MOBILE, Ala. — Pat Hill didn't have to say "Go!" He got to say "Woah!" instead.

Last week on the Gulf Coast, the Vikings assistant coach reflected on his experiences at the 77^th installment of the Senior Bowl and quickly stated his personal highlight from the first day of practice was seeing the juice brought by American Team players; the college all-stars matched Hill's energetic nature.

Chalk it up as a two-way street, with players flying around and Hill breaking the game down.

"I told the guys, actually, I said, 'Look, men, my coaching style is like a mother [bird],' " Hill sweetly laughed, recalling his methodical analogy. " 'A mother never feeds her infant a full pear, a piece of fruit.' She does, what? She puts it in her mouth, she breaks it down and then feeds it back to them slowly. I said, 'There'll be some things you may already know, but I'm never going to assume you know anything.'

"I'm passionate," Hill added, smiling at a high-top table along the radio row setup inside the Mobile Convention Center, which served as headquarters for the week-long event. "I talk a little fast the more excited I get, as you can see in this interview. But, I also said, 'Ask me questions, because closed mouths don't get fed. So if you've got a question, feel free to ask me, particularly in this meeting room, ask me as much as you possibly can.' That's my style. I'm hands-on. I love teaching. I love breaking things down."

Those staples of Hill's coaching approach make him valuable to Minnesota's defensive staff and a good choice by the NFL to be one of the first people to instruct guys competing as collegians for the final time.

Hill and Vikings Game Management Coordinator/Passing Game Specialist Ryan Cordell submitted their names to the league, as non-playoff and Wild Card team coaches are allowed, for inclusion in the 2026 Senior Bowl. Both were chosen, like Vikings defensive assistants Imarjaye Albury, Sr., Michael Hutchings and Daronte Jones in 2024. (Hutchings recently was hired to be defensive coordinator for the California Golden Bears, and Jones was named defensive coordinator of the Washington Commanders on Friday.)

Although coaching into February on the Vikings sideline was their primary goal, Cordell and Hill considered their opportunity to coach in the Panini Senior Bowl a blessing. In Cordell's case, it let him do a little of everything: firstly, direct National Team quarterbacks Sawyer Robertson (Baylor), Diego Pavia (Vanderbilt) and Cole Payton (North Dakota State), the latter of which was named National Player of the Game in the 17-9 win by the American side; strategize the pass game; and in some ways help with quality control, since the staff is smaller than a typical NFL one that can divvy up responsibilities. And for Hill, who completed his first season as the Vikings assistant outside linebackers coach in 2025 after two assisting the defensive line, the all-star coaching gig returned him inside and brought back a fond feeling.

"Honestly, I love it," Hill said of the lay of the land in Lower Alabama. "I always say doing these [events] — the Senior Bowl, the East-West Shrine (Bowl) two years ago and the pro days — I always say that's scratching my itch for recruiting. I spent 15 years in college, and being here … I get to scratch that itch."

'Competitive, not combative'

The Senior Bowl is one of football's biggest job fairs.

Personnel from NFL and college clubs descended last week on the riverbank in downtown Mobile and the athletic grounds at the University of South Alabama. Agents and media members alike trickled in soon thereafter, pursuing the scent of future professionals. Many will be drafted high come April, and others will try to carve pathways to 2026 53-man rosters from farther down the draft board, or off it.

The Vikings are like their NFL franchise brethren in that they exhaust scouting efforts to find the right schematic and cultural fits for their coaches. The collaboration between sectors of the football operation has resulted in what is tied for the league's fifth-best winning percentage since 2022 (.632), and through a historical lens the best percentage by a team without a Lombardi Trophy in the Super Bowl era (.563).

Minnesota doesn't want to be defined by its regular-season success, though — and increased impacts from draft picks should better support Head Coach Kevin O'Connell's vision. "Misses" so to speak in the annual event since 2022 factored into former General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's dismissal on Friday. While Adofo-Mensah was instrumental to Minnesota's acquisition of highly productive players over the past few seasons in free agency and its maneuvering to draft 2024 first-round QB J.J. McCarthy and OLB Dallas Turner, who've flashed long-term upside, ownership decided to part ways with him less than three months before the draft. Executive Vice President of Football Operations Rob Brzezinski will run point on the rest of the process this spring before a thorough search for Adofo-Mensah's successor.

