Vikings RB Zavier Scott has been everywhere
The versatile back has taken a long journey to find his spot in Minnesota but he's now becoming a weapon on the ground and through the air
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — When future Hall of Fame cornerback Jalen Ramsey saw Zavier Scott coming out of the backfield, he prepared for three outcomes: Either Scott was going to check up in front of him, break toward the sideline or break toward the middle. Ramsey never considered that he would go vertical.
Maybe he didn’t know enough about No. 36 in purple. The receiver-turned-running back sped right by the NFL legend toward the end zone. Quarterback Carson Wentz ducked out of pressure, looked up and saw his RB streaking open and let it fly. Scott grabbed it, toe-tapped a few inches in front of the white chalk to score his first career touchdown.
“All those moments in practice where you are practicing the sideline catches and working on awareness, seeing those moments come into one moment, it was awesome,” Scott told Purple Insider this week.
But how good was the toe-tap?
“It needs a little bit of work,” toe-tap expert Justin Jefferson said smiling.
Upon reflection, Jefferson did admit that he was impressed with the play when factoring for the fact that Scott was a running back.
“Especially for him to come out with his first true game in the back of the end zone with that difficult type of ball…it was smooth, it was smooth. I’ll give it to him,” Jefferson said.
While he may not be the backfield version of Cris Carter just yet, Scott has had a lot of moments — and a lot of milage — add up throughout his journey to reach the point where he has become a valuable and versatile weapon out of the Vikings backfield.
Scott grew up in a military family and moved around often as a kid. He was born on the army base at Fort Hood, Texas, and spent time in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and landed at Vilseck High School in Germany for the final two years of high school. In his previous states, Scott’s size and blazing speed would have put his name on the radar as a recruit but in Germany he was just the biggest kid on the field running wild. His 24/7 page has no information about colleges that were interested in him and one shaky video demonstrating the enormous edge he possessed physically over his competition.
“The argument when I was coming out of high school was that the competition level was low and it hurt when it came to recruitment,” Scott said. “I would say there were definitely some kids who could play college ball without a doubt. There were some kids that I played against that, if they shot for it, they definitely could.”
The opposing teams were other mostly military bases, which meant long travel to play every road game. The closest game, he said, was two hours away by bus in London. It wasn’t easy to get anyone to pay attention to his talents.
But Brandon Collier did.
Scott was standing out in Germany right around the time that Collier, who played football in Europe for several seasons, founded Premier Players International. The goal of PPI was to find homes at US colleges for talented international players.
“[Collier] was up-and-coming and I was up-and-coming and we mutually helped each other out,” Scott said. “He saw something in me that plenty of coaches didn’t see. He helped me get to a college campus after I graduated and started going there and performing and I committed to UConn. It was crazy. I didn’t know how it was going to happen but I believe that God does everything for a reason.”
Scott was part of the first wave of PPI players who came from around the world to D-I schools. Since then, Collier has grown his brand and helped players from all over the world — from the Netherlands to Africa — find interested universities.
“It was a challenge at the beginning to get people to understand that there’s talent outside of the United States of America,” Collier told College Football Network. “If you asked a college coach about someone playing in Germany or Austria, they would have thought you were crazy.”
It didn’t take long for Scott to show his talent at UConn, picking up 6.2 yards per attempt on 34 carries as a freshman and adding 33 receptions for 228 yards. But he only appeared in four games the following season and dealt with injuries. Then after transferring to Maine, Scott still didn’t see the field much. In 2021, he played 11 games, rushed 35 times for just 119 yards (3.4 YPC) and caught 11 passes.
Going into his final college season, Maine changed coaches, hiring former player Jordan Stevens. He put Scott on the field.
“We were able to kind of find a niche for him, which was really as a receiver, but also as a Wildcat quarterback, a guy who could come in and short yardage and do some different things for our offense,” Stevens said over the phone. “So it felt like as the season went on, he just continued to get better. We were really just enthused by his overall development and how he went about his business.”
As a senior, he was a difference maker for the Maine offense, gaining 352 yards on the ground at 9.3 yards per rush and catching a career-high 42 passes for 438 yards. He only returned a few kicks but one of them went for 58 yards.
“When he gets the ball, there’s definitely a different speed and an ability to accelerate,” Stevens said. “Once we saw that, we knew that he could be a guy that could help us in different roles. Maybe if he wasn’t where he needed to be in his growth as a pass catcher, how can we get the ball to him? That’s where the Wildcat stuff came in. His ability to line up in the backfield as a running back or get the ball in a jet sweep. How do we get the ball in his hands in other ways?”
Beyond the field, Stevens and Scott made a connection. They were both interested in studying the art of leadership.
“Whenever we would talk to leadership, he would always follow up with me and tell me things that he liked,” Stevens said. “We shared some books and stuff that we would read along the lines of leadership…I’m passionate about building habits that are conducive to life and everything you need to be to play the game of football and to be successful. I think we connected most in that respect.”
