Rondale Moore is out to show that he's back: 'I think he's tough as nails'

The lightning-quick receiver had a major setback last year and now he's looking to prove himself with the Vikings

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By Matthew Coller

EAGAN — When Rondale Moore takes the field at US Bank Stadium for the Minnesota Vikings’ first preseason game this Saturday, it will have been one year and two days since his NFL career was turned upside down.

On August 7, 2024, during a joint practice between the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins, he suffered a non-contact knee injury that instantly brought his season to an end. Missing any full season is brutal but Moore’s 2024 was supposed to be the year to prove that he could be an impact player and earn a long-term contract somewhere. He was in the final year of his rookie contract and had a chance with a new coaching staff to become a significant part of the Falcons receiving corps. After Atlanta acquired him, Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said at the owner’s meetings that playing against Moore in the division “drove me nuts.”

Instead of carving out a role in the Falcons offense and showing the rest of the league that he can be a significant contributor despite his 5-foot-7, 180-pound frame, he went into 2025 free agency with zero games, zero catches, zero yards in 2024.

It’s remarkable how quickly you can go from driving people in the division nuts to a reclamation project. That’s the case with Moore in Minnesota. The former Purdue receiver, who was so exciting with the ball in his hands that he was picked in the second round despite only playing seven games after his breakout 114-catch freshman year, signed a one-year, $2 million contract with just $250,000 guaranteed with the Vikings.

Moore decided that Minnesota was the right place to find himself again as a player. He felt that Kevin O’Connell’s offensive creativity would be a good fit for him.

“In terms of the personnel groupings, [O’Connell] gets really creative there,” Moore told Purple Insider. “You have to know the offense conceptually as a whole because we move around so much. Inside guys can play outside or lineup in the backfield and run routes from there. The creativity to move guys around and get to the same concepts from different personnel groupings and stuff like that. Different motions that are newer.”

The coaching staff saw someone different that they could use. With downfield receivers like Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and Jalen Nailor on the depth chart, they saw a playmaking option.

“You look at Rondale and you see a guy that’s extremely explosive,” wide receivers coach Keenan McCardell said. “Quickness, really good run after the catch type of receiver that we really hadn’t had here in a while. We talked about it and said, ‘hey, this would be a great add to our room. It would be something a little bit different from what we have in our room, change our room a little bit.”

When I sat down with Moore last week following a training camp practice, I was interested in what he learned about himself from his season away. It has to be a nightmare to go from a guy who jumped 42.5 inches at his legendary pro day to sitting on his couch hoping to someday have another chance. But you don’t get to the NFL at 5-foot-7 by being easily defeated. Moore took the approach that he was going to make the most of his recovery.

“It was probably one of my biggest blessings in terms of being sat down and having a different approach to the game and life,” Moore said. “As a player you never want to be hurt and be on the couch for a year but unfortunate things happen. I had time to reconsider a lot of things, work on my body and get healthy and learn some football. It sucked with the rehab process and not being able to play going into my contract year but I’m grateful to be in Minnesota.”

Moore got out the microscope and focused on every part of the game. He wanted to observe everything that could possibly help him in the future, down to the finest detail.

“Being able to see it from a different perspective, almost on the outside looking in and even the small, tedious things that you don’t necessarily pay attention to when you’re on the field, I got a chance to see everything, even things like body language,” Moore said.

His body language may be different but his speed is not. It was evident from the first practice that Moore’s explosiveness had not changed post-injury. The minute he got back on the field, he looked like that 4.3 40-yard dash guy who once scored an 80-yard touchdown against the Vikings.

But one thing McCardell wanted to make clear is that “playmaker” doesn’t mean “one dimensional” in his eyes. Early in Moore’s career, he was used only as a screen pass and underneath option. As a rookie passes in his direction only traveled an average of 1.4 yards through the air. To put that in context, Jefferson’s average depth of target was 10.9 in 2024. The receivers coach thinks that Moore shouldn’t be pigeon holed just because of what he was early in his career.

