With the 201st pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings selected Kobe King, an LB out of Penn State. King adds depth that the Vikings need. Last season, short-term injuries to Blake Cashman and Ivan Pace tested the defense’s stability.
They used Kamu Grugier-Hill to fill in some gaps, but they didn’t trust Brian Asamoah to see the field, only giving him snaps in garbage time. (Grugier-Hill has since parted ways with the Vikings, but Asamoah is still around.) That meant the team had to play Andrew Van Ginkel and Dallas Turner out of position as off-ball linebackers. It’s a testament to Van Ginkel and Turner that they were able to execute off-ball responsibilities on an extended basis. Still, they’re more valuable on the line of scrimmage, where they can rush the passer.
The Vikings brought Eric Wilson back, who started 12 games for the Green Bay Packers last year but began his career in Minnesota. Still, King represents another investment at the position. As a sixth-round pick, it’s unlikely King will unseat Cashman or Pace to start. However, the team clearly hopes he will be able to play a depth role if one or both of them miss time with injuries again in 2025.
Minnesota’s brass was clearly high on King. In their behind-the-scenes video for the draft, his name comes multiple times, including early on Day 3 when they mentioned him next to Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins at pick No. 139. They rightly deduced that King’s stock would be lower and were elated to draft him at No. 201.
Will King live up to Minnesota’s excitement about him? I went to the tape to form my opinion. I watched five of King’s games from last year: West Virginia, Illinois, UCLA, Ohio State, and Maryland. Let’s see what he could add to the Vikings.
run defense
King immediately pops in the run game, with explosive ability coming forward to tackle the ball carrier. The play below involves a blown block, but also King’s burst as he pops the RB in the backfield.
Someone on the OL misses an assignment on this run play as they let Kobe King run straight through for a TFL. Good burst by King to get through the line of scrimmage and make the tackle.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:14:25.020Z
King’s burst stands out even when the offense doesn’t blow an assignment. On the play below, he attacks forward on a blitz, beating the RT to the inside. That forces the RB to bounce the run, right into the waiting DE, who was supposed to be held up by the QB’s option on the play.
Kobe King does a good job of shooting the gap here, forcing the RB to cut back into the waiting edge rusher, who stayed put against the read option to stop the QB from pulling the ball, but was able to make the play because King forced the RB to bounce.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:30:53.969Z
King shows good lateral movement in a phone booth with the ability to avoid opposing blockers entirely. Here, he cuts back inside the pulling guard assigned to block him. The lineman never touches him, and King gets in on the tackle.
Good job by Kobe King to cut back inside the pulling guard and get to the RB for the tackle on the shovel pass.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:12:52.507Z
King consistently won this way, including on the rep below against Donovan Jackson, who we know has good lateral recovery. King comes off the edge but still crosses Jackson’s face and makes the tackle.
Kobe King was lined up on the edge against Donovan Jackson here, and he cut across Jackson's face to make the tackle in the run game.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:42:24.668Z
In addition to being quicker than linemen, King has a few tools to stand up to them and avoid their blocks. On the play below, he does a good job of dipping his shoulder, minimizing the contact area the opposing lineman has, and working around him. The play was already made, but the athletic movement is notable regardless.
Nice work by Kobe King to dip his shoulder and get around the climbing RT who tried to block him.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:49:11.837Z
King has explosive hands and pops opponents when taking on blocks. On this play with a lead blocking TE, he knocks the TE back off the block, disengages, and makes the tackle on the RB.
Kobe King does a good job of attacking the TE's block here, allowing him to quickly disengage and make the tackle. He wins first contact when addressing run blocks.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:52:02.564Z
On the play below, he takes on a climbing C. When linemen frame up to block a smaller player like an LB, they want to drive their feet and push them back to help create a lane for the run. In this case, King takes that contact to the lineman rather than the other way around. You can see the C’s pads pop up on contact, and his feet stop — not a place you want to be as a blocker. King then disengages and makes the tackle.
Kobe King does a good job of stacking the block from the C, stopping him on contact, and shedding towards the runner to help with the tackle.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:27:22.601Z
King can also hold firm when asked to take on more extended contact. On the play below, the lineman tries to create a hole by turning and forcing King off his spot, but King holds his ground with one arm into the lineman’s chest, refusing to budge. Eventually, the RB comes his way, and King helps make the tackle.
