Price is one of 22 FBS players to amass the following in their college careers since 1977: 2,000-plus receiving yards, 200-plus rushing yards and 500-plus punt return yards. (Note: That’s as far back as Stathead has tracked college ST data). Price logged 2,217 receiving, 270 rushing and 585 punt returning in 55 games (42 at Texas Tech and 13 at Indiana). Recent popular NFL players with equally comprehensive college careers are T.Y. Hilton (50 games), Wes Welker (50) and Jeremy Maclin (28). It’s not common for someone to be so effective in different functions, but Price is an uncommon person.
Offensive Coordinator Wes Phillips said “he has an extreme confidence” and compared the small but mighty receiver to a running back because of his physicality and the No. 31 jersey he wore until switching to 4 (the jersey number he sported on the Hoosiers in ’24) after Rondale Moore’s injury in the preseason.
“You love the guys, sometimes, that – they almost just don’t know how big the situation that they’re in is,” Phillips reflected recently. “To be a rookie returner, where all of us may have been a little bit tight just going into [his debut on Monday Night Football at Chicago], like, ‘Hey, we’ve seen good things, but the lights are really on now, you know, this is the real deal.’ And he hasn’t flinched. He hasn’t changed a bit from day one, with that confidence that he has in himself and his abilities. So, you know, obviously making plays [as a returner and] it excites you about what his future might be able to be as a receiver.”
Special Teams Coordinator Matt Daniels expressed that Price, whom teammates lovingly call “Jug” because of the way his head is shaped, was rated by the Vikings as a Top 5 punt returner in the pre-draft process, but didn’t know returning kickoffs was in his wheelhouse until he busted loose in an exhibition versus New England, because he only had three runbacks in college and none since his freshman year.
“This is a nuanced form [of kickoffs]. This is something he’s never really truly done. And so what you’re seeing, the trajectory of Myles Price is that he’s just continuing to get better – a better feel, better vision for understanding how to set [up returns], the tempo that he has to have,” Daniels said. “I am not shocked [by] where he’s at now, or where he is headed, because all the attributes – the ability to break tackles, the vision and seeing and setting up blocks – all of that has already been there, and it’s in him.”
Price, of course, isn’t perfect. He’s 23 and working a job that can “get really lonely out there when you put one on the ground and it goes the wrong way for you,” Daniels offered. “And so it’s on us as an organization to really wrap our hands around this guy just to ensure that we got his back. And we do.”
In the locker room after Minnesota’s 27-19 loss to Baltimore in Week 10, which nosedived around the same time Price coughed up the ball on consecutive kickoff returns and lost one that led to a Ravens TD, Daniels shared that Head Coach Kevin O’Connell singled out ‘Jug’ in his postgame address to the team.
“I think that was a really unique moment that really needed to be had. I’m really glad that K.O. did that just to nip anything in the bud … just to kind of [kill] that entire situation,” Daniels said before disclosing the nature of some of his text messages with Price later that evening. “[He was] highly upset with himself. But at the same time, he’s telling himself – he’s like, ‘I’m built like that,’ like, ‘I’m still that guy.’
“So the supreme confidence is still there for him,” Daniels assured.