EAGAN, Minn. — As his development speeds up, the game is slowing down for Kobe King.
The Vikings rookie linebacker said this week that he is keen on sharpening his situational awareness above all else. He is absorbing copious amounts of information in meetings, peppering coaches and teammates with questions if he's stumped, and expanding his F.B.I. (football intelligence) foundation.
"I definitely thought the speed of the game was a little fast when I first got here, but things are slowing down mentally, and it's very helpful," King noted following a scaled-down training camp practice Tuesday.
"Being situationally aware, especially at this level, is very heightened," King added, distinguishing it as the single-most important thing he's observed. "That's something that I have to expand on as a player."
What exactly does King mean by "situational awareness"? He is trying to process the offense's intentions on certain down-and-distances and find Easter eggs in the details of a play, such as a quarterback's stance, splits (the measurements between a receiver and the nearest offensive linemen) and formations.
King shared that he was further exposed to NFL intricacies when he wore the green dot helmet and acted as lead communicator for Minnesota's defense in its second exhibition against New England. Was it reminiscent of his Penn State experience, when he was a team captain and screamed play calls to his teammates? Yes – except more nuanced. The assignment included marshaling a huddle and adjusting certain guys' landmarks. It helped King realize how the tiny parts of the game can make big differences.
"Really, that goes with slowing the game down in my head, which I think I've done so far," King said.
King looked the part on the first preseason snap of his pro career on defense. Taking his stance to defend a first-and-10 at Houston's 23 on Aug. 9 at U.S. Bank Stadium, King squared his shoulders to the offense with his forearms resting idle on his thigh pads, locked into his reads and reacted to a run play away from him. King didn't waste a single step. He scraped downhill, thumped 310-pound lineman Juice Scruggs, shed the block, wedged his body through a small crease and wrapped up Woody Marks.
It was the embodiment of everything vocalized by Vikings brass after selecting King with the 201st pick.
"A lot of times in football we make it harder than it is," General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said at the conclusion of the draft. "But it's a meat-and-potatoes game in some positions, and linebacker is one of them."
"I watched him, and I was like, 'There's no way he'll be there when this projection says he will be,' " the former Wall Street trader added, recalling a draft simulation exercise by his staff. "Sometimes you get lucky. But you pick up the phone and you talk to somebody, and you hear it in their voice that they also don't think they should have been there. That gets you pretty fired up to bring them over to Minnesota."
The defining trait of King's game, and what pops into Brian Flores' brain, is physicality.
"He's a downhill linebacker, kind of an old school 'backer – big, physical," the Vikings Defensive Coordinator said Tuesday. "But he's still learning. He's still getting better as a rusher and in coverage. But all the young players are still learning, and we've seen improvement in all those areas, and we just need to continue to improve and improve and improve. I think he's somebody who's got a bright future."
King said he models his game ("How I should be playing"), first and foremost, after Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis. He also listed active inside linebackers Lavonte David, Roquan Smith and Devin White as inspiration of "loud, infectious leaders" that rule the middle with a commanding presence.
"[Lewis] is my favorite linebacker of all-time," King said. "I'm planning to get to that level in my career down the line, but it definitely starts now. I've got to dial into the playbook, dial into the scheme, really master it, and understand it to a different extent to where I can be a coach on the field for those guys."
Flores can't help but see someone from a totally different era when he watches the 22-year-old play.
"I think of Pepper Johnson," he remarked. "Great friend of mine."
Johnson dominated the Big Ten conference at Ohio State in the mid-1980s. He donned boulder-sized shoulder pads for two Super Bowl-winning New York Giants teams when Flores was growing up in Brooklyn and was elected to two Pro Bowls. Johnson was a disciple of Bill Belichick, playing for his Giants, Browns and Jets defenses across a 13-season playing career, and reunited with Belichick on the Patriots coaching staff, where he worked with Flores, too. The nod to the way back really accented King's vintage play style.
Teammate Blake Cashman, who paced the Vikings defense in 2024 with 112 tackles despite missing three games, called King "one of the bigger, stronger inside linebackers I've probably ever played with."
