Minnesota Vikings Have to Make Key Hire This Offseason

In college football, most head coaches will tell you that your strength and conditioning coach will be the most important hire you make, or at least one of them.  

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That’s because in college football, the strength coach is (a) with your team a lot more than the whole staff, especially during the off season for workouts and (b) because the help strengthen the mental side for players as well as their bodies. 

It may be a little different in the NFL, but that coaching position is still a crucial spot because whoever does that job will be the one who oversees your team getting stronger in areas they need to.  

The Minnesota Vikings are going to have to replace their Strength and Conditioning Coach after the team in my home state, the Carolina Panthers, hired him away. 

Josh Hingst joined the Vikings in 2021 and was one of the main ingredients in the secret sauce that Coach Kevin O’Connell and his staff have had the last few years.  

Hingst will be inheriting a Panthers team that has been, shall we say, dismal the last few years. He will replace a guy that was hired three coaches ago and somehow kept his job as new coaches came in and took the team in a new direction. 

The Vikings job will be one of the most appealing for coaches in this area of football for a few reasons; (a)Coach O’Connell has built a culture that a lot of folks will want to be a part of (b) there seems to be support and commitment from the ownership and (c) the chance to work with a team that is on the cusp of breaking through to the next level. 

As we approach the draft and see what the team decides to do with Sam Darnold, the under the radar move this off season is likely to be who takes the strength and conditioning job.