Meet Grant Udinski, the most interesting man on the Vikings coaching staff

The man who's become one of the Vikings' most important coaches is, quite often, the man who can't be found.

Grant Udinski is on some faraway practice field, doing extra work with a quarterback, when Kevin O'Connell gestures over reporters' shoulders to point him out in a news conference. Long after players and coaches had left on Fridays last November, Udinski stayed on the Vikings' indoor field, for cram sessions with Jaren Hall and Joshua Dobbs that sometimes lasted six hours.

To J.J. McCarthy's frequent 11:30 p.m. questions about the Vikings offense this spring, offensive coordinator Wes Phillips simply responded, "Text Grant." Udinski added McCarthy to the small group of people whose texts break through the do-not-disturb settings on his phone. O'Connell gets the same priority, two years after Udinski, then the coach's personal assistant, forgot to give him the dates for a Rocky Mountain hiking trip and a question from O'Connell was lost in spotty cell service, leading to dozens of texts and voicemails making sure he was OK.

"When I say he's all football, all the time, I mean it — if he's not hiking a mountain in Colorado," O'Connell said. "And he's not staying in the most luxurious accommodations. He's sleeping on the side of a mountain somewhere. I mean, if we could ever do a day in the life of him when he's not doing football, it would be much more exciting than when he is."

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Since hiring Udinski in 2022, O'Connell has promoted him twice. This year, the 28-year-old's official title is "assistant offensive coordinator/assistant quarterbacks coach." His unofficial roles include: mentor to McCarthy; post-practice pass rusher or receiver for Sam Darnold; advance scout and practice lieutenant for Phillips; complement to QB coach Josh McCown; "Crazy Grant" to O'Connell's kids; confidant, protégé and occasional comedic target for O'Connell.

Udinski recalls plays with such specificity, McCarthy is convinced he must have a photographic memory. McCown watches Udinski lead a presentation to the team's quarterbacks and sees a young O'Connell.

"It reminds me a ton of Kevin, when I had him as a quarterbacks coach [in 2015 with the Browns]," said McCown, a former NFL quarterback. "You could tell immediately, with his presence and intellect, he was going to be a really good coach. That's definitely what I can feel from Grant."

O'Connell came up with a cadre of fast-tracked coaches under Sean McVay in Los Angeles. He thinks within a few years, Udinski could be an offensive coordinator or even a head coach. "It would not surprise me if he's on a pretty skyrocketed timeline," O'Connell said. He jokes with Udinski, "When I'm working for you years from now, please go easy on me, no matter how I treat you right now."

Effusive praise and good-natured grief are part of a package deal from O'Connell, often to the people he holds in high esteem. "He's as unique of a guy as I've ever been around," the coach said of Udinski, "and I care for him tremendously."

Udinski meets all of it with the same bashful smile, grateful he can lose himself in football most of the year and on a fjord in the summer.

"When it's something you love doing, and there's no, 'Well, I'm going to have this Plan B or this other plan' — when you know, 'This is what I'm going to do,' it makes it a heck of a lot easier," Udinski said.

A mind focused on football

Udinski played tight end at Davidson, before switching to defensive end at Towson and earning first-team academic All-America honors in 2018, when he had a 3.94 undergraduate GPA and a 4.0 in graduate school.

After Udinski's one season as a graduate assistant for Matt Rhule at Baylor, Rhule brought him along to the Carolina Panthers in 2020. Vikings tight ends coach Brian Angelichio, who had worked with Udinski in Carolina, recommended him to O'Connell in 2022. Assistant head coach Mike Pettine, who went to high school with Udinski's parents in Doylestown, Pa., and invited the Udinskis to training camp practices when he was the Jets' defensive coordinator, vouched for Udinski as O'Connell searched for a chief of staff who also knew some football.

Interviewing Udinski, O'Connell said, was like "interviewing a guy who could build a car from scratch for a job at a car wash.

"He's got such an unbelievable understanding, from his background on offense and defense, and his sheer football stamina is something I really admire. I joke with him all the time, 'Nobody loves football like you, man.' His mind never really wanders from it."

When Udinski first offered to prepare advance scouting reports on opponents, Phillips obliged with some skepticism. "You say, 'OK, I've seen a lot of those over my career,' " he said. "And then he's hitting just about everything we want to know, before we've even put eyes on the tape: Man coverage tells, blitz tells, all these things that are so valuable to get a jump on a team. I said, 'Wow. This guy's really good.' "

It quickly became clear that even at 26, Udinski was ready for more than administrative work. Phillips delegated walk-through blitz periods to him, asking him to cross-check a quarterback's read progression against a particular pressure. When Kirk Cousins' torn Achilles tendon had the Vikings scrambling to get Hall, then Dobbs, ready to face the Falcons last November, the Vikings trusted Udinski to lead the Friday simulated game Dobbs wanted, knowing he had the time and acumen to handle it.

