'Through the storm:' Blake Cashman is the Minnesota Vikings' maniac in the middle
He's the throwback this team needs. He was almost devoured by the NFL machine, too. (Playing for the Jets is hell.) We sit down with linebacker Blake Cashman, the Vikings' demolition man.
MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. — Blake Cashman was finished with the New York Jets.
Blake Cashman was finished with football.
The breaking point was real.
His third season in the NFL — after yet another injury sent him to injured reserve — “Angry Blake” took hold. All ecstasy this sport supplied him evaporated for good. This reeking carcass of a sports franchise has a unique ability to morph any player’s lifelong passion into hell on earth. The kid from Eden Prairie, Minn., who fell in love with the sport watching Brett Favre leap into the air after touchdown passes was now apoplectic. Nonstop injuries implanted one thought in his brain: “Fuck this. I’m done with football.”
He told friends and family alike he’d endure one more round of rehab. Only one. And the next time he got hurt — an inevitability — he was done. Day to agonizing day, he lived in a state of self-loathing. Some told him to quit feeling sorry for himself. Some tried calming him down. All words were white noise. The sport was his identity, and his identity was now shattered. Cashman didn’t think any of the other 31 teams would even want him because he hadn’t put anything valuable on film.
“I had a bad attitude,” he admits. “I was becoming this crabby person. If someone said something I didn’t like, I’d snap at them.”
Especially those in closest range: his Jets trainers and strength coaches. One day, it got heated. Due to a miscommunication with the front office, they didn’t understand he was on IR and could not return. So, they pushed. And pushed. And pushed Cashman too hard through his rehab. He did not appreciate it. His body wasn’t ready for the strain.
“And then someone said something,” Cashman says, “that questioned my work ethic and my character and I snapped.”
He shouted. He cursed. He grabbed his keys and stormed off to the exits — finished.
That was 2021.
This is 2024.
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Three years later, here’s Blake Cashman — starting middle linebacker for the marauding Minnesota Vikings — ordering a walleye entrée at The Copperfield three miles from the team facility. He’s got a brace around one pinky finger. He’s dealing with a nagging turf toe. Thick jawline. Scowling eyebrows. Popeye forearms. He’s no longer a crash-test dummy on the NFL’s fringes. He’s the psycho put on earth to pilot the league’s most psychotic defense, a scheme that cannon-blasts players at angles inconceivable to all other defensive coordinators. Most need a BAC level well north of legal limit to call the pressures Brian Flores does on the Vikings sideline.
At full strength, the Vikings boast the best defense in the NFL and it’s only possible with this 6-foot-1, 235-pound, green-dot ass kicker.
Cashman is on the short list of linebackers who still make football one of society’s last vestiges of masculinity, the type of player those who witnessed the “Purple People Eaters” a half-century ago can appreciate. As these Vikings (6-2) enter the stretch run, he’ll need to be the difference. This defense was not the same without him those two losses. Here at this restaurant, for two hours, Cashman opens up on how he got from Point A to Point B. This league devours players by the hundreds. Countless 22- and 23-year-olds we’ve never heard of are chewed up and puked out to LinkedIn. They plow through that exit door at the facility and are filled with regret and resentment for years.
But every so often, the fit is perfect. Sign with the right team at the right time, and magic happens. Championship teams are forged.
Blake Cashman exudes the confidence of a man who struck football gold.
“That’s the thing with the league,” he says. “There’s so much talent obviously. A lot of it’s just the timing and the opportunity and if they collide at the right time.”
We’re seated on a high top near the window on a gorgeous Minnesota evening. A fitting backdrop. He’s not angry anymore.
“I got through the storm,” Cashman says, “and there was sunshine on the other side.”
‘F my body’
Hours before their charter took flight for joint practices with the Cleveland Browns, players received news that should’ve extinguished their 2024 hopes and dreams. Head coach Kevin O’Connell announced that rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy would need surgery to repair his torn meniscus. Right when McCarthy was looking like everything this franchise has been missing, his season was over.
