When the Minnesota VIkings traded a 2nd-Round pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars for EDGE rusher Yannick Ngakoue late in the summer of 2020, the excitement was palpable. Ngakoue, a sack merchant from the AFC, was supposed to pair with Danielle Hunter, creating one of the NFL’s most hectic pass-rushing forces.
That never happened.
Hunter was lost for the entirety of the 2020 NFL season to a neck injury. Meanwhile, Ngakoue patched together a few sacks amid the Vikings 1-5 start to the pandemic season but was traded to the Baltimore Ravens during the Week 7 bye. Put bluntly, Ngakoue — for some reason or another — did not fit with the Vikings defense.