That switch in leadership changes the optics — but not the dynamics of player evaluation or the value gained by the Vikings down in Mobile. Of course, not everyone was present for the week. Many projected top draft picks prefer to use their college tape as draft leverage over risk of injuring themselves in an invite-only all-star game such as the Senior Bowl. The setting, however, assembled more than 130 college standouts. And Cordell and Hill were privy to the most personal impression of the talent on hand.

"I like it because I think you're getting them with their guards down as opposed to when they're at the [NFL Scouting] Combine," said Hill. "They're being coached to present themselves a certain way [there].

"Here, for this whole week," Hill continued, "I get to see them."

How they … walk the hallways; apply coaching points; and rise or tremble to competition in practice.

Cordell, sitting in the lobby of Mobile's historic Battle House hotel ahead of lunchtime Wednesday, said it's a significant week for a few reasons. Namely, he noted, "You get a head start on the draft class for the year. It's one of the premium all-star games, so you get to see a lot of [top] guys and work with them."

"Personally, as a coach, it's kind of a showcase for yourself. You get an opportunity to run a room, to help run the show," Cordell added. "You're with a staff of guys that you haven't met before and it's kind of impressive to come together as that group and in very short order build an offense, build a system, build a team — kind of a mini culture for that week — while meeting other good coaches in the business."

He repeated a message used by Eagles assistant head coach and RBs coach Jemal Singleton, who held the all-star title of National Team offensive coordinator, " 'We want to be competitive, not combative.' "

Cordell and Hill were complimentary of the overall phrasing delivered to players by the head coaches of both squads — Eagles DL coach Clint Hurtt (National) and Saints RB coach Joel Thomas (American). The brunt of it was this is a dress rehearsal — a glimpse of NFL expectations as far as enthusiasm and energy on the field and absolute focus in the meeting rooms; no phones, take notes, treat it like your livelihood.

"Obviously, we (the Vikings) want to still be playing," said Hill, who worked his way from Concordia-Chicago in 2008 to LSU in 2022, "but when you can't — to come down here, find a way to get better and really get first dibs on a bunch of these guys and get a chance to hang out in the classroom, it's a blast."

The teachings doubled as evaluation, intertwining the exposure for Cordell and Hill to the judging of prospects for Minnesota scouts. Cordell equated the condensed game week to "temperature checks" in that they provided a glimpse into psyches — what players know and their capacity to absorb info, etc.

"Once we're back in the building and start our draft process, these all-star games are always an important part," Cordell shared. "It goes into the bigger picture with how they played in their college seasons, how they performed in some of the other testing, the combine, the interviews, and then how they were here. We'll have the most time on task with these guys in a meeting room, in kind of essentially a quasi-interview setting, that anyone will have. So that's definitely important information."

Hill said the input will be packaged into "one-liners" for each player that helps the Vikings scouting department filter through months — and sometimes years — of evidence-gathering, including analytics, cross-checked film and anecdotes from various people who speak to a player's background and ability.

The collaboration between coaches and scouts was described by Hill as "constant communication."

Cordell shared an example of the multi-pronged coaching role in Mobile, which, frankly, is a microcosm of the profession at its core: "We were evaluating practice and I would pretty much get the guys up there before the play and I'd say 'What were you thinking?' and I let them talk and work it through. Can they verbalize what they were thinking, what they were going through? One, that's teaching, but two, that's seeing 'Where are they at?' "

'This is your interview'

Conversations with Cordell and Hill underscored the power of mentorship.

The former credits two-time Super Bowl champion player and long-time running backs coach Tom Rathman as an influence, as Cordell climbed from salary cap intern to special assistant to the general manager in San Francisco, and esteemed offensive line coach Bill Callahan as another when they overlapped in Cleveland. Cordell's pass-game savviness has been influenced by Vikings Passing Game Coordinator/Tight Ends Coach Brian Angelichio, in addition to O'Connell and Offensive Coordinator Wes Phillips. And Cordell's mother has taught him lessons aplenty from her wrangling of middle-schoolers.

On Callahan, a football coach since the late 1970s, Cordell relayed a profound observation: "It wasn't ever sitting back and saying, 'This is good or fine.' It was more of 'Can I make it a little bit better?' both for my players, and then as we go year-to-year, 'Can I improve the way I'm teaching it? Can I improve what I'm teaching? Can I move as the game moves to try and challenge [myself] to be a great coach?' "

"I always look at coaching as a partnership, especially in the NFL, because we're all together trying to get to some common goal, right?" Cordell commented. "Now, we have different parts in that partnership. Like, for me, sometimes it's going to be telling hard truths, it's going to be having couch time, as some people say, to hear kind of what the guys are going through and what they have [going on]. But I think if the players know that you care and that you're trying to make them better, I think they really respond to that, so that's really a big part of what I've done. Some of that, like I said, is caring about them and telling [them] things they don't want to hear that are best for them, or helping just work on their different processes and their approach so that over time we can get the best outcomes as frequently as possible."

