Matthew Coller: Bo Richter bet on himself, now he's a Vikings special teams ace

The undrafted free agent from Air Force decided to chase the NFL. Now he's becoming an important member of the special teams unit.

Vikings special teams ace Bo Richter (98). / Minnesota Viking

EAGAN — Bo Richter is from Naperville, Illinois, which is only 40 minutes from Soldier Field in Chicago but he has never been to a Bears game. When he walks onto the field on Sunday with a throng of family and friends in the stands, it will be the first time he’s ever been inside the stadium.

He has played in some cool places before including Lambeau Field in Green Bay in his second career game but this one is different. There is a lot of sweat, patience and belief behind this one. During warm-ups he’s going to need a minute to soak in the fact that he’s actually there and he’s actually playing in the NFL. A year ago, he wasn’t sure that he should even try to play professionally. Now he’s about to chase around Bears kick returners on the same field where Devin Hester became a legend.

Richter, undrafted free agent outside linebacker from Air Force, is emerging as a key special teams player for the Minnesota Vikings. Last week against the Tennessee Titans, he made two tackles, several key blocks and impressed special teams coordinator Matt Daniels and veteran teammates with his effort.

“I was watching the tape from last week and I was like, ‘dang, Bo balled out,’” fullback and special teams leader CJ Ham said.

Richter has played 119 special teams snaps in five different areas of special teams and has the team’s second highest PFF grade among ‘teamers. He is on a trajectory already that we have seen many players follow over the years to success on offense or defense including Ham and safety Josh Metellus.

How did he get here? Out of an impressive 2024 undrafted free agent class, why is he the one seeing playing time? What does his play mean for the most underappreciated unit on the field? What does his future in purple hold?

“I had to bet on myself”

As a high school sophomore, Richter decided that he wasn’t going to continue playing basketball anymore. Instead he was going to put his athletic focus into football. That would be normal except for the fact he hadn’t played football since he was in peewee. But he had started to get the sense from his 6-foot-2 frame that his chances at a Division-I scholarship were going to be limited on the basketball court. He figured that his natural athleticism might give him a shot at doing that through football.

He only realized when he got out onto the field as an off-ball linebacker how much he had missed between peewee and varsity.

“I didn’t really know what was going on,” he said laughing.

Richter figured it out pretty quickly though, earning all-conference and all-area honors but he wasn’t exactly on the radar of college programs. Oftentimes top college players are identified well before their junior years. So he attended high school camps and received interest from some Ivy League and Patriot League universities. No Power 5 schools, outside of preferred walk-on opportunities.

When Air Force showed interest, he thought it was flattering but didn’t think it would be for him. He didn’t have any background with the military and wasn’t familiar with how service academies worked. When he received Air Force’s offer and talked with them at a showcase event about potential paths, he liked what he heard.

“What made me take that route is because it was a great balance for me of getting a good degree, playing good football — I had my sights on the worse-case scenario if this didn’t work out then I would continue my life and be set up really well with Air Force and a great degree that would help me later on,” Richter said.

Not everyone realizes, he explained, that going to a service academy doesn’t always mean becoming a military officer or getting sent overseas after graduation. In his case, he was focused on business.

“I get a lot of questions about it and people will ask, what did you do there? I tell them that I majored in business management and they’re like, there’s a school there?” Richter said. “People don’t really know about it. They think you’re all military all the time.”

Richter thought that if football didn’t take him to the pros, he would have guaranteed employment coming out of the military in an uncertain economic world for young people graduating college. He’s strategic like that.

Through his first four years at Air Force, it appeared that he was definitely going to need that degree right after college. He did not play as a freshman in 2019 and then in 2020 the Mountain West Conference canceled its season due to COVID. Richter went home for a semester and worked at a car dealership.

“I was in the service lane…basically telling people what service they needed on their cars and then passing it off to someone who knew more than me,” Richter said. “I was busing cars around…whatever they needed me to do.”

He was working 50 hours a week and then spent the rest preparing himself to get an opportunity on the field for Air Force in 2021. When he got back to school, he felt like there was a transformation.

“I was bigger, faster, stronger and I felt like the game slowed down for me,” Richter said. “I wasn’t as worried about the physical aspect, I was worried about the mental aspect. From there on, I was confident in my skillset and knew I could be a good player.”

During his 2021 and 2022 seasons there were stops and starts with injuries and he did more jobs on the field than he did at the Toyota dealership in Naperville. In 2021 he was an inside linebacker, playing in 11 games, starting two and playing 175 snaps. In 2022, he played 334 snaps between defensive end on both sides, outside linebacker on both sides and occasionally moving back to inside linebacker.

On paper through 2022, there was nothing to suggest this player would come anywhere close to the NFL. At that point there had only been seven players to appear in NFL games since 2000 from Air Force and he had a grand total of 1.5 sacks and 39 career tackles.

