The Minnesota Vikings have hired the following nine coaches to join Head Coach Kevin O’Connell’s staff:
Brian Angelichio – Tight Ends/Passing Game Coordinator
Ed Donatell – Defensive Coordinator
Jerrod Johnson – Assistant Quarterbacks
Chris Kuper – Offensive Line
Curtis Modkins – Running Backs/Running Game Coordinator
Chris O’Hara – Quarterbacks Coach
Mike Pettine – Assistant Head Coach
Justin Rascati – Assistant Offensive Line
Chris Rumph – Defensive Line
Brian Angelichio joins the Minnesota Vikings as the tight ends/passing game coordinator after working with the Carolina Panthers the past two seasons. This will be the first season Angelichio will be adding pass game coordinator to his title. Angelichio has worked with head coach Kevin O’Connell twice in his career, most recently in 2019 with Washington while O’Connell was offensive coordinator and in 2015 with Cleveland while O’Connell was the quarterbacks coach on current Vikings assistant head coach Mike Pettine’s staff. During the 2015 season as Browns tight ends coach, Angelichio helped TE Gary Barnidge to a career year, totaling 79 receptions for 1,043 yards and nine touchdowns. Barnidge led the Browns in receiving and his standout numbers earned him his lone Pro Bowl selection. Recently, Angelichio helped develop TEs Tommy Tremble and Ian Thomas. Tremble, a 2021 third-round pick (83rd overall) from Notre Dame, finished his rookie season catching 20 passes for 180 yards and a touchdown. In his previous stops as an NFL tight ends coach, Angelichio helped transform undrafted rookie TE Tim Wright into the Bucs’ second-leading receiver, totaling what would remain a career-high 54 receptions for 571 yards and five touchdowns in 2015. He also worked with TEs Jimmy Graham, Martellus Bennett, Jared Cook and Richard Rodgers in a three-year stint (2016-18) with the Green Bay Packers that included a 2016 NFC Championship appearance.
Ed Donatell will oversee Minnesota’s defense for his 32nd season in the NFL and first with the Vikings as defensive coordinator. In his 31 seasons in the NFL, Donatell has helped coach teams to 13 playoff appearances and three Super Bowl berths. He was part of the Denver’s back-to-back Super Bowl championships during the 1997 (XXXII) and 1998 (XXXIII) seasons, while serving as the defensive backs coach from 1995-99. Donatell has helped send 21 players to the Pro Bowl and six players earn Associated Press All Pro honors. While as the defensive backs coach for the 49ers (2011-14) and Bears (2015-18), his units led the league in interceptions in 2014 (23) and 2018 (27), respectively. The Bears secondary in 2018 also helped the defense lead the league in scoring defense (17.7 ppg), yards per play (4.8), third in total defense (299.7 ypg), fourth in third-down defense (34.2 ypg) and seventh in pass defense (219.7 ypg). In his four seasons with the 49ers, Donatell helped the defense rank sixth against the pass (218.2 ypg), while tying for the second-most interceptions in the NFL with 78. As Denver’s defensive backs coach from 1995-99, the Broncos ranked among the league’s top 10 clubs against the pass in four of his five seasons. Donatell has coached multiple Pro Football Hall of Famers throughout his career. As the Denver’s secondary coach from 2009-10, he coached a unit that included Pro Football Hall of Fame CB Champ Bailey and S Brian Dawkins, who also represented Denver in the Pro Bowl in 2009. Under his guidance as defensive backs coach with the Broncos (1995-99), Hall of Famer S Steve Atwater was named to the Pro Bowl three times (1995-96, 1998). As defensive backs coach for the Jets (1990-94), he worked with Hall of Fame S Ronnie Lott in his final two seasons in the league.
Jerrod Johnson enters his third full NFL season in 2022 and this will be his first season as the assistant quarterbacks coach for the Vikings. Johnson spent the last three seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, beginning as a Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellow (2019) and finishing as the offensive quality control coach (2020-21). From 2015-18, Johnson served on the coaching staff for St. Thomas High School in Houston, Texas, where he was the assistant head coach/offensive coordinator for his final two seasons. He also participated in the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship with the San Francisco 49ers during training camp, where he crossed paths with Vikings General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who was the 49ers director of football research and development. Johnson played collegiately at Texas A&M University and professionally with Dallas, Baltimore, Chicago, Seattle, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia after he went undrafted in the 2011 NFL Draft. He also played with the Montreal Alouettes of the CFL and the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the UFL, where he was the No. 1 overall selection of the 2011 UFL Draft. Collegiately, the Humble, Texas, native played in 37 career games at Texas A&M from 2006-10 and completed 650-of-1,109 passes for 8,011 yards with 67 touchdowns. Johnson was the program’s all-time leader in attempts, completions, passing yards and passing touchdowns until current Vikings QB Kellen Mond broke each of those records from 2017-20.
Chris Kuper, an eight-year NFL veteran, joins the Vikings staff after spending the past three seasons working under long-time offensive line coach Mike Munchak in Denver as the assistant offensive line coach. In addition to coaching an offensive line that paved the way for two 900-plus yard rushers in 2021, the Broncos offensive line gave their quarterbacks the fourth-most time to throw (2.91 seconds) in the NFL, despite being blitzed on 26.9% of their dropbacks, the 13th-most in the NFL. In 2020, Kuper coached Second-Team All-Pro T Garett Bolles and assisted the Broncos offensive line in being ranked 13th in the NFL in sacks allowed (32). Kuper oversaw G Dalton Risner’s rookie season, helping him earn Pro Football Writers of America All-Rookie Team honors after playing the eighth-most snaps among first-year players in 2019. Prior to his time in Denver, Kuper worked with the Miami Dolphins as the assistant offensive line coach (2017-18) under Chris Foerster (2017) and Jeremiah Washburn (2018) and as an offensive quality control assistant (2016). Kuper also played eight years in the NFL with the Broncos, starting in 79 of his 90 games played at right and left guard. He was drafted in the fifth-round (161st overall) of the 2006 NFL Draft out of North Dakota.
