Keith Millard to announce Vikings’ second round pick

Over the past few years, one of the cooler things that the National Football League has done on draft weekend is get former players from the 32 NFL teams to announce the picks for the second round. This coming NFL Draft will be no different, and the representative from the Minnesota Vikings is a darn good one.

Former Vikings’ defensive tackle Keith Millard has announced, via the Twitters, that he will be announcing the Vikings’ second round choice next Friday in Dallas. . .assuming that Rick Spielman hasn’t traded it away, I mean.

Millard played one season in the USFL for the Jacksonville Bulls before making his way to Minnesota, and collected 21.5 sacks in his first two seasons. In 1989, he set a record that still stands for sacks by a defensive tackle, as he picked up 18. . .eighteen. . .sacks from the defensive tackle position that season. (What’s scarier is that he was second in sacks on his own team, as Chris Doleman racked up 21 that year.) That was good enough to get Millard the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year Award for the 1989 season.

Unfortunately, it was all downhill for Millard after that. He suffered an awful knee injury just four games into the 1990 season, and missed the entire 1991 season as well. He never played again for the Vikings, as he had stops in Green Bay, Seattle, and Philadelphia during the 1992 and 1993 seasons before calling it a career. But man. . .that guy was on his way to becoming a freaking legend before the injury.

Congratulations to Keith Millard on getting the honor of announcing one of the newest members of the Minnesota Vikings this coming NFL Draft weekend.