TE Nick Vannett's 'old school mentality' has made him valuable to Vikings
Playing for his ninth NFL team, the journeyman TE was key vs. the Lions and will be needed against Baltimore this weekend
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — For a minute there, it appeared that tight ends who look and play like Nick Vannett were going extinct.
The farther away that we got from the early 2000s run-heavy NFL, the lighter and flashier the tight ends became. Football went from having one or two rare birds in Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez to having 25 clones of those jump-ball wizards. Teams went from putting two big fellas on the field to clear out linebackers with neck rolls and pads that nearly covered their ear holes to using three wide receivers and lining up the tight end 50% of the time as a slot receiver.
A throwback-sized tight end, Vannett is listed at 6-foot-6, 266 pounds and has 34-inch arms (about what you’d expect from an offensive tackle). That’s a far cry from the prototype these days like Kyle Pitts, who weighs 245 pounds and ran a 4.4 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine.
But the great part about the NFL is that schematic things tend to be cyclical. What’s old is new. Every adaptation is an adjustment to a previous transformation of the game. So when teams started having success in 11 personnel and hitting deep shots, defenses switched to playing six defensive backs and two-deep coverages. Once offenses started to struggle against those looks, they went back to running the football and putting more big personnel packages on the field.
Per TruMedia, in 2021, only two teams used 12 personnel [two TEs] on more than 300 snaps. This year there are 12 teams that are on pace to use double-TEs on at least 300 snaps and at least eight other squads that could come close.
The Vikings may have seen this coming when they signed Josh Oliver to a three-year contract in 2023. They finished 12th that year in 12 personnel plays but last season No. 1 TE TJ Hockenson missed half of the season recovering from an ACL tear. This season the Vikings are 17th in total 12 personnel snaps as Oliver has been banged up and they have been playing from behind in a lot of situations.
Last week with Oliver still on the shelf, they still wanted to roll out bigger players to take on a tough Detroit front. Getting the run game going was bound to be vital to having JJ McCarthy start off the game hot, so Kevin O’Connell put Vannett on the field and handed off to Aaron Jones. Vannett pushed superstar Aidan Hutchinson down the line and Jones went for 11 yards. The opening drive resulted in a touchdown to know the score at 7-7.
“We set the tone early,” Vannett told Purple Insider. “They tried to bring a little pressure off the edge and they spiked him inside and I just washed him down. We got a nice little run off of it and we ended up having a good drive. That set the tone for the day for us offensively. We just have to do the same thing this week.”
In total, Vannett ended up on the field for 27 snaps and the Vikings gained 94 yards on 21 plays out of 12 personnel.
We should expect an experienced NFL player to be able to slot in when called upon but Vannett’s job was more difficult than an average guy jumping in off the bench. He was signed by the Vikings at the beginning of August and only had four offensive snaps before the team’s most vital game of the season.
“He’s a guy that we went out and got for a reason, veteran presence, kind of along the lines of what Josh Oliver brings, is Nick’s skill set,” O’Connell said. “And you want to make sure you fill that tight end room with as unique of a role and a setup as we have here with really what we feel like is one of the best combinations of tight ends with Josh and T.J. [Hockenson] in the National Football League. We feel really good about the depth we have.”
For Vannett, he has grown used to learning playbooks on the fly. The 33-year-old, who was drafted in the third round of the 2016 draft by the Seattle Seahawks, has now played on nine teams and appeared in 115 games.
“It’s been similar to how it’s been the last few years for me,” Vannett said on Thursday. “I had to learn a new offense every year so I’ve gotten the hang of picking up the new terminology and deleting the old stuff. At the end of the day there’s a lot of similarities from offense to offense, run game and pass game. There’s a few wrinkles you have to learn but when [Josh Oliver] went down they had full trust in me to come in to take over that role. That’s why they brought me in here. To have that opportunity to play the role that I’ve been used to playing, it was fun. To contribute, to get the big team win, it was a great feeling.”
Vannett has bounced up and down between the active roster and the practice squad this year. Out of camp he was cut and signed to the PS, then he was signed to the active roster in mid-September, then he was cut on October 6 and went back to the practice squad. He is still on the PS but teams are allowed to elevate players for individual games, so he got the call to come up and play.
“He’s a true pro,” offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said. “Most guys don’t make it 10 years, period, but especially in different roles like he’s played, it’s not like he’s been always the feature guy everywhere he’s been, but he’s played a lot of football over the years. He understands what it takes from a professional standpoint, being ready at any time to be called up.”
Going from team to team and not always being assured that you’re going to play is not the most stable life to lead. Vannett is married and has a seven-month old, both who have moved along with him from the Giants in 2022 to the Texans and Chargers in 2023 to the Titans in 2024 and now the Vikings in 2025, with no real assurances that he would be in any of those places for the entire season.
“It’s really hard,” Vannett said. “I have a seven-month old now so when you have to pack up and go to a new city and find a new place to live. You are going to a new locker room, meeting new people, trying to mesh with the guys. For my wife, you have to make new friends, make a new home. It’s a lot of things that a lot of people wouldn’t think about because they have the luxury of having stability for a longer period of time. But it balances itself out, there’s a lot of pros with it too. That’s just the one thing that’s tough. You have to roll with the punches a little bit.”
So why continue to fight the fight? He’s put together a long run in the NFL and made a decent paycheck along the way. With his experience, he would be welcomed into the coaching ranks or could explore whatever post-career vocation that he wanted. Why stick around when there are no promises that a game like Detroit will happen again?
“I know I can still play,” Vannett said. “Last year I had one of my more consistent years even though it wasn’t a big stat year, I felt like I just played very consistent throughout the whole year, stayed healthy throughout the whole year and I told myself that, in my mind, I can do this for two or three more years. That’s what keeps me doing it because I know I still have it within me. I want to keep going until they told me not to or until the wheels fall off.”
Believing that he can still do it isn’t the only part that Vannett seems to be enjoying in Minnesota. He is also enjoying the Vikings tight end room, which is led by Pro Bowler TJ Hockenson.
“In the in the film room, [Vannett] has got a lot of knowledgeable stuff that maybe I’ve heard once or twice, but it’s fun to be able to have that with him with a guy that’s played a lot of snaps,” Hockenson said.
Vannett said that the room has turned into a constant feedback loop of veteran players helping each other out with their experience.
“We just like to pick each other’s brains,” Vannett said. “We’ll watch a play and everybody sees things differently so talking it through, ‘this is what I saw here’ and getting a mental rep of it, ‘here’s what I would do in this situation.’ Talking through it so we’re on the same page. TJ will run a route and ask, ‘what did you think of that?’ Little extra feedback that’s good to get from one of your own teammates.”
With Oliver out again against the Baltimore Ravens this week, Vannett could be called upon often again. The Ravens are graded by PFF as the 27th ranked run stopping defense and they sit 20th in total rushing yards allowed and 23rd in yards per carry allowed. The Ravens have also blitzed the 9th most in the NFL. Last week Vannett was in on nine passing downs, including three as an extra blocker.
“There’s always a luxury for veteran guys who want to block,” Vannett said. “Right now the trend [for tight ends] is splitting out and catching passes and there’s not a lot of guys who have that old school mentality that can put their hand in the dirt. Embracing that is what has kept me in the league and I’m going to keep doing it.”