After his college career came to an end, a sub-4.5 40-yard dash at Maine’s pro day earned Scott a chance with the Indianapolis Colts. He went to camp with them and ultimately ended up on their practice squad in October 2023.
At the end of 2024 camp with Indy, he was released and the Vikings signed him two days later.
“We brought him in, you just saw this 225-pound or 230-pound athlete that was big and fast and explosive, so we were excited about him,” offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said.
The question for the coaching staff wasn’t about Scott’s physical traits, it was whether a guy with a wide receiver background could really bring the hammer like a traditional running back.
“How is he really going to be as a runner down in and down out?” Phillips said. “Not ever questioning the kid but: How tough is he as a running back, running in between the tackles, those types of things?”
It wasn’t easy for Scott to prove that in practice. There aren’t many opportunities to run through somebody’s face when there’s no tackling.
“You execute in practice, in one-on-ones and with all the little details and there’s always room for improvement,” Scott said. “But you have to be courageous and be who you’re called to be. There’s no perfect way to show it but when the time came just being all-in.”
Scott finally got his chance in the preseason 2025 preseason to show the team that he could run behind his pads. In his first game, he carried the ball seven times for 40 yards and picked up 29 of those yards after contact.
Point made.
“We’ve been impressed with the toughness, whether it’s preseason or through the games this year where he’s had to cut up or run in between the tackles and get his pads down and show that he can be a guy that you could hand it off to in whatever scheme,” Phillips said. “We can call that play and know that he’ll execute it.”
He finished the preseason with 22 carries for 96 yards and made the team. The assumption was that he was going to do most of his heavy lifting on special teams, where ST coordinator Matt Daniels had seen a potential weapon with his size/speed combo. In preseason he played 26 special teams snaps on four different units, including returning kicks.
“I see this guy’s trajectory, he keeps getting better and better week in and week out,” Daniels said.
But in Week 2, starting RB Aaron Jones suffered a hamstring injury, bumping up Scott from special teams into Jordan Mason’s backup. When the Vikings acquired Cam Akers (again), the assumption was that he would jump ahead in line. Instead the Vikings went with the RB/WR and used him in both roles against the Steelers. He lined up 15 times in the backfield and eight times as a slot receiver, per PFF.
He only carried the ball twice against Pittsburgh but ended up harkening back to his receiver roots with six receptions for 43 yards, including the top-tap TD.
“We know he can run routes very much like a receiver from his background and he’s got very natural hands and he’s explosive,” Phillips said. “We ran him down the field in that Pittsburgh game and he doesn’t look out of place.”
It reminded Aaron Jones of himself.
“Getting a chance to step on the field with him, I was like, ‘man, he can do a little bit of everything,’” Jones told Purple Insider this week. “Then I got to know him and talk to him and learning he’s played some wide receiver when he first got in the league, played a little H-back, wildcat quarterback, so he’s done a little bit of everything. It makes sense why he can pick up the game so quickly.”
During the week leading up to the Steelers game, the veteran star RB told Scott to believe in himself and that he was a Viking for a reason. Turns out Jones and Scott have clicked as kindred spirits, both in terms of pass catching and their thirst for football knowledge.
“We pick each other’s brains all the time, especially with him playing receiver and us having that similar role of being the pass-catching back,” Jones said. “We’ll ping pong back and forth each other. I’ll run a route and say, ‘what did you see, what could I have done better?’ Same thing when he comes back. It’s been a luxury to have.”
As a running back, Jones was a little more impressed by the toe-tap.
“Not all running backs are doing that, the awareness. That was his first NFL game and he didn’t let the moment be too big for him,” Jones said. “It couldn’t happen to a better person. I feel like he’s going to continue to have success. Not only on the field and in the classroom but on his body as well. He makes sure he checks every box every day.”
The maturity that Jones is alluding to has been noted by everyone who comes into contact with Scott. His college coach said that it likely plays a role that he traveled the world before he even left high school.
“Football is such a intense game, it can be chaotic at times, so someone like Zavier is going to handle those moments well because he’s just so grounded andI think he’s got great perspective and, strong work ethic coming from his family,” Stevens said. “Being in Germany…he’s really been all over. So I think he’s got a really grounded young man who probably took time for him to learn the game of football at a high level for those principles and those values to shine.”
The Vikings will need him to continue to shine as a unique option on offense through whatever chaos comes their way. Jones is still on injured reserve and Wentz (or JJ McCarthy soon) will need every option at their disposal in order to compete in the stacked NFC North.
Whether it’s a toe-tap or slamming into linebackers, Scott is ready to take on whatever comes next.
“I’m playing that puzzle piece, whatever role the team needs me to play, that’s what I play,” Scott said.
Love these pieces!
Seems like he could play a Deebo Samuels sort of role.