“I remember I told a group of people at Air Force and a group of people at home — people were asking, what are you doing after school? And I said well I’ve got this next season and I’m going to do the pro day and the NFL Draft and try to do that,” Richter said. “They laughed at me like. ‘yeah right.’ I’m like, I’m serious. They all wished the best for me but they were like, oh, you’re serious?”

Oh, he was serious. Moved solely to a pass rushing role as a senior, Richter exploded out of the gate with 2.0 sacks and 9 QB pressures in the second game of his senior season. He became a force off the edge, picking up sacks in four straight games at one point, racking up at least three pressures in eight regular season games. If he hadn’t already put his name on the map, his bowl game performance against James Madison certainly sent up flares that he might have NFL talent. Richter picked up a ridiculous 11 pressures and 3.0 sacks in a 31-21 win at the Armed Forces Bowl.

When the dust settled, he led college football in tackles for loss and had 55 QB pressures, the same number as Vikings first-round pick Dallas Turner. PFF graded him the ninth best edge rusher.

As confident as he was, Richter still wasn’t completely sure he should really go after the pros. Most college players can just give it a shot and see what happens but it doesn’t quite work that way with service academies. He had to apply to delay taking a very good job as a financial manager at a base in Eglin, Florida. One of the perks of being commissioned into the work force from Air Force is that he would get two months pay right off the bat. So pushing back his employment and passing up on the extra pay would be a sizeable sacrifice. He would have to dip into his savings to stay afloat.

Before the Armed Forces Bowl, Richter went to his defensive line coach and asked his advice. Am I good enough? Does the NFL know who I am? Should I go for this?

“I’m not one to waste my time if there’s no opportunity,” Richter said. “He’s like, ‘I think you do, let me make some calls and see if you’re on any scouts’ radars.’ All I needed was those [scouts] to know my name when he called them and they were like, ‘yeah we know who he is.’ So I was like, alright, I’ll go give it everything I got.”

“I basically had to bet on myself.”

“This guy's playing with his hair on fire.”

Richter’s uncle, former NFL quarterback Kent Graham, helped him identify an agent that would work to get his name into NFL buildings during draft season. He signed on with Spencer Armstrong, who earned his Bachelor’s from Air Force as well.

“I’m a service guy and half the teams don’t even know if I’m eligible…I needed an agent that was going to give me more, somebody who’s going to know exactly how to market me,” Richter said.

He did a good job of marketing himself as a guy who was willing to do anything, just as he had done at the Toyota dealership in Naperville or in his first two years at Air Force.

“You’re looking for any type of selling point in the draft process and I told people that I’m not a stranger to working,” he said.

When the draft wrapped up, Richter was not selected. He expected that. The Vikings signed him as an undrafted free agent.

The Vikings have made an art form out of the UDFA market recently. NFL.com posted a list of the top 287 UDFAs and nine of them signed with the Vikings. However, Richter’s name did not make the list.

Analysts missed something important about Richter: He’s a really good athlete. Really, really good. At his pro day, he ran a 4.56 40-yard dash, jumped 40 inches and did 24 reps on the bench press. According to the website Relative Athletic Score, that puts him in the 99th percentile among edge players in terms of raw athleticism. It’s a higher score than Turner or other top picks at the position Laiatu Latu, Jared Verse or Chop Robinson.

“We identified him as somebody that we wanted to bring in post draft because he’s got a really unique skill set where he can play in space but he’s still a big strong guy that can be used in different jobs in the four phases [of special teams],” head coach Kevin O’Connell said. “And we thought at some point during his time here that he would have the chance to really impact the special teams phase while he’s still growing and developing in a really deep outside linebacker room.”

Richter missed minicamp and OTAs because he injured his hamstring during that epic pro day but once he got into the dog days of training camp it became clear that something was brewing.

“At the beginning I was getting away from what I knew that I was good at, I was trying to modify and change things like, ‘this is the NFL, I can’t do this anymore.’” Richter said. “I needed to get away from that at the beginning of training camp. I needed to realize: You got here because you’re good at certain things, if you don’t do those things you’re not going to have a chance. I got in my own bag and tried to emphasize what I was good at and focus on that.”

He started to get a lot of reps in practice and then significant playing time in the preseason. In three exhibition games, he picked up six QB pressures a pair of sacks, 87 defensive snaps and 49 special teams snaps.

Richter started making an impression on the leaders of the special teams unit.

“I remember training camp, I think it was his first rep on punt return… Bo had a rep where he let his man win and, you know, it’s a rookie and his first time out there so I told him that all you have to do is stay onto his hip and lock onto him and ever since there Bo has been doing that from that day forward,” punt returner Brandon Powell said.

Richter understood that his best chance to stand out was going to be on special teams. The Vikings signed stars Andrew Van Ginkel and Jonathan Greenard in the offseason and spent their first-round pick on an outside linebacker. They also had veteran Patrick Jones and another highly-touted UDFA Gabriel Murphy.

