A Minnesota Homecoming for Todd Downing
Jay Azizi
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This week in Eden Prairie, Winter Park will see the return of one of its own local coaching products. Since the departure of offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, the Minnesota Vikings continue to retool their offensive coaching Staff under the leadership of Mike Zimmer and General Manager Rick Spielman. Last week,the team announced the hiring of 37-year old Eden Prairie native Todd Downing as Senior Offensive Assistant under new Offensive Coordinator, John DeFilippo. Downing is now coming back full circle after a long journey and returns to his Minnesota roots as a former graduate of Eden Prairie High School.
The Eden Prairie native has an extensive coaching resume dating back to 1999-2000 during his time attending the University of Minnesota. While studying at the UofM, he was working as an assistant coach for the Eden Prairie Eagles varsity football team under head coach Mike Grant and assistant coach Dan Hennen. It was during the 1999 season in when Downing helped guide the perennial powerhouse Eagles to a class 5A state title. The Eagles football team has its own ties to the Vikings franchise, with head coach Mike Grant being the son of legendary hall of fame coach Bud Grant. Interestingly, Todd Downing also played Quarterback from 2000-2002 for the Minnesota Maulers, a semi-pro football team at the time.
We recently caught up with Former Eagles’ offensive line coach of 24 years, Dan Hennen, and it was clear that Downing was focused at an early age on Coaching Football. According to Hennen, one could see early on how much Todd loved coaching during his tenure there. Here’s an exerpt from the recently retired Dan Hennen on Downing’s early coaching days.
“He was always coming up with new offensive schemes and ideas to incorporate into his coaching. After leaving EPHS, he went to the Vikings to help them out doing anything they needed that led to his path towards becoming an NFL coach. His hard work and perseverance led to a great coaching career and you could tell he was going to go a long way in coaching. Todd was always willing to do the work of coaching and not just the X’s and O’s. He was willing to do the extra things like sorting equipment to help out the team and is probably a huge reason why he is where he is today!”
Downing used his time at EPHS as a building block to help spring him into his coaching career and accepted a Vikings Public Relations Internship position in 2001. During his initial tenure with the Vikings that lasted from 2001-2005, his job titles ranged from football systems analyst to offensive quality control coach. Then from 2006 through 2014, the Minnesota native had stints working for several different teams while he worked his way up the NFL coaching ladder. These teams included the St. Louis Rams, Detroit Lions and Buffalo Bills. During this time, Downing began zeroing in on becoming a quarterbacks coach and gained valuable experience in working with players like Matthew Stafford from 2011-2013 in what were extremely productive seasons for the quarterback.
However, Downing’s most notable coaching break to date came in 2015-2016, when he was hired by the Oakland Raiders. In 2015, he was the quarterbacks coach and was widely praised for helping Derek Carr become the first Raiders quarterback to be selected to the Pro Bowl since 2002. Notably, in January 2015, he was named Quarterbacks Coach of the Year by Pro Football Focus. Finally, early in 2016 his big break came as the Raiders named him their new offensive coordinator after his excellent work with the young Carr. Going into the 2017 Season, there were high expectations for the Oakland Raiders which had many talking about a potential Super Bowl Run. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned and the Raiders finished with a very disappointing 6-10 record during the 2017 campaign. However, what many did not realize was that Derek Carr played through small fractures in his back in 2017 and it clearly hindered his performance. There was plenty of blame to go around in Oakland in 2017 for the team’s misfortunes including a porous defense among other weaknesses. In the end, many of their offensive struggles were unfairly pinned on Downing and he was not retained by John Gruden’s incoming Coaching Staff for 2018.
But as the old saying goes, everything happens for a reason. Fast forward to January 2018. Pat Shurmur accepts the head coaching job with the New York Giants, leaving a gaping hole at the offensive coordinator position for the talent-laden and surging Vikings. Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman fly to Philadelphia and get their guy John DeFilippo and name him Offensive Coordinator the same day. DeFilippo was also the quarterbacks coach for the Raiders from 2012-2014, and it’s no coincidence that Downing drew his attention along with Vikings Brass. So, this past week the hometown kid from Eden Prairie circled the wagons, came home, and was named senior offensive assistant for the Minnesota Vikings.
Vikings fans should be excited that the team was able to bring in a coach with as much experience as Downing has, including his time as an offensive coordinator in 2017. Viking Nation, Todd Downing has officially come home, and we’re all excited he’s back in purple where he belongs!