Jalen Redmond: A Light In The Dark For The 2025 Vikings

The Vikings haven't given the fans many reasons to celebrate this year, but an unheralded defender making a splash deserves his recognition. Jalen Redmond is on his way to becoming a force.

Photo by Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Right now, the vibes surrounding the Minnesota Vikings are dreadful. Typically, you think of teams as on the upswing coming out of the bye, but the Vikings went from a week of speculation over whether they were soft benching J.J. McCarthy, to a frustrating loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, to a disintegration in a 34-10 rout by the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday Night.

Throughout the season, the Vikings have dealt with a myriad of injuries on offense, particularly along the offensive line, which helps explain the struggling offense. But seeing a defense that fans expect to be one of the best in the NFL — which it was from Weeks 1-5 — fall apart for the last two games makes it feel like the season has gone off the rails.

With J.J. McCarthy coming back from injury, there’s reason to be hopeful for the offense, although he will need to perform much better than in his first two games. On defense, it still feels like there are more questions than answers, as the Vikings continue a very difficult stretch of their schedule, playing three of their next four games against the Detroit Lions, Baltimore Ravens, and Green Bay Packers.

There is one defensive player, however, who has vastly outplayed expectations in his second NFL season. That’s Jalen Redmond, who currently leads the team in sacks with three. Despite big-name offseason additions in Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave, Redmond’s performance has propelled him into a feature role, and he’s now second behind Allen in snap count this season.

How Did Redmond Get Here?

The Vikings found Redmond from a very unlikely source — the UFL. After going undrafted out of Oklahoma in 2023, Redmond was signed by the Carolina Panthers as an undrafted free agent, but was cut in the early days of training camp and didn’t receive another NFL opportunity. That led him to sign with the Arlington Renegades of the UFL for their spring 2024 season.

In the UFL, Redmond immediately made an impact, notching 4.5 sacks in 4 games before suffering an ankle injury that sidelined him for the rest of the season. He did enough prior to his injury to interest the Vikings, who signed him after the UFL season concluded. Earning a training camp roster spot is quite the achievement for a UFL player like Redmond, but his spot on the Vikings was far from guaranteed.

This offseason, the UFL released a list of the 48 players who made 53-man rosters, practice squads, or were stashed on injury lists in the NFL. Of that group, only 12 actually made 53-man rosters. Of those 12, six were kickers, punters, or long snappers.

That leaves six total position players on NFL rosters from spring leagues — Redmond, LaCale London, Perrion Winfrey, Dondrea Tillman, Jeremiah Pharms and KaVontae Turpin. Of that group, London and Winfrey had at least played in an NFL game prior to joining a spring league. Tillman and Pharms have played limited roles in their careers so far. Prior to Redmond, only Turpin had really broken out as a spring league player in the NFL, and that breakout was primarily due to his work as a kick and punt returner.

Redmond may be the first true breakout player to come from the ranks of the spring leagues. Let’s dig in to see how he’s making his mark.

Redmond By the Numbers

Box score stats tend to underrate the impact of defensive tackles. Fortunately, we have access to some advanced stats that help put Redmond’s performance into context. Pro Football Focus logged Redmond as having 21 pressures so far this year, which ranks t-14th among DTs.

However, every player (except Jeffery Simmons, with 197 rushes) who has more pressures than Redmond has rushed the passer 200 or more times so far. Redmond has just 124 pass rushes on the year and 119 “pass rush opportunities,” per PFF. This means Redmond has an absurd 17.6 per pressure rate.

NextGenStats/NFLPro tracking data also shows Redmond as an excellent pass rusher; they have him charted with 16 pressures on 118 pass rush snaps, a 13.6% pressure rate that ranks 5th among qualifying defensive tackles, behind just Christian Barmore, Ruke Orhorhoro, Ed Oliver, and Milton Williams.

Redmond hasn’t necessarily had an easy task rushing the passer either, getting double-teamed at a 67.48% rate per PFF data, which is well above average for defensive interior players.