After Daronte Jones left the Vikings to become LSU's defensive coordinator last month, the team appears to be set to replace him with another coach from the SEC.
Vikings expected to hire Alabama's Karl Scott as DB coach
Scott, who'd worked for Nick Saban the past three years, would replace Daronte Jones.
![Alabama defensive backs coach Karl Scott.](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/LCYJKUGEMEJ4SXVGW32SJZHMNY.jpg?&w=712)
According to multiple reports, the Vikings are set to hire Alabama defensive backs coach Karl Scott to replace Jones. The Birmingham News first reported the move.
Scott has worked at Alabama since 2018, burnishing his reputation as a strong recruiter while molding a secondary that included second-round picks Trevon Diggs and Xavier McKinney, as well as cornerback Patrick Surtain II, who's expected to be a first-round pick this spring.
His time working for Nick Saban and teaching Alabama's pattern-matching scheme to young corners should aid his transition to his first NFL job working for Mike Zimmer, another defensive taskmaster who employs plenty of pattern-matching concepts in his coverage schemes. The Vikings praised Jones for the work he did with a young secondary through a virtual offseason last year; Scott could step into the NFL under similar constraints this year with the league's offseason program possibly remaining in a virtual format.
Scott had worked at Texas Tech before becoming the defensive coordinator at Louisiana-Lafayette in December 2017; he left that job weeks later, once he was offered the defensive backs coach job at Alabama.
Andrew Krammer is joined by Matthew Coller of Purple Insider to discuss the Vikings offense, what they think of Justin Fields and the Bears, and they talk what's been expected and unexpected through four games.