Oddly enough, the injury did not cast a pall over the Vikings in Ohio.
Instead, those two practices served as this team’s breakthrough. This Vikings defense essentially grabbed two sticks and made fire. Up to this point, Blake Cashman had only played against his own teammates.
“When we got to Cleveland,” Cashman says, “and we’re lining up, making checks, adjustments — the panic that went over the offensive line’s face and Deshaun Watson and just how flustered they looked? The stress and chaos it causes for the offense? It’s fun.”
Watson had zero clue who was blitzing, who was dropping, what coverages the Vikings were rolling into on the back end. Nothing. Zip. The fright in his eyes was one of a college student taking a final exam after blowing off the entire semester. Brian Flores describes everything pre-snap as “The Presentation.” When the play clock ticks down, all 11 players synchronize in complete orchestration to render quarterbacks uncomfortable. They may even morph into something completely different at the last split-second.
The Vikings rise this season began with Watson’s wide eyes.
Cashman never experienced anything like this before.
“You can see when that panic sets in,” he says, “that feeling of being flustered: ‘Oh God, who's coming? Who’s not?’”
It’s funny hearing Cashman describe this trip as bliss when, in truth, he broke his pinky that first practice on Aug. 14. The Vikings flew him home to surgically insert screws into that finger. He wore a splint for a while, the bone healed and then — in the third quarter of Minnesota’s London win over the New York Jets — his finger “crunched” while hand-fighting in the trenches. He re-enacts the scene here. His pinky acted like a “long lever” and… snapped. He didn’t think anything of it, finished the game and finally decided to have an X-ray administered when the finger was still throbbing five days later.
Turns out, the bone underneath those screws broke. If he didn’t have those screws in, the pinky would’ve completely broken again.
Not that he gives a damn. He can always cast it up and play football.
It’s easy to see why Flores handpicked this warhead to run his defense. He’s smart enough and versatile enough to play any of the linebacker positions, so the coach can get ultra-creative moving his chess pieces around. Post-snap, Cashman loves to “get busy.” He finds the ball. (“I always want to be the one making the plays.”) And with this, comes a seek-and-destroy mentality going extinct elsewhere.
“I get in these modes,” Cashman says, “where I want to crash out the game — ‘F my body. I don’t care how I’m going to feel. If this tight end’s right on the sideline? I am not breaking stride. I am going right through his thighs.’ Not thinking about anything. Just smack him.”
This is a player ejected from his most memorable collegiate win. There wasn’t much he could do against this puny Wisconsin punt returner. Cashman still has photo evidence that his left shoulder — not his head — blasted through the player’s facemask. He was booted. His Minnesota Gophers won Paul Bunyan’s Axe. Cashman made sure to storm the field to celebrate. No expulsions, flags or rule changes will slow him down. Cashman promises to forever play “with my hair on fire.”
All within a mad, mad scheme that’s liable to completely change at halftime of a game.
When Cashman first sat down to learn this Vikings defense, the X’s and O’s were unlike anything he had seen in his life. Spellbinding. He couldn’t fathom the recklessness of it all. He saw “holes” everywhere. But the more he practiced, the more he talked to Flores, the lights came on. “Oh shit!” moments, he calls them. At practice, he’d ask the DC who’s responsible for that wide-, wide-, WIDE-open receiver on the far side of the field. Flores told him not to worry because the ball can’t get there. He’s bringing too much pressure.
His goal as DC is to hold a virtual PlayStation controller and direct the quarterback wherever he pleases. Traps are set all over the field.
Those joint practices offered a fascinating juxtaposition considering the other defense on the field (justifiably) bragged about its simplicity. Safety Juan Thornhill told Go Long they don’t give a damn if offenses know exactly what they’re running schematically under Jim Schwartz. It’s all mano a man. Me vs. You. Minnesota, conversely, doesn’t rely on matchups in the passing game or run fits in the running game. In camp, Cashman realized there’s no such thing as “plugging gaps” in Flores’ defense. Rather, the DC wants players to rely on instincts. Cashman watched more of Flores’ film to understand the big picture and, sure enough, there were receivers free all over the field. And it didn’t matter.
