Vikings rookie linebacker Ivan Pace Jr., found himself matched up against Titans star running back Derrick Henry, the league’s premier power back, this week. “I’m not scared of him,” Pace said. “I never will be.”
Pace has spent the early weeks of camp playing the role of starting linebacker in the defense Brian Flores is introducing to the Vikings. “It’s not really difficult,” Pace said. “You just have to learn the playbook.”
Pace wore the green dot on his helmet in the Vikings’ first preseason game, meaning he was the player on the field taking and calling the defensive plays. `He’s doing a lot of good things that we’re excited about,” Flores said.
Saturday night, the Vikings played their first home game of the season, one of those wretched preseason affairs, a 24-16 loss to Tennessee at U.S. Bank Stadium. Pace started and relayed play calls again.
It would be an overstatement to say that he looked particularly impressive Saturday. Few Vikings did. He also did little to contradict the notion that the Vikings did well to sign him as an undrafted free agent out of Cincinnati, or that he will be on the opening-day roster.
Pace has been one of the Vikings’ best players this month while filling in for presumptive starting inside linebacker Brian Asamoah, who has been injured..
Usually, there are few things in life less meaningful than preseason performances, but sometimes those performances reveal that the NFL’s exhaustive scouting process may have underrated a productive player. Pace is a relentlessly productive player.
“You see it!” Vikings linebacker Jordan Hicks said this week. “You see it. He’s a baller, man. He’s natural. Finds the ball. Physical. Elusive. I don’t know how we got him. We did a great job getting him. He’s going to contribute to this defense.”
“Ivan’s doing a lot of good things, in meetings, and walk-throughs, and practices, and he played well in the game last week,” Flores, the Vikings’ new defensive coordinator, said this week. “Our message to him is just to continue stringing good days together. He had the green dot last week, he did a good job communicating calls out to the defense. That’s continued this week. He’s fast, he’s tough, he plays a physical style, he’s doing a lot of good things.”
“He’s learning the defense, first and foremost, and that’s been something that has showed up,” safety Cam Bynum said. “He just plays fast.”
Pace is listed as 5-foot-10 and 231 pounds. He’s shorter than most modern inside linebackers. He’s about the same height as some great linebackers, like recent Hall of Fame inductees Sam Mills and Zach Thomas.
Before we start predicting inductions for Pace, let’s make a couple of provincial comparisons.
Scott Studwell was a ninth-round draft pick — meaning he would not have been drafted in the modern, seven-round selection process — and became a star middle linebacker. He was listed at 6-2 and 228 pounds.
Ed McDaniel was a fifth-round pick who became a standout on the 1998 team that almost went to the Super Bowl. He was listed at 5-11 and 230 pounds.
Pace has much to prove as a rookie and theoretical backup linebacker and special teams player. He also has the pedigree and production of a quality NFL player.
Saturday, he produced two tackles in about a quarter-and-a-half of play. On the second play from scrimmage, with the Titans attempting a pass, Pace flattened one receiver on his way to cover another on the sideline. He also tackled Titans quarterback Malik Willis after Willis had recovered his own fumble on a strip sack, so Pace was not credited with a sack.
Asked this week the most difficult aspect of adjusting from college to the NFL, Pace said, “You just have to be dialed in. It’s not really that much faster than college. It’s just that everybody knows exactly what they’re doing. They have families to feed and they are going to do their job everyday.”
Pace seems to have landed a pretty good day job.