Before making the Vikings roster this week, receiver Brandon Zylstra declared to his mother, Marcia, that his peewee football career was just a first step toward playing on Sundays.
“One day he told me, ‘I’m going to be a professional football player someday,’ ” Marcia Zylstra recalled. “I said, ‘Yep, and that’s fine, but you probably should pick something else to do.’ He said, ‘Mom, you shouldn’t say that to me.’ Well look [at] it now.”
Long before his promotion to Vikings scout in June, Jake Essler was in the crowd of kids at training camp in Mankato seeking autographs when his father, Dan, made his own prediction.