"But," Cashman added, "he moves really well."
"He's made tremendous strides throughout training camp," the veteran linebacker commented. "Obviously, as a young player, your coaches are going to challenge you or have specific things that they want to see you work on. And it seems like every week he's improving in those areas. But my favorite thing about a guy like Kobe, and even the other rookies we've got in the (LB) room, is how much their IQ of the game is growing and just really understanding how offenses are going to attack this defense.
"I think this is a unique defense in the way that we kind of handicap offenses on what they can do, which is great for us because it allows us to play a lot faster, and anticipate or expect certain plays," Cashman continued. "I've had a year under my belt to develop that recognition. But to be coached on that, as players like myself have been coached on that – [he's] really picking it up quick, so I'm really excited to see him continue to grow because he's added a lot of value to our room."
A fair question is, Where might that value show up?
Cashman, a Day 3 draft pick once upon a time, said a good starting goal for King is to embrace a meaty role on special teams. He anticipates him laying the wood and jarring the ball loose, making "game-changing plays," and then, Cashman advised King should set his sights on "playing valuable [snaps] on defense. I think at this level, that should be everyone's goal, and he has that right mindset. I know if he continues to get better and grow as he is, the coaches will find a role for him on the field."
King's evolution on defense for the Nittany Lions occurred incrementally. In 2021, he played 39 snaps according to Pro Football Focus. That sprouted to 289 in 2022, grew to 331 in 2023 and spiked to 540 in 2024.
A breakthrough on special teams during King's redshirt freshman season became a defining moment in his football journey. King's play in that phase taught him to weaponize his body and attacking mentality.
"Special teams was the area where I got a chance to go out and be physical and run down and hit somebody and exude my physicality," he reflected. "That's definitely when I understood, 'OK, I'm physical. I'm fast. I can use this to help me for the rest of my college career and go on to the next level.'"
That awareness benefits King's potential to breakthrough, again, as a core special-teamer.
"You really like his versatility," Special Teams Coordinator Matt Daniels said Wednesday.
"I think the shrinking of the kickoff, KOR (kickoff return) phase really helps in his favor in terms of being able to play good gap-and-a-half football – shock, shed, getting off of blocks, being able to tackle in space," Daniels explained. "You can kind of see now [in] the kickoff game you're starting to get a lot more bigger bodies out there, so with him we feel good about him being a matchup-plus in that position."
King is 6-foot-1, so he's not the tallest linebacker by any stretch. But his raw strength matches his throwback persona. Daniels said, "Kob' is probably one of the strongest guys in the weight room."
Daniels suggested King as one of the players vying to replace the impact of former Vikings linebacker Brian Asamoah II, who accrued 321 snaps on various special teams units last year: "He's just got to continue to grow and understand what our cover philosophy is; how to communicate verbally and non-verbally," Daniels said. "But Kobe's on a really good track right now [and has] put together a good offseason."
King's intentionality – logging mental repetitions when he's not in the mix, for example – is valuable to his continued development. So is his mindset of "having a chip on my shoulder every down, every play."
It's a work in progress, though.
Consider exhibit B of King's game: On the first snap of his first unofficial start (this past Saturday against the Patriots), King falsely diagnosed a play-action pass. He was duped by linemen firing off the ball, hats low, and Drake Maye extending his arm to fake a handoff. King was sucked into the B gap and got caught up with a block while Mack Hollins ran a slant route 4 yards behind King's initial alignment. The rookie didn't flip his hips and redirect until after Maye released the rock. Hollins reeled it in, in an empty zone.
Five plays later, however, King held his own in pass coverage against TreVeyon Henderson, dipping underneath a pick route, wheeling up the sideline and breaking up a pass intended for the rookie running back to force a punt. It was a flash beyond the downhill skill set that led to King's selection.
Sooner than later and with enough practice, King's physicality is bound to come to life on game days.
"We can go over it in the meeting room and it might sound like one thing – 'OK, I got it' – then when I get out here it might feel like something else," King said. "Those physical reps definitely help out a lot."
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