Any player can blitz any play, but Cashman is usually around the ball more than anyone else. Through the Vikings’ 5-0 start, he had 40 tackles. In a 23-17 statement win over the reigning NFC Champs, San Francisco, he totaled 13 tackles, one sack, one TFL and three PBUs. Here’s what “F my body” mode resembled that afternoon in the linebacker with the “Live today, tomorrow’s not promised” tattoo:
On fourth and 2, he cuts down Brock Purdy for a one-yard gain in the open field.
Showing no blitz until the play clock’s at four seconds, he shoots the gap on the snap and the 49ers’ left guard barely gets a hand on him. Cashman swallows Purdy for a sack and wags his finger.
He stones Jordan Mason at the line of scrimmage.
One pass breakup leads to a Josh Metellus interception. It was no lucky tip. Cashman shuffles left, redirects right and athletically dives for the deflection.
When this berserk scheme is operating at max velocity, the result is an attitude. “Once you’re imposing your will,” Cashman says, “that swagger the whole defense has? The opponent feels it. Your own sideline feels it.” Those quarterback’s eyes get big and their own coordinator is down on the sideline, not up in a booth, shouting four words repeatedly: “This is what we do!” That was the case as the Vikings ran up a 28-0 lead vs. the Packers at Lambeau Field.
Blake Cashman is having the time of his life playing football.
This was not always the case.
Our inside story on the Vikings, icymi:
Living Nightmare
The fifth round began, linebackers started flying off the draft board and his emotions officially shifted from hopeful to antsy to pissed. Teams were now calling to inform his agent they wanted to sign Cashman after the seven rounds concluded. Their assumption: You are undraftable. He couldn’t sit around all day watching other names slide across the bottom of his TV screen. Cashman told his mother that if he wasn’t drafted in the next 15 minutes, he was going to ditch his own draft party to hang out with friends. “I’m losing my mind,” he told her.
Ten minutes later, the New York Jets called.
A weight was lifted off his shoulders.
“I finally breathed,” Cashman says. “Super excited. My family was super excited. Couldn’t wait to get there and get started.”
He pauses and then offers the understatement of his life: “Definitely more downs than ups.”
By Game 2 as a rookie — that 2019 season — Cashman was starting. Two hours before kickoff, coaches said he’d get the start in place of veteran C.J. Mosley, who’d miss the next 2 ½ months with a groin injury. Week to week, he found a groove. Gained confidence. Then in a late-October practice, he tore his labrum. Cashman didn’t want season-ending surgery. He suffered the same injury in college. He knew he could keep playing after a short break, but the Jets didn’t give him a choice.
“I was pulled out of meetings,” he says, “and found out I was on season-ending IR.”
Nobody even told Cashman who made the decision. His best guess was the front office. But whatever. He rehabbed for 2020 and was penciled into the starting lineup again. As the team’s No. 1 weak-side linebacker, Cashman was set to play on only one of the Jets’ special-teams units… which proved to be one too many. One minute and 16 seconds into the season, on a punt, the team’s long snapper collapsed into his leg. Cashman had never experienced a soft-tissue injury before. He had no clue what happened. After sprinting downfield to made the tackle, he wondered “Why does my leg feel like this?” and told himself it’s just a cramp.
Lucky for the him, the Bills’ first three snaps were all pass plays to other parts of the field. But with Josh Allen going up-tempo — and the Jets shifting to man coverage — he sensed danger. He couldn’t move. “I gotta get out of here,” Cashman told Jets linebacker Neville Hewitt. “I’m going down.”
Cashman plopped into the turf and trainers trotted out.
Turns out, he tore his groin.
He went on IR, returned in Week 6, suffered injuries to both hamstrings, missed three more games, returned in Week 12 and lasted all of 12 special-teams snaps before suffering another hamstring. Now, his 2020 season was over.