This play shows that Kobe King can be rugged, where he holds his gap and is not moved by the C's block. Eventually the RB finds his way to him and he makes the tackle.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:24:34.489Z
King’s technique helps him stay balanced with trash at his feet, like on the play below.
I liked the balance from Kobe King here, hopping back away from a falling player to disengage and make the tackle.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:58:03.738Z
Still, King had some reps where blockers beat him. The play below was particularly rough. A TE flattens him on the outside, and it allows the screen pass to spring for a large gain:
Kobe King gets overpowered by a TE's block on this screen play that gets sprung for a big gain.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:12:02.328Z
Notably, King doesn’t have the longest arms (31 1/4″), and I think that shows up at times. This can disadvantage him against blockers, like in the clip above, and in tackling the ball carrier. Here he makes a great read to get in position to tackle Quinshon Judkins, but gets stiff-armed to the ground. This is a rough rep.
Kobe King does a good to scrape over the top and get to the RB, but Judkins stiff arms him into the ground on a rough tackle attempt.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:51:20.538Z
King had really good lateral movement in a tight space, as shown above. He also has some really high-level reps of sideline-to-sideline play. The play below is particularly impressive. He weaves around multiple blockers on his way to the sideline to get to TreVeyon Henderson.
This is a really nice play showing Kobe King working around multiple obstacles to get to Henderson on the sideline and make the tackle.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:49:48.889Z
King shows an understanding of angles heading to the sideline, and did a great job of tracking down the ball carrier on the play below.
Good Angle from Kobe King on this run to the sideline as he is able to wrap and tackle the RB out of bounds.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:59:52.051Z
King has those highs, but he isn’t always consistent in getting to the edge. In some cases, I think he’s slow to read what’s going on. On the play below, he gets slowed down as the RB approaches the edge. His teammate makes the tackle, but I would project him to be out of position if he were required to make the play below:
Kobe King hesitated a step on his way to the sideline here and was a bit slow to the edge. A teammate made the tackle, but I would anticipate the RB getting around King if he had a free path.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T01:01:28.648Z
I also feel that some of the reps of him getting to the sideline may not translate against NFL talent, like the play below, where I feel like he would have been a step late had the RB had better burst.
I feel like I wish there was a little more speed to the edge from Kobe King on this play. He does make a shoestring tackle, but he's a step behind the runner and that might not be enough against a more explosive RB at the NFL level.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:26:25.608Z
That is speculative, and I’m open to being wrong on King’s sideline-to-sideline movement. The first two plays I showed certainly prove that he can do it. Still, he will need to be able to do it consistently to become an impactful contributor in the NFL. When it comes to moving to the sideline, my concern lies with King’s first-step burst. If he has to move horizontally, and not in a way where he’s juking blockers like in some of the example above, I think he can be a bit slow to accelerate and get to the spot he needs to for the tackle.
This play below against West Virginia is a good example. It’s a QB draw, and King fails to get to the QB. As King transitions outside, you can see a small half-step before he can fully turn and try to get to the ball carrier. There may be an issue where he can’t open up and fully accelerate laterally on command, needing that split second to get going in the right direction. That could create issues against superior athletes in the NFL.
Kobe King was unable to turn laterally and get past the C to tackle the QB on this draw play.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T01:02:14.152Z
This lack of lateral burst showed up a few times on tape, including in the one below. This may be a read issue by King, where he overcommits to his gap. Still, he’s unable to get back over to attempt to tackle Judkins. The gap Judkins ran through wasn’t his responsibility, so I may be asking too much, but I’d really like to see him be able to turn and tackle the ball carrier here.
Kobe King ended up slow to turn back inside on this rep, and Judkins ran right by him for a nice gain.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:55:07.226Z
Speaking of issues reading the offense, I consistently saw King fooled by misdirection plays. It’s interesting because he’s quite good at reading the RB’s intentions once he has the ball (see any number of plays above). However, he seems to really struggle against complicated play fakes.
On the play below, the QB hands the ball off on a run right at King. Instead of making what should be an easy tackle, King continues to watch the QB and jumps at a pump fake, leading to a huge gain on the ground.
Kobe King got caught with his eyes in the backfield here, as he thought the QB had kept the ball. The pump fake made him jump, and he was out of position when he should have tackled the RB on a play that turned into a big gain.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:28:16.846Z
On the play below, he massively overcommits at the snap, even though there are pulling guards running the other way.
