A key member of the Vikings offense will stand across from a mentor on Sept. 8 when they open the season \u2014 and new Bears coach Ben Johnson\u2019s tenure \u2014 at Soldier Field on \u201cMonday Night Football.\u201d <\/p>\n
Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson and Johnson spent three seasons together with the Lions, starting in 2019. Hockenson, a first-round pick that year, and Johnson, an entry-level coach who would later become the tight ends coach and guru coordinator, immediately formed a bond that lasts to this day. Hockenson reached out to congratulate Johnson when he was hired by Chicago in January. <\/p>\n
\u201cI love Ben,\u201d Hockenson told the Minnesota Star Tribune. \u201cHe helped me a ton as a young player in this league. I remember him being a quality control guy my first year and we\u2019d meet every day during special teams. He\u2019d explain offenses and defenses to me. He\u2019s a guy that made a huge impact and someone that will always be super meaningful in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hockenson\u2019s influences \u2014 Johnson, former Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford and Vikings coach Kevin O\u2019Connell among them \u2014 have shaped the way he has approached this season with 22-year-old quarterback J.J. McCarthy.<\/p>\n
McCarthy will be the 12th quarterback to throw Hockenson an NFL pass, meaning the 6-foot-5 security blanket has plenty of experience adapting and succeeding with new arms. <\/p>\n
What a difference a year can make. Standing with two healthy knees and the foundation of his training once again, Hockenson said he is primed to resume his run as one of the NFL\u2019s best tight ends. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m one of the top route-running tight ends in the league,\u201d Hockenson said. \u201cI pride myself on creating separation and you look at it and that\u2019s what I do on Sundays. \u2026 There\u2019s been times throughout my career I\u2019ve had challenges and I\u2019ve always been able to bounce back and be a better player than what I was.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A key member of the Vikings offense will stand across from a mentor on Sept. 8 when they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-122949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}