“An endless pattern,” Cashman says. “And I’m like, ‘What am I doing wrong here?’ I’m not being stupid. I’m being smart with my body. I’m eating right. I’m getting my sleep. I’m living right. And nothing was really working.”
After a 2-14 season, the Jets hired Robert Saleh, which all but rendered Cashman a dead man walking. He could tell Saleh wanted his own pieces on defense and that the new coaches viewed him as nothing more than a backup. The special teams coordinator liked him, but that was about it. Cashman, in their eyes, was damaged goods. “I don’t think they ever saw me being the guy,” Cashman says, “nor do I think they ever wanted me to be the guy in there.”
The first game… he went on IR with a hamstring injury.
He returned in October… only to tear his groin again.
In 2021, Cashman played a grand total of 33 defensive snaps. Good for 2.78 percent of the team’s total.
Each time he returned to the field, the sport was stolen from him again.
Cashman felt “totally deprived” of football. Mostly, he felt like he was letting everyone down: his team, his family, himself. He had zero purpose, zero identity and knew damn well the Jets were fed up. “Why does this keep happening to me?” he asked himself repeatedly. Even worse? The Jets treated players on injured reserve like pariahs. This was the second year of Covid, and it didn’t matter if players were vaccinated or not. All IR players, Cashman says, were not allowed to enter the building until all active players were finished with their treatment. He could only arrive once those players headed to meetings — and his visit needed to be brief.
After a quick treatment, rehab and a workout, Cashman was forced to leave the building. ASAP.
Players on IR needed to “get in and get out” all on the small chance you might get Covid and might spread it. Paranoia that fed a feeling of total isolation in players. Cashman lived in a tiny one-bed, one-bath apartment. He was single. Restaurants were still operating on a limited indoor capacity. There wasn’t much he could do inside of any building around NYC. And here was his football team saying he couldn’t even spend the day in the locker room with his teammates. His entire life, football was his sanctuary.
First came the isolation.
Next came the anger.
Everyone always knew Cashman as a guy who’s smiling, who’s too nice to people. That Blake was replaced by a persona he labels “Angry Blake.”
“I was in a dark place,” Cashman says. “People are like, ‘Yo, snap out of this! Stop being so angry!’ It pissed me off so much to not be able to stay healthy and be out there playing because I felt like I’m wasting my career. I let the stress of the job get to me. Worrying too much about, ‘Shit, this is it for me. Wow. My career is a failure. I got drafted and just fizzled away with injuries.’”
So, he snapped. He reamed out the training staff for questioning his desire and made it all the way to that exit door at Jets HQ. His plan? Go home, hang out, “reset” and return the next morning like nothing happened — Costanza-style. Thankfully, one of the Jets’ player development coaches caught up to Cashman and calmed him down.
Cashman returned and apologized for his outburst. The incident was serious enough for the front office to contact his agent, Blake Baratz.
Still, Cashman knew he had every right to lose it. He couldn’t understand how a billion-dollar company could function with such Mickey-Mouse communication at the top. Cashman had always been a self-described “throw some dirt on it” player. The first two years, he tried to rush back from his injuries too soon. And now, in Year 3, his trainers didn’t even know he was on injured reserve. Bad owners create bad teams that discover new ways to stuff their heads in their buttocks. Cashman talked to his parents, to Baratz, to his trainer Jeff Warner and to the handful of people in the Jets organization he trusted. “Cheer up,” they told him. “You think you got it so bad right now because you’re not playing football? There’s millions of people that’d kill to be in your position.”
Nonetheless, he still planned on quitting football if more one injury struck. He was a cheap commodity. Into the 2022 league year, Cashman knew the Jets wanted to pawn him off to somebody else. That’s the NFL — “cutthroat,” he says — and honestly Cashman couldn’t blame them. In March, Jets GM Joe Douglas informed Cashman he was traded to the Houston Texans and the feeling of liberation from Jets dysfunction was immediate. He was thrilled someone else saw value in him. That single phone call killed off all thoughts of quitting football. Looking back, Cashman sees now how the trade totally “resurrected” his career.