Kobe King bit hard on the pitch action to the left, not recognizing the blocking, and ended up way out of position on this run play.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:56:44.453Z
Finally, here, he has no awareness of the handoff to the WR on the sweep and is very late to respond.
Kobe King completely failed to recognize the handoff on this sweep play.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:48:35.676Z
pass rush
King was able to earn some production as a pass rusher, with 16 total pressures and three sacks in 2024 per PFF. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much those pressure numbers tell us about King as a pass rusher. In the games I watched, the pressures were unblocked, including his two sacks. You see his burst coming forward, but there’s not much else to go by on the plays below:
Some Kobe King Pressures
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-25T02:50:22.820Z
When blockers attempt to stop him, King shows little in terms of pass-rush moves and does not fare well. On the play below, he gets absolutely thrown to the ground by a combo between the RG and the RB.
Here, Kobe King tried to blitz but got absolutely pancaked by a double team.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:51:16.150Z
King faces off against Henderson below, who’s admittedly well-regarded as a pass protector. He fails to anticipate a punch, and the RB stuns him in pass protection.
Treveyon Henderson lowers the boom and knocks a blitzing Kobe King to the ground.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:46:04.165Z
Finally, Judkins completely flips him over on a cut block. Honestly, I don’t think this cut block attempt is even all that good. It attacks King at or below the knee, with Judkins bending way down to do so. This is a play where the blitzer really needs to push the blocker into the ground and maintain his feet rather than go flying through the air.
Kobe King got completely flipped up in the air by this cut block. Not a great way to address it.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:57:15.206Z
pass coverage
In pass coverage, King showed some limited ability to read the QB’s eyes and work underneath receivers. He follows the QB’s eyes underneath a receiver running a mesh route in the play below, and he stays underneath the curl at the top of the mesh, helping take away a throw over the middle of the field.
Decent zone rep from Kobe King as he drifts underneath a drag route at the mesh point. He has a middle of the field responsibility, so he isn't responsible for the player coming from the other side.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:55:53.754Z
On this play, he once again gets underneath a receiver as he follows the QB’s eyes outside.
I think this was a pretty good zone drop from Kobe King as he followed the QB's eyes to get underneath the receiver running the curl route.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:51:56.577Z
This was probably his best rep, where you can see him quickly widen and react to the quick curl throw to the TE, whom he tackles almost immediately.
This was a better job by King as a coverage defender, as he let the QB's eyes take him to the ball and made the tackle on the curl for no gain.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:50:09.251Z
King also showed some ability to get depth as a zone player. Here against Maryland, he drops from the line of scrimmage and is quick enough to turn in his zone and deter a potential throw to the speedy Tai Felton.
I thought this was a pretty effective drop vertically from the line of scrimmage by Kobe King. He gets outrun a step by fellow Viking Tai Felton, but he got to his landmark and would have been underneath any throw in his direction.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:32:02.379Z
Still, I don’t think King has the speed you want from a true coverage linebacker. On this play, he’s asked to be the pole runner in Tampa 2, one of the more difficult assignments for a linebacker, but one the Vikings will consistently ask their LBs to do. He clearly gets outrun down the field by UCLA’s slot WR.
Here's an example of Kobe King running the pole in Tampa 2. He lets the opposing slot receiver get a step on him deep.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:50:46.345Z
Beyond that, King is a very raw coverage player. Like with misdirection in the run game, he’s often duped by play fakes. Here, West Virginia’s play action draws him forward on the play below, and the QB throws the ball right over his head to the TE. King’s teammate makes a great hit and knocks the ball loose, but this should probably be a reception allowed by King.
Kobe King got pulled out of position on this play fake, was unable to get depth, and the QB was able to deliver the ball over him to the TE. A different defender making a hit caused an incompletion, but King did not execute his responsibility on this play.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:59:10.449Z
King struggles to read the route concepts in front of him. UCLA is running a difficult to parse 4×1 concept on this fourth down. King takes multiple shuffle steps getting deep before recognizing that the player he’s responsible for, the TE, has run a curl route at the sticks. King is very late to drive on the ball, and the TE gets an easy first down.
