How Brandon Powell went from running back to trusted receiver
EAGAN — If you go hunting for scouting reports on Brandon Powell when he was coming out of college, you won’t be able to find many. Not that it was a massive oversight — his specs didn’t exactly scream “long NFL career.” Powell is 5-foot-8ish, 180ish pounds with about a 4.6 40-yard dash and his career high in total yards for a season at Florida was 421. Justin Jefferson’s 2019 season at LSU outgained Powell’s entire college career by around 200 yards.
When he committed to Florida in 2014, Powell joined the Gators as a running back. He spent his first season in the backfield but was given a wide receiver title in his sophomore season and put together three effective seasons with 29, 45 and 42 receptions, mostly on quick game.
Now six years after his final college season, Powell is ready to step into a WR3 role with Jefferson out at least four weeks on injured reserve.
The journeyman, who has bounced around as mostly a punt returner with the Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins and Los Angeles Rams, turned a corner as a wide receiver during training camp with the Vikings and has earned the confidence of the coaching staff to step into a role with Jefferson sidelined.
“It’s still new for me because all my life I was a running back,” Powell said on Thursday. “I got to to college and they just threw me at slot receiver to run option routes but I always already doing that out of the backfield.”
It wasn’t until last year with Los Angeles that he started working with receivers coach Eric Yarber on the details of playing the position. He focused on releases from the line of scrimmage and his breaks at the top of routes and ultimately finished 2022 with 24 receptions, which topped his total from 2018-2021.
When Powell signed with the Vikings, it appeared he was coming simply to compete for the punt returner job against Jalen Reagor but he quickly emerged as a consistent target throughout training camp.
“After training camp I don’t think there was any question in anyone’s mind that he could go in and be a playmaker,” offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said. “We got him in-season in LA to be our punt returner and he made a big difference in that phase for us and we knew his playmaking ability and we knew what he could do with the ball in his hands and that experience last year of being able to learn their system and play receiver more. He still got some carries in the Deebo Samuel type stuff. He’s a natural at doing that from his experience. Everyone by the end of training camp [thought] he had a great camp and there was no question he was going to be on this football team as a receiver.”
Powell credits receivers coach Keenan McCardell with building upon what he learned in Los Angeles — which is cool for him his dad because was a McCardell fan back in the Jacksonville and Tampa Bay days.
“Coach Keenan [McCardell] is a great receivers coach,” Powell said. “He played for a long time. When I first got here he was all about feet. He was preaching everything about feet. Being a running back you need that but it was learning the release part, the routes. Coming here helped me a lot being around coach Keenan.”
The consistent theme with Vikings coaches when it comes to Powell is that he can make people miss when he has the ball in his hands. Over his career the former Gator has run 21 times for 100 yards and averages 9.0 yards per punt return since 2021.
“I just tell myself, ‘just play football, it’s like street football,’” Powell said. “We have the best receiver in the game [Justin Jefferson] and everybody can’t do what he does so you just try to get open, catch the ball, turn into a running back and that’s my whole mindset whether it’s a punt returner or getting a jet sweep. Catch the ball, now it’s just football. Make somebody miss and make a play. That’s how I’ve been able to last this long at receiver.”
Special teams coordinator Matt Daniels said that Powell’s weekly preparation has stood out to him. Last week when he was called upon to come in the game after Jefferson got hurt, Powell made four catches for 43 yards and had a 9-yard run.
“He’s tough, he’s physical, he finds wants to get open and when the ball is thrown to him he catches it,” Daniels said. “With that comes trust and a relationship with him and Kirk that they are building.”
Powell is part of a group effort to replace Jefferson. The superstar receiver makes up more than one-third of Kirk Cousins’ total passing production, meaning that one player is unlikely to be able to make up all that ground by himself. The decision to sign Powell this offseason and help him improve his receiving skills may end up paying dividends.
“I think it’s a great opportunity,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said. “You saw it later in the game the other day, a guy like Brandon Powell coming in the game, K.J [Osborn], and clearly Jordan Addison’s having a significant impact on our offense. Can we get T.J. [Hockenson] going and Josh Oliver going on some of those early downs? Then continue to build plans where all of those guys, all five eligibles feel like they can come to life and Kirk [Cousins] is going to find the open guy and move the team.”