O'Connell paired him with McCown on college visits this spring, so the two could bond through hours in a rental car. McCown marveled at the depth Udinski brought to prospect meetings, explaining how a Vikings passing concept had evolved over three years. As they talked, McCown learned how much Udinski cared.

"I mean, it's right there," he said, pointing to Udinski on a back field with quarterbacks on a windy June afternoon following minicamp. "When something happens, you feel it like a player, maybe more so, as a coach. You can tell he feels that. He's like, 'Ah, I should have helped him be more prepared.' Even when [you say], 'No, you did all you could,' he owns it."

He's also a kindred spirit for their rookie quarterback.

McCarthy remembers Udinski as a "calming presence" during his pro day, who told him to make time to enjoy his final moments with Michigan teammates after his workout. "Even though he wasn't coaching me, he was coaching me," McCarthy said. "He just had that humility and comfort about him."

Their communication this spring was so frequent that McCarthy said he sensed Udinski was "a little disheartened when I didn't give him that 11:30 p.m. phone call." They sit together in meetings, both furiously typing notes into Google spreadsheets. Now that McCarthy can attend practices again following knee surgery, Udinski drills him on reciting play calls like he's the starter.

"I feel like that's where true intelligence, true wisdom lies: making complex concepts simple," McCarthy said. "You wouldn't know he's one of the smartest in the room. That's something I really appreciate about him."

McCarthy stayed in the Twin Cities all summer to continue preparing for his rookie year. The only time Udinski told him he'd be unavailable was during a 10-day trip through Scandinavia.

"The guy's the most interesting man in the world," McCarthy said. "He should be on a Dos Equis commercial."

Going off the grid

Conversations about Udinski around the TCO Performance Center generally follow one of two threads: Udinski the coach and Udinski the character.

Before meeting with Phillips in July, O'Connell suggested they call Udinski in case he'd returned from his trip. Udinski was on the Russian island of Kotlin, off the coast of Finland, when he saw the call.

"I go, 'I cannot believe you answered,' " O'Connell said. "He said, 'I can't believe my phone rang.' "

It was the first time they'd actually talked during one of his trips, O'Connell said. Udinski suspected it was mostly a gag.

"He was basically calling to rub it in my face they were discussing football without me," Udinski said with a laugh. "Now, he did check in, but he wasn't calling to see if I'm alive or anything. He was calling to let me know I'm missing all this fun stuff."

The trip to Scandinavia followed an excursion to the Alps in 2023. Udinski travels mostly solo, camping in national or regional parks, or booking mountain huts in remote areas. Some only accept cash; Udinski had run out of Swedish krona at one stop and had to talk his hosts into accepting American dollars. He struggled to find his hostel in one remote section of Norway, and when he arrived, he was greeted by a family that spoke no English.

"I had to learn a little [Norwegian] just to get by," he said. "They were super nice and hospitable. It was awesome. But it was just kind of bizarre, like, 'Man, you guys trust some stranger from the U.S. to stay in your house?' "

These days, O'Connell reacts to the trips mostly with bemusement. Asked what he thought when he was unable to reach Udinski for days, he paused for several seconds before saying, "It depends which time you're talking about."

Two years ago, Udinski's administrative role required him to be available remotely after minicamp. He drove to Colorado for a five-day hike; O'Connell tried getting him on a Zoom call to discuss training camp schedules, to no avail.

"So the next day I just said, 'Hey, man, you OK? Thinking about you,' " O'Connell said. "Next day, 'I know you're on the side of a mountain somewhere. I just want to make sure you didn't get eaten by a bear.'"

By the time his phone regained service, "I think I had 30 missed texts from 20 different people," Udinski said. "Of course, a couple from him. Then, I scramble and try to explain everything. He's like, 'Well, you've got to tell somebody if you're just going to go off the grid.' So now, if I go off the grid, I let somebody know."

The prank phone call this summer, in other words, might have been penance for whatever spike Udinski caused to O'Connell's blood pressure two years ago.

"I couldn't imagine myself at his age, crossing the pond, staying at hostels," Phillips said. "If you break your ankle or something, nobody can find you; you've got no service. … But I would not be surprised if he lit a fire at night and was watching film."

It's why Udinski's bosses shake their heads and smile about his summer trips. They know even when he's off the grid, his mind rarely is off the gridiron.

"I try to make sure there's no excuse for people to go, 'Well, you're only 28,' " Udinski said. "It's that urgency to constantly be prepared and go above and beyond."

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