recruit for Jimbo Fisher’s Aggies. That same Jimbo Fisher would also flame out at Texas A&M at the end of Nolen’s freshman season, leading to one more transfer for Walter Nolen to his home state of Mississippi. Nolen played his final two seasons at Ole Miss (hey, that’s two consecutive years!) and balled out with the Rebels.
Maybe Walter needs to stick it out. Perhaps he needs a strong locker room to embrace him and teach him how to fully ingrain himself in a culture. Maybe Walter needs veteran mentorship to help him grow and mature into a professional. Assuming that’s all he needs, for his sake, I’m really pulling for Minnesota to be his destination.
Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, and Harrison Phillips are about the three best role models a guy like Nolen could have in his own position group, and that doesn’t even count other leaders on the team, such as Josh Metellus and Harrison Smith. Arguably, one of the most impressive things this regime in Minnesota has done is build an exceptional locker room culture, and it’s paid dividends on the field.
Minnesota’s locker room is ready to foster a player like Walter Nolen.
Finally, the Vikings need a player like Nolen. Allen, Hargrave, and Phillips are great, but they all are getting long in the tooth. This team needs young talent to develop through the pipeline at this position, similar to what they did with Dallas Turner last season behind veteran additions Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel. Nolen is a picture-perfect fit for Flores’ system of loops and stunts and can provide the interior disruption that has been lacking the past two seasons.
I don’t have all the information. Adofo-Mensah will be the one to determine if any of Nolen’s teammates went to his birthday party and why that may or may not have happened. But if the Vikings select Nolen on draft night, we should be very excited. That’s a vote of confidence from this franchise in Nolen’s ability and their belief that they can develop him into the professional he needs to be at the next level. Considering their track record establishing locker room culture thus far, they have my benefit of the doubt.
I hope I’m getting to watch Nolen demolish our division rivals like the clip below for years to come. Join me in watching Nolen destroy my most hated college football team in the clip below, and imagine for a moment it’s against the Green and Gold instead.
