EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — Every player in the NFL draft has a story. Khyree Jackson’s journey to the Minnesota Vikings might well warrant a screenplay one day, if the cornerback can establish himself in the league.
The Vikings took Jackson in the fourth round on Saturday to kick off their slate of day-three picks, using the 108th overall pick on the 6-foot-4, 194-pound product of Oregon with skills in press coverage and run stopping who fits well with defensive coordinator Brian Flores' scheme.
Not that long ago, Jackson wasn't sure he fit anywhere on the field at all.
“For a bit of a second, football had got a little foggy, I would definitely say,” Jackson said.
Here's what happened: After winning two Maryland state championships as a wide receiver with Wise High School in Upper Marlboro, Jackson's academic standing forced him down an alternative path. He initially attended Arizona Western Community College, but he came back to Maryland after a couple of weeks and was so embarrassed by his dropout he laid low at home “for about six months.”
He got a got a job in the deli at a Harris Teeter supermarket, slicing ham for a living and even winning an employee of the month award. He got so good at video games he seriously considered trying to make the NBA 2K esports league and was training for a tournament when he got a call from Fort Scott Community College about getting back into football. He played there in 2019 after two full seasons off, switched to cornerback and suddenly was back on a major college track.
After enrolling at East Mississippi Community College and navigating the pandemic shutdowns, Jackson landed at Alabama. His first start came in the national championship game after the 2021 season, and one year later he transferred to Oregon to finish his college career.
The 24-year-old hit it off with Vikings coaches at the Senior Bowl.
“I just told them I was the best corner in the draft and I thought they were probably going to be getting me for cheaper because of some of the politics that go into it,” Jackson said. “Just being honest, I felt confident in my ability, and the numbers spoke for themselves. I was in a very pass-heavy conference this year. I think I showed versus a lot of top-tier receivers and quarterbacks what I could do.”
The Vikings signed Shaquill Griffin in free agency to supplement returning starters Byron Murphy and Akayleb Evans. Mekhi Blackmon is in the mix. Andrew Booth will still have an opportunity. But cornerback remains as wide-open a position as any on the team.
“We’re just watching highlights and a guy’s helmet goes flying off,” assistant general manager Ryan Grigson said. “He has a physical aspect to his game that I think he’ll fit right in.”
Fitting right in won't be a problem for J.J. McCarthy in Minnesota. The Vikings moved up one spot in the first round to ensure their most pressing need was satisfied with McCarthy, the national champion from Michigan who was the fifth quarterback off the board with the 10th overall pick on Thursday.
His widely lauded communication and leadership skills and renowned work ethic ought to make McCarthy an ideal teammate. Off the field, he's bound to be a fan favorite. McCarthy was an avid hockey player growing up in suburban Chicago until realizing as a freshman in high school it was time to streamline his busy schedule and focus on football.
During a video interview with Minnesota reporters the night he was drafted, McCarthy actually received a phone call from Wayne Gretzky, the hockey great he'd met through his marketing agent. The toughness he developed on the ice since he put on skates at age 5 has been a benefit to his quarterback play.
“Everything about hockey is something that helped elevate my game in football,” McCarthy said.
The Vikings led off the sixth round by selecting Oklahoma offensive tackle Walter Rouse with the 177th overall pick. Rouse started his career at Stanford, where he wanted to go to study and football was at first an afterthought. The biomechanical engineering major started as a true freshman, though, and was quickly hooked. Suffering a shoulder injury in 2022 prompted him to put off the draft by a year and transfer to a stronger program for his fifth and final season.
Rouse is from the Washington area and attended Sidwell Friends School, where he was one class behind President Barack Obama's daughter Sasha. He has a basketball background, too, inspired by his grandfather, Vic Rouse, who tipped in the winning shot in the 1963 national championship game for Loyola University.
Alabama kicker Will Reichard was the team's second sixth-round choice. He set the all-time NCAA scoring record (547 points) over five seasons with the powerhouse Crimson Tide, and like Rouse he put off the draft a year ago to strengthen his profile. Specifically, he honed his kickoff skills, and he impressed the Vikings with his consistency in personality and performance.
“One thing about Will in my personal evaluations was something I borrowed called net pattern: Where’s the ball hitting the net?" Vikings college scout Steve Sabo said. “When you watch a lot of Will’s kicks? Center net, center net, center net.”
The Vikings wrapped up the weekend by taking Wake Forest center/guard Michael Jurgens and Texas A&M-Commerce defensive tackle Levi Drake Rodriguez with their seventh-round picks.
The Vikings currently own only three picks in the 2025 draft, but they hung onto their first-rounder without having to use it to obtain a quarterback. They also have two fifth-rounders, though they will also likely be awarded a mid-round compensatory pick for losing Kirk Cousins in free agency.
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From left to right, Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, head coach Kevin O'Connell, first round draft picks J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and owner Mark Wilf pose for a photo before an NFL football press conference in Eagan, Minn., Friday, April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Minnesota Vikings first round draft pick J.J. McCarthy speaks at an NFL football press conference in Eagan, Minn., Friday, April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
FIEL - Oregon cornerback Khyree Jackson participates in a position drill at the school's NFL Pro Day, Tuesday, March 12, 2024, in Eugene, Ore. The Minnesota Vikings selected Oregon cornerback Khyree Jackson in the fourth round with the 108th overall pick. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)
ELDORADO DO SUL, Brazil (AP) — More heavy rain is forecast for Brazil’s already flooded Rio Grande do Sul state, where many of those remaining are poor people with limited ability to move to less dangerous areas.
More than 15 centimeters (nearly 6 inches) of rain could fall over the weekend and will probably worsen flooding, according to the Friday afternoon bulletin from Brazil’s national meteorology institute. It said there is also a high likelihood that winds will intensify and water levels rise in the Patos lagoon next to the state capital, Porto Alegre, and the surrounding area.
