Josh Oliver took long development path to becoming Vikings' secret weapon

EAGAN — Kirk Cousins wound up to throw deep. There are only a handful of times per practice that he lets loose, so you stop and watch when a long pass is on its way. Everyone’s eyes turned down field to see where he was going with the football. Justin Jefferson? Jordan Addison? KJ Osborn? Nope. Instead a 6-foot-5, 265(ish)-pound tight end rotated around and made a back shoulder grab.

"Holy s—" somebody in the group of reporters watching said.

Tight end Josh Oliver could be a body double for Danielle Hunter, yet he has hands like a receiver and ran a 40-yard dash coming out of college that was faster than starting running back Alexander Mattison. He was also PFF’s No. 1 ranked run blocker among tight ends last year. Yet when the Minnesota Vikings signed him, it seemed a little odd. Did they really need a blocking tight end? For how much? Don’t they already have a top-10 tight end in the NFL in TJ Hockenson and a blocker in Johnny Mundt?

If you didn’t understand it then, you get it now after seeing him in action during training camp. In a league full of nickel personnel defenses, light pass rushers and undersized linebackers, a towering former basketball player with wheels is a problem.

Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips explained that opposing defenses generally think they have a mismatch when lining up an edge rusher against a tight end in the run game but Oliver is a couple pounds away from being offensive linemen size.

“Particularly these 3-4 teams with these big outside linebackers or if you’re lining up a defensive end over a tight end all of the time, you feel like, ‘OK we won there, now what are the other problems?’ That’s really not the case with Josh [on the field],” Phillips said. “He’s big, he’s strong, he’s physical, he’s athletic.”

After ranking 22nd in yards per rush attempt last season, Oliver offers some extra push to get Mattison moving in the right direction. He’s also a tendency breaker. The Vikings’ offense has its roots in the Los Angeles Rams’ system, which is known for using three-receiver personnel groupings. Last year they mixed in bigger personnel but not with much regularity. Oliver forces opponents to prepare for different types of looks and ideally sets up play-action opportunities as the defense loads up the box vs. the big guy.

“There’s a reason why he’s here,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said of Oliver. “His versatility in both the run and pass game and his effectiveness as a blocker is a huge part of it… Josh has brought everything we had hoped as far as his ability to handle all kinds of different run schemes…we’re just able to do a lot more, cover up a few more gaps, not leave ourselves susceptible to negatives when we can control it.”

He can catch too.

"He’s shown in the pass game that he has really good hands and that’s going all the way back from college and he’s super long so his catch radius is really big," Phillips said.

For Oliver, this opportunity was a long time in the making. It’s a culmination of many years of sharpening his craft.

When he left high school to play college football at San Jose State, Oliver wasn’t even decided on playing tight end. San Jose State assistant Terry Malley recruited him under the "athlete" title, meaning that he would need to figure out his position once he arrived.

Oliver’s dad always told him that he was a tight end. He wasn’t so sure. When he attended camps as a high schooler, he would go as an outside linebacker. Well, it turns out that his dad, who played college football in the late-80s for Cal Poly, knows ball. San Jose State quickly made him a tight end.

"Sometimes it’s better hearing it from other people. In that case he was definitely right," Oliver said.

One does not simply just become a tight end though. He played more of a wide receiver role in high school on offense. The learning curve was steep.

"Tight end is a tough position because you have to do everything and you have to know everything about the offense," Oliver said. "You have to know the most outside of the quarterback and center."

He didn’t see the football much in his first few years, catching just seven passes in 2015 and 2016. As a junior, Oliver got a little more of the target share but it was largely underneath passes, grabbing 35 receptions for 295 yards. As a senior, they changed offensive coordinators and that’s when it started to click.

"When my third OC came in he was like 'We gotta get you the ball, man,'" Oliver said, "So they started throwing me the ball a lot more and ended up coming close to breaking the record for the tight end position for San Jose State. That’s when I really realized, 'hey, I can do this,' and got my feet on the ground."

Oliver put his name on the map to potentially be drafted. NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein thought he was a fifth-rounder, writing: "Run blocking will need work before he can handle NFL in-line duties."

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At that time nobody would have figured him to become a premier run blocker. He was listed a 249 pounds at the Combine, which is only in the 33rd percentile of tight ends, per the website Mockdraftable. Still, he was picked in the third round, relatively high for a kid out of San Jose State with one year of production.

His confidence that he could prove the blocking critiques wrong got a shot in the arm early in his career.

“When I first came in I had a coach Ron Middleton who took me through my scouting report and he was like, ‘Anybody saying you’re not a blocker or you can’t do this, use that as a chip on your shoulder.’ From there I did that,” Oliver said.

There were still hurdles though. He battled injuries and only appeared in four games in his first two seasons before getting traded to Baltimore. There he learned what it meant to be a difference maker in the run blocking game and play in multiple tight end personnel groupings.

“It was a long process,” Oliver said. “Footwork is a big deal. I always had a base strength but I got stronger over time and that helped me. I started understanding concepts, where to fit your hat, where to fit your hands on this play or that play. Plus I was able to put on weight and maintain my speed.”

Alongside star tight end Mark Andrews and veteran Nick Boyle, he played 513 snaps, 324 of which were run blocking (per PFF). He also made some plays, catching 14 passes for 149 yards and two touchdowns.

The whole journey came together when the Vikings came calling with a three-year, $21 million deal. He looks back at those high school games where he played on the defensive side and those plays in the paint as a basketball player and the many, many hours in the weight room to be ready to manhandle outside linebackers as having prepared him for this chance.

“It’s a huge blessing,” Oliver said. “Huge opportunity. I have to make the most of it.”