Vikings Hire Rams' Tyler Williams as Executive Director of Player Health and Performance

Minnesota also added Grant Udinski as an assistant coach and signed DT T.Y. McGill.

The Vikings didn't take long to find their replacement for recently-fired head athletic trainer Eric Sugarman. They've hired Tyler Williams from the Rams as their executive director of player health and performance, the team announced on Wednesday afternoon.

Williams has been with the Rams for the past 15 seasons, first in St. Louis and then in Los Angeles. He was most recently LA's director of sports science/assistant athletic trainer under VP of sports medicine and performance Reggie Scott. Williams was named the assistant athletic trainer of the year after the 2020 season. Now he follows Kevin O'Connell to Minnesota.

"Tyler led the cutting-edge sports science efforts with the Rams that played a huge role in the success there," O’Connell said in a statement. "He is extremely bright and a great leader. I’m excited about the positive impact he will make for the Minnesota Vikings."

This seems like a strong hire for the Vikings. Williams has impressive credentials and has been part of a Rams organization that has seemingly done a great job avoiding injuries in recent years. Maybe some of that can be attributed to sports science and not simply luck. Also of note is that Rams running back Cam Akers made a remarkably quick recovery from an Achilles tear last season.

For prior seasons, Rams' rank in adjusted games lost (Football Outsiders):

2020: No. 2 healthiest team
2019: No. 10
2018: No. 4
2017: No. 1

— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) February 10, 2022

Williams joins assistant coaches Wes Phillips (offensive coordinator) and Chris O'Hara (quarterbacks) in following O'Connell to Minnesota after the Rams' Super Bowl victory.

The Vikings also made two other moves on Wednesday:

• Grant Udinski was hired to O'Connell's staff as Assistant to the Head Coach/Special Projects. O'Connell coached special projects for the 49ers in 2016, while Kevin Stefanski was once the assistant to the head coach in Minnesota. Udinski "will assist O’Connell on the day-to-day coaching operations across the organization and lead efforts on special projects," per the team. He spent the past two seasons with the Panthers.
• Defensive tackle T.Y. McGill was signed in what is officially the first roster move of the Kwesi Adofo-Mensah era. McGill, a journeyman who was originally an undrafted free agent out of NC State in 2015, was on the Vikings' practice squad for the final two months of last season. He appeared in the final two games of the year.

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