National Football League

Vikings LB Eric Kendricks named NFC Defensive Player of the Week

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

Minnesota Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week for his week 1 performance against the Tennessee Titans.

When the defense of a team can make big plays, sometimes the offense doesn’t need to be hitting on all cylinders. That was the case for the Minnesota Vikings during their 2016 season opener in Tennessee against the Titans.

There were several key moments from the game that put the team in position to win. There was a long kickoff return from Cordarrelle Patterson, a fumble recovery from Danielle Hunter, and other key moments, but the one that stands out in particular is the interception by linebacker Eric Kendricks that he returned 77 yards for the touchdown.

The NFL has honored Kendricks for his excellent play on Sunday, naming him the NFC Defensive Player of the Week for week 1 of the NFL season.

Here is the announcement made by the Minnesota Vikings on their official Twitter account:

As stated above, Kendricks big play was the interception of Marcus Mariota for a touchdown. However, he did also have 6 tackles on the day and one of those was for a loss against a hard-running Titans team focused on pounding the football against the Vikings.

Vikings.com wanted to remind fans that Kendricks is no stranger to awards based on his good play, listing some of his past honors on their site:

Kendricks becomes the eighth individual to win a Player of the Week award from the NFL under head coach Mike Zimmer, with half of those coming on the defensive side of the ball.

Congratulations to Eric Kendricks on winning the NFC Defensive Player of the Week award as well as to the Minnesota Vikings for proving that defense does win games in today’s National Football League.

More from The Viking Age

This article originally appeared on

share

Get more from National Football League Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

National Football League