Carlos Sampaio, 62, lives in a low-income community next to soccer club Gremio’s stadium in Porto Alegre. His two-story home doubles as a sports bar.
Even though the first floor is flooded, he said he won't leave, partly out of fear of looters in his high-crime neighborhood, where police carry assault rifles as they patrol its flooded streets. But Sampaio also has nowhere else to go, he told The Associated Press.
“I am analyzing how safe I am, and I know that my belongings aren't safe at all,” Sampaio said. “As long as I can fight for what is mine, within my abilities to not leave myself exposed, I will fight.”
At least 126 people have died in the floods since they began last week, and 141 more are missing, local authorities said Friday. The number of people displaced from their homes due to the torrential rains has surpassed 400,000, of whom 70,000 are sheltering in gyms, schools and other temporary locations.
“I came here on Monday — lost my apartment to the flood," Matheus Vicari, a 32-year-old Uber driver, said inside a shelter where he is staying with his young son. "I don’t spent a lot of time here. I try to be out to think about something else.”
Some residents of Rio Grande do Sul state have found sanctuary at second homes, including Alexandra Zanela, who co-owns a content agency in Porto Alegre.
Zanela and her partner volunteered when the floods began, but chose to move out after frequent electricity and water cuts. She headed to the beachfront city of Capao da Canoa — so far unaffected by flooding — where her partner’s family owns a summer home.
“We took a ride with my sister-in-law, took our two cats, my mother and a friend of hers and came here safely. We left the Porto Alegre chaos,” Zanela, 42, told AP by phone. “It is very clear that those who have the privilege to leave are in a much safer position, and those living in the poorer areas of Porto Alegre have no option.”
In Brazil, the poor often live in houses built from less resilient materials such as wood and in unregulated areas more vulnerable to damage from extreme weather, such as low-lying areas or on steep hillsides.
“We cannot say that the worst is over,” Rio Grande do Sul Gov. Eduardo Leite said on social media Friday. The day before, he estimated that 19 billion reais ($3.7 billion) will be needed to rebuild the state.
The scale of devastation may be most comparable to Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2005, Sergio Vale, chief economist at MB Associates, wrote in a note Friday.
Rio Grande do Sul has the sixth highest GDP per capita among Brazil's 26 states and the federal district, according to the national statistics institute. Many of the statel's inhabitants descend from Italian and German immigrants.
“In the popular imagination, the population of Rio Grande do Sul is seen as white and well-off, but this is not the reality,” said Marília Closs, a researcher at the CIPO Platform, a climate think tank. “It’s very important to dispel this fiction, because it’s constructed with a political objective” to erase Black and poor residents, she said.
In Canoas, one of the hardest-hit cities in the state, Paulo Cezar Wolf’s small wooden house has been fully submerged, along with all his belongings. A truck driver, the Black man now lives in the back of a loaned truck with six of his neighbors, who all cook, eat and sleep there.
Wolf, 54, has considered leaving the rural region, where he has lived since childhood, but has nowhere else to go and doesn’t want to leave behind his four adult children.
“It is too late for someone like me to move somewhere else,” Wolf said, wearing a donated sweatshirt as he stood on a highway.
The meteorology institute predicts the arrival of a mass of cold and dry air will reduce the chance of rain beginning Monday. But it also means temperatures are set to drop sharply, to around freezing by Wednesday. That makes hypothermia a concern for those who are wet and lacking electricity.
Celebrities, among them supermodel Gisele Bündchen and pop star Anitta, have been sharing links and information about where and how to donate to help flood victims. Churches, businesses, schools and ordinary citizens around the country have been rallying to provide support.
The U.N. refugee agency is distributing blankets and mattresses. It is sending additional items, such as emergency shelters, kitchen sets, blankets, solar lamps and hygiene kits, from its stockpiles in northern Brazil and elsewhere in the region.
On Thursday, Brazil’s federal government announced a package of 50.9 billion reais ($10 billion) for employees, beneficiaries of social programs, the state and municipalities, companies and rural producers in Rio Grande do Sul.
The same day, the Brazilian air force parachuted over two tons of food and water to areas that are inaccessible due to blocked roads. The navy has sent three vessels to help those affected, among them the Atlantic Multipurpose Aircraft Ship, which it said is considered the largest warship in Latin America. It is due to arrive on the state's coast Saturday.
The U.S. has sent $20,000 for personal hygiene kits and cleaning supplies and will be providing an additional $100,000 in humanitarian assistance through existing regional programs, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
Weather across South America is affected by the El Niño climate phenomenon, a naturally occurring event that periodically warms surface waters in the equatorial Pacific. In Brazil, El Niño has historically caused droughts in the north and intense rainfall in the south, and this year the effects have been particularly severe.
Scientists say extreme weather is happening more frequently due to climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels that emit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, and overwhelmingly agree the world needs to drastically cut the burning of coal, oil and gas to limit global warming.
But there is a need for social policy responses, too, said Natalie Unterstell, president of Talanoa Institute, a Rio de Janeiro-based climate policy think tank.
“Providing an effective response to climate change in Brazil requires us to combat inequalities,” Unterstell said.
Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.
Gas cylinders float in flood water at a gas distribution center after heavy rains in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Residents rest in a gymnasium converted into a shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)
Volunteers push a wheelchair transporting a resident evacuated from an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Volunteers gather in order to help residents evacuate from an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
A man rows a makeshift boat through an inundated street flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
People who lost their homes to flooding live in a truck trailer in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)
Volunteers gather in order to help residents evacuate from an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Hens stand on the roof of a flooded home after heavy rain in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)