"Situational mastery" is one area Cordell has specialized since then-49ers Head Coach Chip Kelly put it on his plate in 2016 due to his mathematics degree and previous assistance with the offensive coaches. Basically, Cordell's focus, a normal coach's "world," is expanded from one side of the ball to the "inner play" of situations. It's the heart of complementary football; the overarching piece of seeing everything without sacrificing any of the individual parts that come together to make up the 60 minutes of a game.

"Sometimes, this league is about making big plays in big moments," Cordell said. "And the way I see it is in game management, my job is to make sure that we're going to manage the game in a way that allows the time and opportunity for those guys to go make plays; for Kevin or Flo' (Defensive Coordinator Brian Flores) or 'Hat' (Special Teams Coordinator Matt Daniels) to make great calls on their side of the ball and the players inside of those calls to make great plays. And so when you look at it from here or any time you're coaching a player specifically, sometimes it's teaching them more than just the lines on the page."

Cordell encouraged his Senior Bowl quarterbacks to realize the "right play and the best play" is separated from executing the call as it was designed. In other words, just because a pass play was meant to be explosive, a safer option can be more successful than chucking the ball downfield into coverage.

"I'm going to live to fight another day" is the mindset that yields the desired result, Cordell explained, "because this game is (a game of) who gets frustrated first? Do we get frustrated trying to force a ball? Do they get frustrated trying to make a play? And if we can hold on and have our patience longer than they do, then we can have an opportunity to make a big play — just like, it'll be the other way, vice versa.

"I think it's talking about those pieces and then understanding the flow of the game of when we need to do certain things and how we do them, and that's all part of up here (motions to his head) of playing the quarterback position, being that field general, trying to work the ball down the field," Cordell concluded.

Hill's tree of influence also is extensive and branches to one of the most respected college DL coaches ever in Pete Jenkins, Jaguars assistant DL coach Derrick LeBlanc, a 25-plus year coaching veteran, and Flores, who Hill imparts has challenged him to "get guys to do things differently" based upon their skills.

"It's not about the scheme but the players around the scheme. That's made me grow to where I have to teach them a little differently and not be so much in a box," he expressed the strides he's made under Flores. "Can I change some of my style of teaching to fit this particular player and his particular skill set?"

The Senior Bowl let Hill test players' positional flexibility, a coveted trait for NFL defenses, by asking them to align in techniques, like shaded to one side of the center or head up to one of the guards, that weren't familiar at first but can increase their value at the next level if they embrace sliding down the line and work on rushing the passer, for instance, from multiple alignments. The more a player can do, the better.

Hill said that "nugget of positional flexibility" resonated with his group of players, which included Gracen Halton out of Oklahoma, Tim Keenan out of Alabama and Chris McClellan out of Missouri, among others.

As the week winded to a close, Hill was spotted near the entrance of the Renaissance Hotel in Mobile, which connects to the convention center via a bridge. He was standing in front of a pop-up table covered in Senior Bowl swag, chatting up a college all-star. How'd practices finish? "Perfect, just perfect," he said.

The happiness in his voice reflected the attitude brought all week by Minnesota's young coaches.

"It's a chance to represent the Vikings organization and then get a chance to be in front of the entire league," Hill determined. "So the entire time, whether it's the Senior Bowl or the East-West Shrine (Bowl), you're constantly interviewing. You tell players 'This is your interview!' Well, for me as a coach, this is my interview for the other 31 clubs, as well. That's how I look at it — as an opportunity; I'm interviewing in terms of a team seeing how I coached and delivered information to players on the field."

Cordell offered, "It's always great when you get an opportunity to show your talents."

"A lot of [us] are young coaches looking to find [our] way in this league and chase [our] dreams, [our] goals. So it's always good to have like-minded people together," he continued. "When you're in this business, whether you're on the player's side, the coach's side — any side of it — you show up, you do your job; you be where your feet are and do the best that you can. And you hope that over time you continue to work to get better and grow, and then that allows you to go places and [keep doing] it. But the biggest thing is it's just fun to be out on the grass. It's fun to coach, and wherever that goes, it goes."

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