King looked the part on the first preseason snap of his pro career on defense. Taking his stance to defend a first-and-10 at Houston's 23 on Aug. 9 at U.S. Bank Stadium, King squared his shoulders to the offense with his forearms resting idle on his thigh pads, locked into his reads and reacted to a run play away from him. King didn't waste a single step. He scraped downhill, thumped 310-pound lineman Juice Scruggs, shed the block, wedged his body through a small crease and wrapped up Woody Marks.
It was the embodiment of everything vocalized by Vikings brass after selecting King with the 201st pick.
"A lot of times in football we make it harder than it is," General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said at the conclusion of the draft. "But it's a meat-and-potatoes game in some positions, and linebacker is one of them."
"I watched him, and I was like, 'There's no way he'll be there when this projection says he will be,' " the former Wall Street trader added, recalling a draft simulation exercise by his staff. "Sometimes you get lucky. But you pick up the phone and you talk to somebody, and you hear it in their voice that they also don't think they should have been there. That gets you pretty fired up to bring them over to Minnesota."
The defining trait of King's game, and what pops into Brian Flores' brain, is physicality.
"He's a downhill linebacker, kind of an old school 'backer – big, physical," the Vikings Defensive Coordinator said Tuesday. "But he's still learning. He's still getting better as a rusher and in coverage. But all the young players are still learning, and we've seen improvement in all those areas, and we just need to continue to improve and improve and improve. I think he's somebody who's got a bright future."
King said he models his game ("How I should be playing"), first and foremost, after Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis. He also listed active inside linebackers Lavonte David, Roquan Smith and Devin White as inspiration of "loud, infectious leaders" that rule the middle with a commanding presence.
"\[Lewis\] is my favorite linebacker of all-time," King said. "I'm planning to get to that level in my career down the line, but it definitely starts now. I've got to dial into the playbook, dial into the scheme, really master it, and understand it to a different extent to where I can be a coach on the field for those guys."