The Ivan Pace Riddle
Ivan Pace is a good football player. In fact, one could persuasively argue that he has the capacity to become a great football player, someone to feature prominently within a team’s defense now and in the future.
Nevertheless, the Vikings are working on a bit of a riddle.
Mr. Pace is stepping into the final season of his UDFA deal. He will soon demand a large raise, one that is well-earned after shattering expectations that accompany such a modest entry into the NFL. His rookie season was fantastic and his sophomore season was solid. A step forward in 2025 could be coming, especially since the front seven in its entirety appears poised to be among the NFL’s scariest.
The Ivan Pace Riddle
Going into 2024, there was some chatter of Pace becoming the green dot linebacker. Put differently, the one who gets the play call from Brian Flores before then relaying the instructions to his teammates in the huddle.
In the end, the assignment shifted to Blake Cashman. The linebacker was new to Minnesota but had quite a bit more experience since he entered the NFL back in 2019. Cashman had long been a linebacker with ability. What was missing was health. He had a breakout season with Houston in 2023 before carrying over that (relative) health and production to Minnesota in 2024.
So, the on-field leadership was taken off of Pace’s younger shoulders and put onto Cashman’s older shoulders.
Adding onto the fascination with the Vikings’ linebacker situation is the way that Minnesota deployed its top trio of linebackers last season. Consider what the playing time and statistics looked like, at least in a basic sense:
| Player | Games | Snaps | Tackles | Sacks & TFLs | INTs & PDs |
| B. Cashman | 14 | 895 (94%) | 112 | 4.5 & 8 | 0 & 8 |
| I. Pace | 11 | 414 (59%) | 72 | 3 & 7 | 1 & 1 |
| K. Grugier-Hill | 17 | 179 (16%) | 18 | 0 & 0 | 2 & 3 |
On a very basic level, Blake Cashman has more impressive statistics than Ivan Pace. Some of that is a simple byproduct of playing in three more games, creating more opportunities to shove numbers onto the stat sheet.
But then there’s the reality of each player’s portion of the pie. Mr. Cashman got onto the field for 94% of the defense’s snaps when he was available to do so. Pace was all the way down at 59%, a difference between the pair that’s sitting at 35%.
Clearly, Brian Flores trusts the free-agent add more. At least part of that is due to Cashman’s greater coverage abilities. The statistics — Cashman having 8 passes defended versus just the 1 for Pace — point toward which linebacker does better in this facet of football.
Further corroborating the idea that Cashman offers more in coverage is the PFF grading system (one that sometimes garners critiques from those inside of and outside of the league).
Cashman earned a 62.1 coverage grade last year, resulting in a 27th overall placement out of the 78 who qualified for consideration. Meanwhile, Pace saw his coverage grade sitting at 29.3, resulting in a 78th placement out of 78.
One wonders if veteran pickup Eric Wilson — who earned a 59.1 coverage grade, good for 32nd overall — will eat into Pace’s defensive snaps. Flores, at times, could be interested having a pair of off-ball ‘backers who have some tidier coverage capacity.
Ivan Pace isn’t the world’s best linebacker when it comes to covering a pass catcher. Where Ivan Pace proves to be excellent is when he gets to come forward as both a blitzer and as someone who can shoot through blockers to take down a ball carrier.
In his NFL career, Pace has blitzed a whopping 118 times. His plays behind the line of scrimmage include 5.5 sacks, 16 QB hits, 21 pressures, and 9 tackles for loss.
Step back and slide into a too-simple summary of what a team is getting in Ivan Pace Jr.
The 24-year-old linebacker is an aggressive, attacking player who won’t ever allow anyone to believe he suffers from being too shy, passive, or disinterested in football’s physicality. Instead, he’ll quickly jump off the screen as someone who is at his best when he’s allowed to do what every linebacker should love to do: fly forward to make a tackle.
He is, in short, an imperfect linebacker who is nevertheless a promising linebacker. Not a fit for every team, no, but someone who is better than most NFL linebackers and who deserves a hearty raise in 2026. Whether the Vikings can afford to offer up the funds for that raise remains a riddle.
Ivan Pace Jr. is listed at 5’10” and 231 pounds. He carries a $1,036,668 cap charge into 2025, representing one of the best bargains on the team.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference, PFF, and Over the Cap helped with this piece.
