Evans, Booth Jr. have high hopes after shortened rookie seasons

EAGAN — Historically speaking, cornerback is a very difficult position to play for rookies. For Minnesota Vikings 2022 rookie corners Andrew Booth Jr. and Akayleb Evans, it was an especially rocky ride because their debut seasons were derailed by injuries.

In total, Booth Jr. and Evans combined for just 267 snaps and allowed 28 completions on 37 targets for 394 yards, one touchdown and zero interceptions (per PFF). Booth Jr. suffered a non-contact knee injury in Week 10 vs. Buffalo that required surgery and kept him out for the entire season. Evans was placed in concussion protocol three times and despite being cleared at the end of the year the Vikings chose to play safely with his future and keep him sidelined.

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Cornerback is a resilience position and both second-year corners are spending their offseason preparing to make a big jump from their tumultuous rookie campaigns.

En route to recovery Booth Jr. is trying to take lessons away from the injuries he suffered in his first year and how to avoid them going forward.

“It was a big learning process,” Booth Jr. said. “Learning how to become a pro was what rookie year was about. Dealt with a lot of injuries, learning how to be a pro in taking care of your body.”

He added…

“It’s work that has to be done outside of this facility even if I’m in the training room and I live there, there’s work I have to do at home or go other places to get that extra treatment. They say our bodies are like Ferraris, you gotta treat it a certain way.”

The second-round pick from Clemson showed flashes early in training camp but missed time in camp and toward the beginning of the season before having his season come to an abrupt halt midway through.

That doesn’t mean he took nothing away from brief on-field appearances in 2022. Booth Jr. discovered that NFL receivers have a lot more to offer than the college players he tracked effectively.

“It’s mental,” Booth Jr. said. “I learned that these [receivers] have big bags, a big arsenal so I have to add to mine and perfect my craft.”

Booth Jr. will have to focus on the mental side until training camp as he’s expected to be limited in OTAs and minicamp.

Evans is putting his offseason focus into learning how to tackle in a way that reduces the risk of getting another concussion. At the end of last season he talked with defensive backs coach Daronte Jones and Patrick Peterson about becoming a more technical tackler rather than treating himself as a missile.

“My mindset when I tackle is always to be aggressive but not every tackle has to be a kill shot so keep my head out of it,” Evans said.

He’s getting a new fitted helmet and wearing a Q-Collar, which claims to reduce the impact sub-concussive hits.

The fourth-rounder noted that it was important that he didn’t become isolated after his injuries. He went to meetings and made sure to interact with his teammates to stay positive and continue to grow in any way he could.

“You can still learn when you’re hurt, right?” he said.

Evans also worked on himself after his first year ended, saying that he wanted to improve his mental state. He spent time around family rather than getting too caught up on social media.

“Everybody knows I’m active on Twitter and I love Twitter so much but I had to realize that a lot of people that I’m interacting with aren’t in my shoes…realizing the social media world isn’t real,” Evans said.

With Peterson in Pittsburgh and Cam Dantzler in Washington and the Vikings only adding one veteran corner in Byron Murphy Jr., the opportunity stands in front of both players to bounce back from challenging first seasons to starting. That won’t just mean staying healthy though. They will have to master new defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ defense, which often asks defensive backs to line up in different spots.

“He expects all of us to know every position in the back seven because it can change based on the play call and different variations of what we do, that’s what he expects, growing in the overall game and the mental aspect,” Booth Jr. said.

“You have to know more ball,” Booth Jr. said.

Neither Booth Jr. or Evans played safety or slot in college so they will have some competition with incoming corners from the draft in Mekhi Blackmon and Jay Ward, both of whom were talked about as potentially versatile by Vikings brass.

“You never know where you might end up,” Evans said. “So you have to be able to understand corner, safety, nickel to be versatile and I like that because it expands you as a football player.”

Evans talked about how much different the offseason has been from last year when he was doing the Senior Bowl, Combine and pre-draft workouts as opposed to working on his game all year and said that if he had advice for the new group of rookies it would be to “stay the course.” That sounds like what Booth Jr. and Evans will each have to do this year — along with staying healthy — in order to make a major impact on the Vikings’ overhauled secondary.