Adds Cashman: “When I look back on it, I have gratitude for all the good, bad and everything in-between. Shit’s not going your way and it’s easy to get in that self-pity — Why is this happening to me? All the frustration, anger. But once you get through the smoke, there’s a lot you can grow and learn from.”
That same offseason, he met a young woman back home. After a few months of dating, he told his new girlfriend he couldn’t waste his time. They could both walk away and there’d be no hard feelings. Or they could give long distance a shot. She was in. He was in. And he flew to Houston determined to force the coaches’ hand, to stay healthy and start.
But first, Blake Cashman needed to remember who he was as a player and a person.
Comeback
He almost quit football once before, too. At age 18.
Back as a senior at Eden Prairie (Minn.) High School, playing for the son of legend Bud Grant, Blake Cashman couldn’t get one Division I football school to give a shit about him. Mainly because — you guessed it — injuries ravaged his high school career. A stress fracture in his back as a sophomore. A high-ankle sprain and broken wrist as a junior. By the time he put a handful of bone-rattling hits on film, as a senior, the only schools that noticed were in Division II.
“I almost said ‘Screw it,’” Cashman says. “I’m going far away from Minnesota. I’m just going to go to school somewhere and be a student. I was very close.”
Those precious few minutes before falling asleep, laying in bed, when we’re all alone with our thoughts, Cashman’s mind raced. And raced. And he kept coming back to the pure joy he felt playing the sport. It never mattered what else was happening in life. Football vanquished all stress. (“You feel like this little kid again playing backyard football.”) He thought back to the quarterback who made him fall in love with football to begin with as that little kid, the quarterback who played with the most unbridled joy of them all. Cashman grew up in Vikings Country. He learned very quickly that you do not talk to Dad for 48 hours after a Vikings loss. And with the team’s facility located in Eden Prairie, Blake often saw players in the community. His older brother played with Antoine Winfield Jr., which meant he’d throw the ball on the sideline with Vikings corner Antoine Winfield Sr.
But he did so with a Packers hat on.
Like millions, Cashman was drawn to the infectious enthusiasm of one, Brett Favre. Dad was a Vikings diehard and he was a Packers diehard. One morning in ‘07, Dad told an 11-year-old Blake he had good news and bad news. The good news was Blake made the “A” team in travel basketball. The bad news? Green Bay lost to Chicago the night before. Blake went ballistic, wailing that he’d rather get cut from the basketball team than see the Packers lose.
The pressure. The pain. The joy. The relationships inside a locker room that cannot be replicated in any other facet of life. He decided to keep football central to his life and play at a D-II school. Then, he caught his big break. All set to attend Minnesota State-Mankato, Cashman was discovered at the Eleventh Hour by the linebackers coach at the University of Minnesota, Mike Sherels, who was interested in one of his teammates. The Gophers offered him a preferred walk-on spot and — once his senior year of basketball ended? — he trained like a madman with the aforementioned Warner a.k.a. former pro wrestler “JW Storm.” Originally recruited as a safety, Cashman showed up for camp at 215 pounds of pure muscle. It took Cashman all of one week to realize he belonged at the Big Ten level.
Year 1, he was one of nine true freshmen to play.
Year 2, he had 7 ½ sacks, earned defensive MVP of the Holiday Bowl and got that full ride.
“When I put my mind to something and I want to achieve it,” Cashman says, “it’s a relentless attitude and determination — that my work ethic, that chip on my shoulder — that’s always gotten me through it.”
The intrinsic need to “prove myself” helped him survive those Jets years and he never forgot what the team’s special teams coordinator told him as a rookie: Work as if someone’s breathing down your neck. Given a second chance in pros — with the Houston Texans — Cashman was that 18-year-old stepping onto a D-I campus all over again.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was employed by a functioning pro franchise. The very first thing the Texans did was deploy their performance team. They analyzed how Cashman works out and how he runs during practice to solve the injury mystery, measuring how much time his foot stayed on the ground and his T-spine rotation. Turns out, the linebacker put far too much strain on his body. They diagnosed him as a “tense” runner, the opposite of a “track” runner who’s loose in the joints. On video, he could see exactly what the Texans meant.
