The number? Jalen Redmond didn’t choose it. The Minnesota Vikings had signed him straight from the Arlington Renegades of the XFL. Redmond discovered he’d be wearing No. 61 on social media.
“I’m, like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be one of them,’” Redmond said recently.
He understood the assignment. To receive a more prominent jersey number, digits that dictate respect, he would have to do some convincing.
And things didn’t get off to a good start. Well before Redmond established himself as perhaps the most notable ascending player on the Vikings defense, he was known as the practice-squad addition that coach Kevin O’Connell booted from practice.
The ejection is hilarious in hindsight, a moment in time last summer that masked the Vikings’ internal view of the young defensive lineman from Oklahoma. It didn’t take long to realize what they had: explosiveness, physicality and reactivity. Redmond did not lumber like most players at his position. He darted. And his side-to-side snappiness wasn’t the only quality derived from his basketball background. Redmond deciphered the backfield like a hooper assessing the court.
He anticipated plays, and he matched that ability with the size and speed required for that mental skill to matter. Redmond also worked. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores would not have moved him up the depth chart if there wasn’t a simmering hunger to succeed. Redmond’s pursuit didn’t diminish after he played his first snaps in Week 3 last season. Full-time duty this year hasn’t affected his ambition, either. He leads the Vikings with four sacks.
“Just a great person,” legendary Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said of Redmond. “A great individual. I couldn’t be happier with what’s happening with him.”
So, about that number? Redmond now has the cachet to change it.
But don’t expect that to happen.
Starting off strong!@jalen_redmond
📺: @NFLNetwork pic.twitter.com/XrrzpctRO1
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) September 28, 2025
His athleticism isn’t a secret when you see the picture. It’s printed in a January 2016 edition of The Oklahoman, his home state’s largest newspaper. On the right side of the page is Redmond, wearing a basketball jersey, scowling as he leaps to swat a poor kid attempting a layup.
It’s a block that made the gym scream, “Ooooooooohhhhhh.” A block you remember.
The football coaches at Midwest City High saw Redmond steal opponents’ souls on the court. They wanted him to do the same on the football field. It took some convincing.
“A gym is hard to fight,” Darrell Hall, Redmond’s high school football coach, said, “because the weather is great in the gym. Always.”
Eventually, Redmond relented. It helped that some of his best friends, including a longtime basketball teammate named JuWan Walker, did some recruiting. Walker knew what they all did — that Redmond’s frame, on a football field, would cause jaws to drop. And that’s what happened. Before Redmond ever played a game, three Division I college coaches visiting practice offered him scholarships.
He began as an outside linebacker and made fools out of opposing tackles. Some were bulldozed. Others were sideswiped. These anecdotes made their way about 30 minutes south to Norman, and that’s how he landed with the Sooners.
Before his freshman season, he visited the football complex for a workout, then laid down for a nap. When he woke up, his chest and ribs felt swollen. Breathing was difficult.
Thinking the discomfort would let up, he pushed further into his day. That night, agonizing, Redmond sprawled out on his dorm room floor. He couldn’t walk.
Unsure what to do, he drove himself to a nearby emergency room. They ran some tests.
“By this time, the pain is … ” Redmond recalled.
Excruciating?
“I can’t even tell somebody how this pain feels,” Redmond said. “Oh my goodness.”
One of the tests showed a black circle inside his chest. Some doctors believed he had pneumonia. Others weren’t so sure. Further imaging revealed multiple black circles, a sign of blood clots. Was that part of his family history? No. What caused them? Randomness.
He was prescribed blood thinners, which allowed him to return to play three games in his freshman season. Again, though, his chest began to tighten. He was distraught. Admit the situation, and his positive trajectory could be halted. Forge ahead, and who knew the level of long-term damage he could do? He chose the former. Oklahoma shut him down. His football future was murky.
None of this — Redmond becoming a key cog in the Vikings’ defense — seemed possible.
Redmond, wearing No. 31, had 14 sacks and 31.5 tackles for loss in his four seasons at Oklahoma. (Brian Bahr / Getty Images)
Did he expect to get drafted after he was cleared at Oklahoma, after playing four seasons at the school?
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I felt like I showed what I could do.”