But that was just fine with him. Richter played over 300 snaps on special teams in college. Had been been a star from the jump at Air Force, he might not have gotten that opportunity.

“You hear so many times that special teams is going to be the ticket…a lot of guys take for granted how important those reps are,” Richter said. “[Special teams coordinator Matt Daniels] does a super good job of emphasizing that you can work your pass rush moves all you want but if you can’t play special teams then you’re not going to have a chance to use them. During training camp I was making sure I was watching the special teams tape and not just the defensive tape. I put a big emphasis on that because I knew it was going to be a stepping stone.”

Daniels took notice quickly that Richter’s athleticism and mental approach was translating well to a multiple role on special teams and that was responding well to coaching.

“Being an Air Force guy, he's going to do exactly what you tell him to do,” Daniels said. “He's going to be very attentive to the details and he's going to execute at a high level.”

While he didn’t make the 53-man roster out of camp, the coaching staff elevated him from the practice squad for the maximum number of weeks early in the regular season and then signed him to the active roster on October 22.

Last Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans was his breakout game. He played a career high 22 snaps, made two tackles and won the matchup with Tennessee’s top special teamer. Richter was the talk of the special teams unit. Here’s a few reviews:

— “He locked down one of the best players from Tennessee,” Powell said. “Locked him down single-handedly on kickoff and punt. I like to see that, especially being an undrafted player myself.”

— “My favorite play of his was on the kickoff return where he had the single block one of their better players…he matched up with him and literally blocked him the entire play and the dude didn’t get off the block,” Ham said. “I saw that and said, hey, that’s big time. That’s hard to do on an island by yourself.”

— “Every week it feels like I am showing clips to the team of him making a great block, sustaining a great block,” O’Connell said. “He’s a really smart player so he understands how to use his strength and athleticism to understand angles and do his job at a really high level. He’s been really good. It’s been really good to watch Bo [Richter] do his thing.”

— “What I love the most about him is that you can match him up on bigger bodies or smaller bodies, he's strong enough and he's kind of got that mixture of speed and power,” Daniels said. “I think he probably had one of his best games just this past Sunday. I mean, one-on-one blocks. He's locking guys down. He had two tackles in the cover phases, a couple of knockdowns out there. This guy's playing with his hair on fire.”

In Richter’s return home, he won’t exactly be facing Devin Hester. The Vikings could have an advantage in Chicago on special teams. PFF grades the Bears 24th in the NFL in special teams and last week they allowed a blocked field goal to lose the game against Green Bay. Opponents have gained the fourth most punt return yards and average the 10th highest yards per kick return, which was something the Vikings used last week against the struggling Titans ‘teams unit and Richter had a key block. He may very well play a big role again in his homecoming.

He may very well play a key role for years to come, actually. Brandon Powell said that he thinks Bo Richter can be in the league for a long time on his special teams alone.

But that’s not where he wants the story to end. He’s been spending his time as part of the scout team trying to hone his craft as a pass rusher — that three-sack, 11-pressure part of his game that he showed in the bowl game.

He couldn’t be in much better position to learn the dark arts of chasing quarterbacks. Before Christian Darrisaw got hurt in Week 8, Richter would face him in practice and get feedback from the superstar left tackle. He receives a lot of feedback from the veteran stars who have dozens of sacks to their name.

“Them coaching me and watching them, I feel like I’ve added a lot of moves to my arsenal that I’ve watched them do and when I watch them do it and I try to work it and if I run into a road block then I can go ask them,” Richter said. “They are super open and you can tell they want you to thrive.”

Thriving would be a good way to describe Richter’s current state but Powell said there is something missing from his game: Trash talk.

“He’s out there locking people up, you have to [talk trash] in this league,” said Powell, who can talk with the best of them. “It’s hard to lock a dude up yourself one-on-one... I told him, ‘you gotta talk some trash.’ Bo, all he wants to do is go out there and work and he loves football. That’s why I like him, he’s all about his business.”

Even the idea of running his mouth is strategic when it comes to Richter’s approach. He had an explanation for why you won’t see him getting in anybody’s face.

“When I play people, I don’t like to talk to them. If they get me worked up, I feel like they’ve got me,” he said. “My thing is, I want everyone I’m playing at their worst. If I start talking to them and get them teed up a little bit that’s going to bring them up to their best. I want them at their worst.”

Powell is confident that by next year Richter will have improved his trash talk methods.

That’s what it’s all about for Richter: Improvement. This week against Chicago, though he will be pinching himself a bit to be playing inside his hometown stadium and franchise, he isn’t going to be distracted by the hallowed grounds.

“99% of the pressure on you is an athlete is pressure you put on you by yourself,” Richter said. “The pressure is all internal for me. From college to here, I never felt like this is too big of a stage for me.”

Maybe not, but what a stage it is for a guy who drew laughs talking about his NFL dream two years ago nearly bailed on the NFL to manage finances a year ago.