Whatever Cashman did to stretch, the Texans advised he double it. Insight that shocked him. All along, the Jets told Cashman not to overdo it.
Cashman bought into an entirely new training program that he plans on using the rest of his life. DeMeco Ryans took over in 2023 and, unlike Saleh, gave Cashman a clean slate. “I was like, ‘OK, this is the best position opportunity I’ve ever had really in the league. I’m going to show them.’” Starting at middle linebacker in ’23, he broke out with 106 tackles (nine for loss) and Houston shocked the NFL by winning the AFC South.
He continued to sharpen his mind by reading personal development books. A few of his favorites are the “The Last Arrow” by Erwin Raphael McManus, “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and “The 5 AM Club” by Robin Sharma. Another book — he cannot remember the name — taught him how to control those inner-thoughts that’d too often rev into anger. That second year in Houston, his girlfriend even moved in with him.
A free agent in ’24, Cashman told Baratz to get something done with the Vikings. He didn’t want to talk to any other teams. Minnesota was home, Cashman loved the fight the entire roster showed after starting QB Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles, and after signing at $22.5 million over three years, he especially loved the challenge put forth by Brian Flores. The coordinator handed him nothing. If Cashman wanted to wear the green dot on his helmet as the quarterback of this defense, he’d need to earn it through OTAs and training camp.
Again, he felt like that kid with everything to prove. It was the best feeling in the world.
“If things are easy, it’s easy as a human being to get complacent or too confident, too arrogant,” Cashman says. “But when you have to fight for everything? That’s football.”
Home
Arms outstretched, he ran over to Stephon Gilmore and collapsed on top of the cornerback. The cameras in London captured Cashman wrapping the 34-year-old vet in a suffocating bear hug. “You got one! You finally got one!” he yelled after Gilmore’s game-sealing interception against the New York Jets. Up to that point, neither had a pick. Cashman shook him in jubilation.
This was the sort of unrestrained joy he saw in Favre all those years as a Packers fan.
This was also a hint at the Minnesota Vikings’ secret sauce. All players harbor a genuine joy for each other’s success. Several teammates have made the same point to Cashman. Each turnover, each touchdown brings a collection of purple bodies together to party. This defensive scheme creates a feeding frenzy. There’s no telling who will be unleashed play to play.
“I’ve never been a part of a team like this. I love this team,” Cashman says. “This is the most fun I’ve had since high school. The unselfishness. The ownership every player has. The genuine excitement guys have for each other.
“Sure, everyone wants to have all the glorious stats, but when you’re playing good ball and you’re winning football games, there’s no reason to complain.”
That’s what you’ll hear from players throughout the Vikings locker room. Edge rusher Jonathan Greenard has seven sacks, and counting. But as long as the Vikings are pillaging offenses — and winning — he says he’d be just as happy with zero sacks because it’s too hard to win in the NFL. One or two selfish players can poison everything. Nobody knows who’s turn it’ll be to make that game-changing play. As long as all 11 players stay tied on a string, and do their job, he sees success as a guarantee. Says Greenard: “When everything else around you is fitting and going to plan, man, I feel like that gives me so much satisfaction. And I love it.”
The Vikings are only full with No. 51 in the pilot’s seat. But one major reason for all of this chemistry is that there’s mastery across the board. Up front, defensive tackle Harrison Phillips calls the show. Cashman is stunned by his smarts, saying Phillips could’ve been an NFL center in another life. He takes stress off Cashman’s shoulders, and so does the ageless Harrison Smith. The future Hall of Fame safety handles all coverage checks in the secondary.
Minnesota signed several vets capable of handling this playbook: Greenard, Cashman, Gilmore, Andrew Van Ginkel, Shaquill Griffin. Flores wants “high IQ football players.”
“It allows us to take his schemes to the next level,” Cashman says, “and as Flo would say, ‘Do high-level shit.’”
