Chenzo Funari enters his second season with the Minnesota Vikings in 2025 and his first as a member of the Vikings coaching staff. Funari, who was named a defensive quality control coach in March of 2025, originally joined the Vikings in 2024 as a football quantitative methods associate. In his role, he assisted the player personnel, coaching and player performance staff by using a data driven approach to identify useful metrics to improve analysis and projections.
Prior to coming to Minnesota, Funari spent the 2023 season working as a defensive analyst for the University of Connecticut. Funari served one season as running backs coach and recruiting coordinator for Northern Michigan in 2022 where he mentored a running backs unit that accounted for over 2,550 all-purpose yards, 1,770 yards from scrimmage and 15 total touchdowns. Under Funari's guidance, RB Tyshon King led the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Conference in rushing yards and yards from scrimmage (No. 12 nationally). King was the only Division II player in the country to have eight rushing touchdowns and five receiving touchdowns and was one of two players in the country to have 900+ rushing yards and 400+ receiving yards.
Funari began his coaching career in 2020 at Youngstown State, spending the 2020-21 seasons as a defensive quality control coach assisting the defensive backs. In 2020, Youngstown State finished No. 25 nationally in total defense and No. 11 in passing yards allowed. During the 2022 offseason, Funari transitioned to offensive quality control coach, working with the tight ends.
Funari began his professional career at SpaceX as an associate engineer. He graduated from Ohio State in 2017 with a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering and received his master's at Purdue in aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 2019.