Kobe King had a delay in reading out this zone concept, where he should have driven on the curl route more quickly. It is a difficult to defend 4×1 concept, but he could be in position. Instead UCLA converts the 4th down. King was unable to make the tackle to boot.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-22T00:49:28.849Z
I think King needs to develop his understanding of route concepts and how to match with them in zone coverage. King is the hole player in the play below, but he has no threat to his right. On his left, the TE is running a stick route that breaks outside. Instead of staying in the middle of the field, I’d like to see King lean towards that route, so he’s in position to make a tackle if the ball is thrown that way.
On this play, Kobe King has the TE running a stick route, with no threat coming from the other side of the field. I'd like to see him widen and track that route as the hole player. I think he has very limited awareness in coverage.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:38:09.739Z
This showed up on a different play where Maryland checked down, and King was stuck in the middle of the field. That left him late to get to the pass catcher, and the play resulted in a first down.
As the hole player, Kobe King was not able to anticipate this checkdown to his right. This left the receiver enough room to pick up the first down after the catch.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:37:04.116Z
King’s feel is an issue, and the lack of lateral explosion I mentioned above in the run defense category also showed up in the passing game. On the play below, he overcommits outside and cannot quickly recover back inside to plaster himself to the receiver.
Another example of Kobe King recognizing his responsibility late. He takes a false step outside of the TE rather than to the inside, and leaves him open as he crosses the field on a mesh concept.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:21:53.665Z
To me, King doesn’t feel receivers crossing his face in coverage and struggles to catch up to them when they do. This is another example of a TE running a drag route, and King immediately loses his positioning.
Wish Kobe King had more feel here for the TE who crosses his face as he's playing zone. You can see he's surprised by the offensive player crossing in front of him, and this might have become a TD if the crossing route was thrown.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:20:48.967Z
This is the most dire example: King was pulled by the pitch fake and ended up well behind the receiver who crossed his face. You can see King stumble as he tries to turn to the left, and he easily gets outrun to the end zone by the more explosive player.
Kobe King looks very stiff as a zone player against this crossing route, and the receiver crossing his face ends up catching a TD.
— Matt Fries (@friesfootball.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T23:48:07.224Z
Athleticism
From an athletic standpoint, King’s testing does not show an elite athlete. His best test was his 10-yard split, which matches his burst coming forward and big hits against the run. But I noted multiple times where he struggled to burst laterally, and I think that shows up in his middling three-cone and short shuttle results.
King recorded an 8.02 RAS score, which is just enough to be colored green for the “elite” tier of RAS. However, when you look at the individual drills, you see that he’s merely a little above average in all of them rather than having dynamic speed, explosion, or agility.
From a long-speed perspective, I don’t have an issue with King’s 4.67-second 40-yard dash. It’s not blazing fast, and he probably shouldn’t be asked to match the speed of WRs, but the flashes of him getting to the sideline tell me he’s more than speedy enough to succeed in the NFL. The real issue will be improving his lateral movement so he’s able to get there every time, rather than just on a few highlights.
As an athlete, King is a jack of all trades, master of none. That’s fine, because he shouldn’t fail out of the NFL due to a lack of athleticism. However, he’ll need to combine his strong physicality with growth in his understanding of the game to become a well-rounded player.
summary
Kobe King is explosive coming forward against the run. His burst and ability to find the RB in the hole consistently create highlight plays. His physicality and ability to take on and disengage from blockers make him a standout defender in the box.
Unfortunately, outside of that role, King is inconsistent at best. He has highs while tracking down ball carriers to the sideline, but has also struggled to accelerate laterally and get to the sideline in time. When it comes to misdirection plays, he often gets fooled and ends up well out of position.
As a pass rusher, King’s ability to take on blocks in the run game doesn’t transfer. He consistently got blocked out of the play when rushing the passer, and his only wins came as an unblocked rusher, which is often due to blown assignments by the blocking scheme. In coverage, King could occasionally follow the QB’s eyes to the ball. Still, he failed to show a consistent understanding of route concepts and leverage, making it difficult for him to execute his assigned role.
For now, King’s best projects as a two-down thumper at the NFL level, ideally backing up Ivan Pace. Pace is another player with coverage limitations who Brian Flores has turned into a weapon in his uniquely aggressive defense. It makes sense for King to serve as an understudy to Pace, who I view as a player with a rare ability to get around and through blockers, as King works to round out his game.
Anything King is able to add on special teams, which Penn State didn’t ask him to play, will help his case to stick around the Vikings roster as he continues to learn and grow as a player.