Cashman heard the horror stories. When he signed with the Vikings, it didn’t take long for Dolphins players to inform Cashman that he was in for a rude awakening. “Damn, what did I get myself into?” Cashman asked himself. Once he got to the Vikings, he loved Flores. This was nothing like the “Flo” they described.
“And then some of those same guys that called me,” Cashman adds, “ended up in Minnesota and they’re looking around like, ‘Who is this? This is not the same Flo!’”
He sees a coach who has evolved, one who does not humiliate players in front of the entire defense like he did in his days as Miami’s head coach. His demeanor — shockingly — is often the exact opposite. Flores laughs and smiles and seems to always be in a good mood. There’s a balance. We’ll have more on this old-school coach in a Gen Z league soon at Go Long. On the field, Cashman takes pride in his immense responsibility. He relishes the pressure in making sure the Vikings’ 11 defenders are all in unison, all having the final say.
Minnesota wants to dictate the terms of combat and widen those eyes of the quarterback into saucers before the snap.
Minnesota wants the field scattered with ghosts.
Ghosts, you may have noticed, that his own quarterback no longer sees on the field. We’ll have more on this, too. Cashman played with Darnold in New York. When both signed with the Vikes, he tried telling anyone who’d listen that this quarterback outcast would shock the world. He’s not surprised at all by Darnold’s renaissance because he knows the feeling. He knows what’s it like to survive the Jets.
Cashman was perilously close to going down as a forgotten footnote. Now, he’s got a chance to win a Super Bowl.
This reality hits him like a gust of fresh air here at dinner. He shakes his head and does some quick math. Since his freshman year of college, Cashman has played for eight head coaches, 11 coordinators and 10 linebacker coaches. He’s been forced to prove himself at all three linebacker spots: Mike, Sam and Will. His groin and hamstring had the elastic strength of the dusty rubber band buried in your junk drawer. He turned into Angry Blake. “Adversity” and “stress,” he says, became one and the same.
And he hated it. All of it.
But he now realizes that all of that turmoil led him to this 2024 season. The Vikings have a legitimate opportunity to go the distance.
Life is good. When Cashman has a stressful day, he returns home to a girlfriend in Eagan who helps him keep perspective. She doesn’t care if he had a bad practice or bad game. In the offseason, he enjoys fishing and traveling. But during the season? Cashman calls himself the “most boring person” in the NFL. Long gone are those bar-hopping days with his Minnesota pals. He and his girlfriend love watching shows and movies. One Friday night, they binged Harry Potter movies. “Are we lame for this?” she asked. Cashman told her he wouldn’t want it any other way.
Whenever Cashman does dine out, he’s almost certain to run into someone from high school or college. He’s surprised there aren’t any old friends here at The Copperfield.
Turns out, the wild man destined to set the tone for these Minnesota Vikings grew up in the team’s backyard… albeit with a green No. 4 Favre jersey in his closet. Now, Cashman is the one making 11-year-old fans cry and 25-year-old running backs hurt. Bad memories might’ve resurfaced through his latest absence with a turf toe but there’s a 0.0 percent chance Cashman descended back into Jets-like hell.
He’ll return soon.
He’ll channel all anger into those 50+ plays on Sunday.
Our inside story on the 2024 Minnesota Vikings is available to Go Long subscribers.
SKOL! How old-school principles are fueling the 2024 Minnesota Vikings
EAGAN, Minn. — The chieftain of this ransacking Minnesota Vikings defense takes a seat on a leather sectional in the lounge area outside the locker room. Piece by piece, he starts removing his body armor. There’s the 2XL gloves. There’s the bulky arm brace that resembles something those literal Viking tribesmen wore in the 10th century. Jonathan Greenard tears apart the tape covering his hands and drops the remains into a pile at his feet.
Loved reading this. A genuine story of perseverance and commitment. It’s not about what happens to you in life…it’s about how you respond to what happens that matters. Football is life. Nice work here.
It’s astounding to me how big a difference it makes with him but it’s real. He’s a game changer.