Kyle Rudolph named Vikings’ Walter Payton Man of the Year

On Thursday, all 32 NFL teams announced their nominees for this year’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. The nominee for the Minnesota Vikings is a guy that has been around for a while and has really made a name for himself with his deeds in the Twin Cities community.

The Vikings have nominated tight end Kyle Rudolph for this year’s award. For being his team’s nominee, the league will donate $50,000 to the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital, as well as $50,000 in Rudolph’s name to the league’s Character Playbook initiative.

Rudolph, who sort of took up the banner for the Children’s Hospital from long-time Vikings’ center John Sullivan, has already donated $250,000 to the facility, and he and his family have donated a lot of their time to the hospital as well.

As his team’s nominee, Rudolph is now in the running for the league-wide award, a distinction that brings with it an extra $500,000 in charitable donations. $250,000 would go to the winner’s preferred charity, while the other $250,000 would go to the Character Playbook program. There will be three finalists named for the award as well, and the two finalists that do not win will each get $100,000 donated to their preferred charity and $100,000 to the Character Playbook initiative.

Congratulations to Kyle Rudolph on being named the Vikings’ Walter Payton Man of the Year for 2017, and here’s hoping that he can somehow bring home the big prize, which will be announced at the NFL Honors award show the day before Super Bowl LII.