He went undrafted before eventually signing with the Carolina Panthers.
But he developed a strained calf during rookie minicamp. Believing he had to remain on the field to make an impression, Redmond played through the pain. The injury affected his performance. Once he recognized that it was worsening, he underwent a more comprehensive evaluation. Multiple visits to the doctors painted a disconcerting picture. The strained calf was a byproduct of new blood clots.
In August 2023, Redmond was waived. No other NFL teams called. By January, he was at home, essentially jobless and trying to figure out what to do. Stick with the sport he loved? Or hang up the cleats at age 24, take the rejections and resurfacing of the blood clots as signs, and move on?
As if that period wasn’t difficult enough, he picked up his phone one morning and noticed an atypical number of missed calls. Most were from high school friends. He jolted out of bed. Quickly, the news was relayed: Walker, his childhood friend and basketball teammate who had helped convince him to play football in the first place, had died in his sleep at the age of 23.
“His family found him in his room,” Redmond said. “He went to take a nap, and he didn’t wake up.”
The news rattled the town. Hall described Walker as one of the best players he’d seen since Tulsa native Tyler Lockett. Walker, who’d played in college at Southwest Baptist University and East Central University, played both offense and defense.
Redmond still considers him his best friend. They had met in first grade.
Grief became a haze, and the only path forward for Redmond was to do the thing he had grown to love more than anything else. Play football.
But for months, few opportunities emerged. Then, one evening, Stoops called him out of the blue. Stoops told Redmond about the Arlington Renegades and how experience in the XFL could serve as a catapult for his career.
Redmond trusted him. Speaking with hindsight, he admitted he didn’t really have a choice.
Redmond (6) with high school friends and teammates, including JuWan Walker (1). (Courtesy of Redmond)
Vikings assistant general manager Ryan Grigson broached the idea of signing Redmond with Flores.
Minnesota’s pro scouting department had listed Redmond as a potential workout candidate. Grigson talked to agent Jack Scharf. The reports were consistent. Redmond cared. He possessed the requisite football instincts. And he moved with twitchiness, even at 6-foot-3, 291 pounds.
The tape verified what Stoops and Renegades general manager Rick Mueller told him. So, Grigson knocked on Flores’ door. Even though Flores was skeptical at first of an XFL prospect, he cross-checked Grigson’s evaluation. He, too, was blown away.
Agents Scharf and Jeffrey Griffin called Redmond last summer with the news that the Vikings were interested.
“They said I’ve just got to pass a physical,” Redmond said. “I’m, like, ‘S—, hopefully I can.’”
The Vikings were glad the medicals were clear. Redmond is a force. He slants past interior offensive linemen and has the agility to knife into the backfield. He loops around on stunts. He defuses vertical runs by holding the point of attack. He is not deceived by jet sweeps designed to mess with defenders’ eyes.
One of the lone positives from last night was the play of Jalen Redmond. PFF credited him with 9 pressures, which ties Tom Johnson for the single-game record for a Vikings defensive tackle in the PFF era (since 2006).
Redmond has been phenomenal this season. pic.twitter.com/3hFQkj3FqB
— Will Ragatz (@WillRagatz) October 24, 2025
Where would the 2025 Vikings defense be without him? Only edge rusher Jonathan Greenard and linebacker Eric Wilson have more pressures than Redmond does, according to Next Gen Stats. No Vikings defender has been double-teamed more frequently.
“He has a story to tell,” Hall, the high school coach, said. “And that story is perseverance. He could’ve very easily thrown his hands up and become a teacher or worked a desk job. But he didn’t. If you have a passion for something, you ride it out until the very end, and until you have no regrets. Whether it works your way or not.”
Last week, Flores smiled when Redmond’s name came up. Earlier this week, O’Connell mentioned him unprompted. Redmond appreciates the praise, and he is not shy about saying, “Hopefully I get to stay here for a long time.”
But recognition is less important to him than commemoration.
The last time he and Walker played together in high school, he wore No. 6, while Walker wore No. 1. It dawned on him last fall, when he learned he made the team. Redmond decided then that he would make the No. 61 his own, paying homage to Walker and his family.
Squeezing into the jersey before every game, he closes his eyes and passes along a message:
JuWan, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.