Curtis Modkins, a 27-year coaching veteran who has spent the last four seasons with the Denver Broncos as the team’s running backs coach, will serve as running backs/run game coordinator in 2022. Modkins has been with seven teams since his start in the NFL in 2008, primarily serving as a running backs coach but has offensive coordinator experience with the Buffalo Bills (2010-12) and San Francisco 49ers (2016), the same 49ers staff that Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell worked on 2016. Modkins has worked with two NFL Pro Bowlers, RB Phillip Lindsay (2018) and RB C.J. Spiller (2012), and four 1,000-yard rushers, Lindsay (Denver, 2018-19), RB Jordan Howard (Chicago, 2017), Reggie Bush (Detroit, 2013) and Spiller (Buffalo, 2012). During the 2021 season, Modkins helped guide RB Melvin Gordon III (918) and rookie RB Javonte Williams (903) to 900-plus-yard seasons, becoming the first running back duo since Houston Texans RBs Arian Foster (1,224) and Ben Tate (942) in 2011 to accomplish this feat. Williams, a 2021 PFWA All-Rookie Team member, posted 1,129 scrimmage yards in 2021, becoming just the seventh rookie in team history to finish the season with at least 1,000 scrimmage yards.
Chris O’Hara begins his first season as a position coach and first with the Vikings in 2022, serving as the club’s quarterbacks coach. O’Hara brings 13 seasons of overall coaching experience, eight of those seasons in the NFL. He most recently served as an offensive assistant during the 2021 season for the Los Angeles Rams, who won Super Bowl LVI. O’Hara assisted in QB Matthew Stafford’s first season with the Rams, helping him throw for the third-most passing yards (4,886) and second-most touchdowns (41) in the NFL, all while achieving his career-best 102.9 passer rating (in seasons with more than eight starts). In his first year as an offensive assistant, O’Hara had a hand in helping WR Cooper Kupp have one of the best receiving seasons in NFL history, leading the NFL in receptions (145), receiving yards (1,947) and receiving touchdowns (16), earning AP First-Team All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors. Prior to his time with the Rams, he spent the 2020 season holding a similar title with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an offensive assistant after working as the offensive quality control assistant for the Washington Commanders (2017-19) and an offensive coaching assistant for the Jacksonville Jaguars (2014-16). Before joining the league, O’Hara worked as a graduate assistant at Miami (2013) after serving as a student assistant (2011-12). He also held the same role at Temple University from 2009-10.
Mike Pettine, having worked with head coach Kevin O’Connell twice in his career – once when O’Connell was a player with the New York Jets and once when they both coached at Cleveland – enters his first season with the Minnesota Vikings as the assistant head coach and 21st overall in the NFL. He also crossed paths with Vikings tight ends/passing game coordinator Brian Angelichio when Angelichio was the tight ends coach for the Browns. Pettine, who spent the 2021 season as the senior defensive assistant for the Chicago Bears, brings 28 seasons of overall coaching experience to the staff, stemming in the high school, collegiate and professional ranks. In 2021, Pettine helped get the Chicago defense back to the top 10 in total defense, finishing the season as the sixth-ranked unit, allowing only 316.7 yards per game. Under Pettine’s guidance, pass rusher Robert Quinn finished second in sacks (18.5) and LB Roquan Smith finished fifth in the league in total tackles (163). Chicago’s defense also recorded 49 sacks on the season, the fourth-most in the league. Throughout his 21-year NFL coaching career, he has worked with 18 Pro Bowlers, three of which earned All-Pro honors. Justin Rascati will serve as the assistant offensive line coach after spending the past three seasons with the Denver Broncos as an offensive quality control assistant. After spending his first two seasons in Denver aiding offensive line coach Mike Munchak and the current Vikings offensive line coach Chris Kuper, Rascati worked more with the team’s quarterbacks in 2021. While with Denver in 2020, the offensive line used five different combinations and featured steady improvement throughout the year. The unit, which included AP Second-Team All-Pro T Garett Bolles, tied for fourth in the NFL in sacks allowed (19) and sacks allowed per game (1.5) through the final 14 weeks of the season. With the Broncos in 2019, Rascati assisted an offensive line that included three players who started all 16 games (Bolles, C Connor McGovern, G Dalton Risner). He was also part of an offensive staff that helped RB Phillip Lindsay rush for more than 1,000 yards.
Chris Rumph brings two decades of coaching experience to the Vikings staff, spending 18 in the collegiate ranks and two in the NFL. He spent the last season as the defensive line coach for the Chicago Bears and the season before as the outside linebackers coach for the Houston Texans. In the 2021 season, Rumph’s second in the NFL, he helped pass rusher Robert Quinn to record 18.5 sacks, the most in franchise history and second in the NFL. Chicago also registered 49 sacks on the season, fourth-most in the league. Additionally, Chicago’s defense had a 42.1% third down rush conversion rate, which ranked second in the NFL behind the Buffalo Bills (40.7%). He entered the professional coaching ranks as the outside linebackers coach for the Houston Texans in 2020, where he guided LB Zach Cunningham to lead the NFL in total tackles with a career-high 163. In his college coaching career, he worked with 25 NFL draft picks, including three first-round draft picks (DE Gaines Adams, DT Taven Bryan, DT Malcom Brown) and one Pro Bowler (S Quandre Diggs). He also worked with Vikings DT Dalvin Tomlinson when he was at Alabama in 2013.
(info courtesy of Vikings)