“He came in as a bubble type receiver and everybody was calling him a ‘gadget guy,’ he’s not a gadget guy,” McCardell said. “He can run routes. He can stop and start. He catches the ball really well. He’ll be an added weapon for us in our room.”

In 2022 and 2023, Moore’s ADOT increased to over 5.0 yards and he grabbed 14-of-30 passes that traveled more than 10 yards.

McCardell did acknowledge that every team has to play to receivers’ strengths and Moore’s short-area quickness gives him an edge on certain types of routes. In 2022, Moore was fifth in the NFL in yards per catch on throws between 1-10 yards. But you can’t be a member of the Vikings’ receiving corps without being able to run every route. Inside the receivers room, they joke that they have to be rocket scientists because of the amount of information they have to retain in O’Connell’s offense.

“I tell all my guys that you have to be able to run every route in our book because you never know where you’re going to be lined up, whether you’re going to be the inside guy, the outside guy, to be a complete receiver we work on running routes that nobody thinks you should run,” McCardell said. “Sometimes you find a diamond in the rough and he’s a guy that really can run routes and understands how to set people and get leverage and things like that to run routes and get open.”

The 25-year-old receiver may be drinking out of a firehose right now trying to learn the offense after missing OTAs and minicamp recovering from his injury. Thus far in training camp, Moore has mostly been working with the second team unit. Though news of Jordan Addison’s suspension opens the door for potential playing time for Moore as he is the only receiver in the room behind Jefferson, Addison and Nailor with significant NFL experience.

“We don't do a lot of things exactly like maybe the offense he was in Arizona,” O’Connell said. “So I've been really appreciated his level of trying to learn the detail maybe without the repetition of some of our other guys or the build up through the spring…I've been really happy with him and I just want to continue to see him attack this whole process with really no ceiling. Let's not just say it's one position, let's try to learn as we go here.”

Moore has also been returning punts for the Vikings. He hasn’t done that in the NFL since 2021 when he returned 21 punts for 171 yards. Special teams coordinator Matt Daniels said that Moore has been putting in the work to regain the feel of returning.

“He's coming up, meeting every other day,” Daniels said. “He's going over how can we handle a certain situation? What does he like in terms of schematics of where he wants to go with the football and really trying to understand and getting to know and build a good relationship and connection.”

Moore compared getting reacclimated with punt returning to shooting free throws. Practice, practice, practice.

“I think he's just gotta get back into the feel of things and we really gotta start trying to get him some live reps just in terms of the decision making,” Daniels said.

McCardell said that Saturday’s preseason game against the Texans will be a proving ground for Moore to show the coaches where he’s at with the offense and flash his quickness again for the first time since 2023.

Will it be nerve racking for him after what happened one year and two days before?

“It’s something you can’t really simulate in the recovery process,” Moore said. “You have to put your foot in the ground and react to something that you can’t emulate during recovery. Being out there and being in the mix has given me confidence that, OK, I’m fine.”

McCardell doesn’t expect any hesitation from Moore.

“I think he’s tough as nails,” McCardell said.

There might not be a better coach to have in his corner than McCardell. Not only has he established himself as one of the best position coaches in the NFL, he knows what it’s like to participate in training camps and preseason games feeling like you are trying to prove yourself. McCardell was a 12th round draft pick who fought his way onto Cleveland’s roster in the early 90s, became a Pro Bowler with Jacksonville and a Super Bowl champion as Tampa Bay’s leading receiver in 2003.

“[Moore] understands where he’s at in his career right now,” McCardell said. “Sometimes it can be a make-or-break season for you. I’m not saying that it is but if I was in his shoes, I’d think that because I played this game long enough to understand that this can be my last time putting on the cleats.”

Moore said he’s going to do everything he can to make sure that he’s putting on cleats for a long time from here out.

“Taking advantage of opportunities, whether that’s a 50-50 ball or it’s push-cracking the safety and making sure my man doesn’t make the tackle,” Moore said. “Going out there and having a good attitude about it.”

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