Former Viking’ great Antoine Winfield makes PFF All-Decade Team

A former Viking’ legend is back in the news. Antoine Winfield was named to Pro Football Focus All-Decade Team, 2006-2015.

It seems as though the Vikings’ defense -past or present- just can’t stay out of the headlines. Minnesota Vikings legend Antoine Winfield was named to PFF All-Decade Team. Winfield was listed as the starter in the slot cornerback position.

PFF’s take on Antoine Winfield

"For a small guy, Winfield was one of the best run defenders we’ve ever seen, and running a screen pass to his side when he was in the slot was tantamount to giving up on the play. Teams would put guards on him, and he’d knife past and make the tackle for a loss with the consistency of a metronome. This wasn’t his whole game, though; he was excellent in coverage, too, as a career average grade of 84.7 in that facet of play will testify."

Winfield was flat-out a tackling machine. Minnesota Vikings’ fans were treated to almost a decade of solid play. From 2004-2012, the Vikings knew that their secondary was in good hands. Another strong trait of Winfield’s was his unselfish play. He did everything the team asked of him, including special teams. It was a rare combination to watch on the field, Antoine was the original “honey badger.”

Having called Minnesota home for years, Winfield and his family have settled in. In fact, his son is currently playing for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Antoine has also found a new way to compete since retiring, poker. While enjoying his free time, Winfield can be found at major poker events held in Las Vegas. It seems no matter what the challenege, he is all-in.

PFF is attempting to put slot corner’s into their own category.

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"We’ve been arguing for some time now that lumping all corners together for ranking purposes isn’t a good idea. The position of slot cornerback is so different from an outside corner that it’s like trying to compare guards and tackles. For that reason, we are going to start grouping them differently, and this is a good place to begin."

Next: Minnesota Vikings: Go after Josh Gordon?

Just ask Captain Munnerlyn what he thinks. Munnerlyn is lobbying the NFL to open a slot corner position for Pro Bowl voting. Playing in the slot doesn’t bring the fame, but it’s crucial for evey team to have a blue-chip player covering that position.