By Matthew Coller
On Tuesday night, the Minnesota Vikings signed veteran outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy, per Tom Pelissero of The Ringer.
For the entire summer, we speculated over whether the team would add to the outside linebacker room because they were short on proven depth. When they lost OLB Tyler Batty for the season to an ACL tear, the Vikings were put in a position of desperation to find a veteran option.
But despite the desperate position, they landed about as good of an option as they could dream about considering we are only a week-and-a-half from the opener against the Green Bay Packers. Normally it’s hard to find productive players who are very good fits during this time of year.
For starters, Van Noy’s history is with Brian Flores in both New England and Miami. He was used as a versatile linebacker, similar to what we have seen from Andrew Van Ginkel in Minnesota, but the Patriots ramped up his pass rushing snaps in 2019 and he posted an impressive 58 QB pressures and 6.5 sacks.
He went back to more of a 50-50 split between coverage and rushing while in Miami with Brian Flores and still posted 6.0 sacks and 31 QB pressures in just 246 pass rush snaps, per PFF. He continued a split role when he returned to New England in 2021 and with the Chargers in 2022. Van Noy then returned to a pure rusher role in 2023 when he signed with the Baltimore Ravens.
With the Ravens, he was very successful rushing quarterbacks in 2023 and 2024, combining for 21.5 sacks in those two years. He also totaled 100 QB pressures in those two years.
Last year, Van Noy’s production dipped to just 2.0 sacks and 27 pressures with a Ravens defense that fell off as a whole.
As a Viking, he can act as a body double for either Dallas Turner or Andrew Van Ginkel. If Turner were to need a replacement, Van Noy can come off the edge as a pure rusher and if Van Ginkel missed time he could also drop back into coverage when called upon.
His knowledge of Flores’ defense and previous experience should allow for a quick adaptation into the system, similar to what we saw from Stephon Gilmore in 2024.
Van Noy doesn’t have to just be a fill-in. In fact, it’s likely since he decided to sign in Minnesota that he will have a role designed for him by Flores.
In previous years, the Vikings’ DC has used players like Jihad Ward and Patrick Jones as situational rushers on third down as part of a “NASCAR” package with more pass rushers and fewer defensive tackles. In 2024, Ward played a total of 467 snaps and 393 of them were chasing the quarterback.
Van Noy could play mentor to second-round pick Jake Golday, who has a similar skillset and has played inside and outside linebacker throughout camp and the preseason.
Signing Van Noy is also a further commitment to winning this year. This offseason the team signed veteran receiver Jauan Jennings and retained other veteran players like Aaron Jones and TJ Hockenson.
Outside of Jamal Adams and Tyler Batty, the team came out of camp healthy and the defense dominated joint practices against the Ravens, giving credence to the idea that the ceiling could be high for them again under Flores.
In the best-case scenario, Van Noy can provide valuable depth and help push them over the top.
It's hard to see a connection between Batty, with his 42 career defensive snaps, and KVN with his 173 games played. It's adding something that the roster was previously missing, and we were all waiting for this move long before Batty went down.
But, as noted, the history with Flores alleviates the concern about timing. KVN isn't a guy who played in schemes were he simply rushes the passer, and he has considerable versatility. We'll see about the dollars, but it's unlikely they are high or that there is any future cap consequence from the signing.
The other interesting thing will be seeing who gets cut, but it's a better roster now than it was yesterday, for a minimal cost.