Vikings to make Ed Donatell hire official next week

We know that the Minnesota Vikings won’t be making their new head coach hiring official until after this Sunday’s Super Bowl, and now it sounds like they’ll have a defensive coordinator hiring to announce at around the same time.

According to Ben Goessling of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Vikings will officially be hiring former Denver Broncos defensive coordinator Ed Donatell next week for the same position on Kevin O’Connell’s staff.

We went over the resume that the 65-year old Donatell brings to the table a couple of days ago. He has a total of 42 years of coaching experience, 31 of which have been at the NFL level. His expertise comes from coaching the secondary, and given the potential state of that unit for the Vikings heading into next season, he’s going to have a big task ahead of him.

This past season, the Broncos’ defense was very good despite having traded Von Miller away in midseason. They were third in the league in scoring defense, allowing just 18.9 points/game, and were eighth in yards allowed. The fact that the Broncos had a record of just 7-10 this season certainly wasn’t because of Donatell’s side of the football, from all appearances.

Donatell’s hiring could be the start of the Vikings shifting to more of a 3-4 defensive look, as that’s the sort of scheme he’s been a part of frequently over the course of his career. It’s going to require quite a bit of transition from the Vikings if that’s the case, but the defense was going to undergo a lot of changes anyway.

Are you excited to see Ed Donatell come in and take over the defense in Minnesota, folks?