The Minnesota Vikings may have found a linebacker pairing with real teeth in former Cincinnati Bearcats Jake Golday and Ivan Pace Jr., two players expected to matter a lot for the defense this season.
Golday arrives after being selected by Minnesota in the 2025 NFL Draft, going in the second round at No. 51 overall. His path to the Vikings included a stop at Central Arkansas, where he played two seasons after beginning his college career there before finishing at Cincinnati. Pace, meanwhile, came into the league as an undrafted free agent despite being an All-American at Cincinnati in 2022, and he was good enough as a rookie to finish as a finalist for Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2023 before losing out to Will Anderson Jr.
Pace’s strongest season came in 2023, when he piled up 102 tackles, 62 of them solo. Last season, he finished with 62 total tackles while being used more as a pass-coverage linebacker. This year, the Vikings are expected to shift him back toward the run-stopping role where he was at his best in 2023.
Golday’s fit looks familiar too. At Cincinnati, he put together a season that included 104 tackles, 38 solo stops, 3 pass deflections, 3.5 sacks and 1 forced fumble, and Minnesota expects him to handle a similar role.
The early signs in camp have been encouraging. Vikings training camp opened on August 1st, and Golday has already shown up in clips making interceptions and working with the first-team defense as the staff looks for ways to deploy him in different spots.
Defensive coordinator Brian Flores has made the plan clear. Golday said, "They told me first thing when I got here they wanted me to be versatile, and play a lot of things, that's how I'm going to get on the field. I didn't take that lightly; I took that opportunity to study every single linebacker position."
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