As the founder of The Practice Squad Power Rankings, I have an affinity for underdogs, so you should have known I was going to include an undrafted free agent here. According to Good Morning Football’s Peter Schrager, the compact, high-energy off-ball linebacker has been the talk of Vikings camp and has spent August practicing with the first-team defense.
Pace is built like a bulldog but accelerates like a greyhound when chasing the football. At 5-10 and 231 pounds, he registered a gargantuan 262 tackles, 34.5 tackles for loss, and 14 sacks in his final two collegiate seasons, at Miami of Ohio then Cincinnati. He stacks and sheds like he’s 6-4, 240, is a reliable in-space tackler, and made plenty of plays on the football in coverage in college.
I need to see if the massive camp buzz for Pace translates to the preseason for this already super-fun underdog story. Unsurprisingly Pace led the Vikings with four tackles and two assisted tackles in the exhibition opener against the Seahawks.
Miami of Ohio is not a big and widely known program, while Cinncinati has been on the up more recently in the past 5 to 10 years as of now (Kelce bros came out of cinncinati around 2011 to 2012 i believe?)
yeah, I know. Don’t draft 5/10, small school football players. Draft only big, fast power 5 school guys who happen to be on a football field. Sorry, still don’t get it. Glad our staff gets it though. I think if LB was a need, we would have been all over this guy.
Small and unconventional in his approach. He’s going to be a terror on A gap blitzes. It’s the pass rush stuff that worries me. That’s why I liked him. Like Houston he’s so damn unconventional rushing the passer (pace gets freaky low and is relentless) and I typically prize that as it often gives pros fits.