Ex-MSU star Trae Waynes pushing to start for Vikings
EAST LANSING – Many athletes splurge and buy a big-ticket item immediately after signing their first pro contract.
Trae Waynes did. He paid off the mortgage on his parents’ home.
“You know, it was real emotional, just to see how much that meant to them,” the former MSU cornerback said last week. “They didn’t ask for it.”
The first-round pick of Minnesota in the 2015 NFL draft, Waynes took time between the Vikings’ offseason training activities and preseason camp to help coach high school recruits alongside current MSU players and coaches at the Spartan Elite camp. It was the same one-day event where the cornerback from Kenosha, Wisconsin, earned his scholarship offer from Mark Dantonio’s staff and began his journey to the NFL.
“It shows the kids and the recruits how committed we are to this program and how much it means to us,” Waynes said. “For us to take time out of our free time to come back to Michigan State and work a camp shows how much this university means to us.
“Once I realized I had free time to come back, I jumped on it.”
Waynes reportedly got a number of first-team reps with Minnesota’s starting defense during OTAs earlier this month and is pushing for a starting job. The 6-foot, 190-pound cornerback spent his first pro season as a backup and understudy to veteran Terence Newman last season, playing in 15 games and getting one start.
The rookie played just 215 snaps for head coach Mike Zimmer’s defense, according to NFL.com, and made 30 tackles and had four pass deflections. However, Waynes got three tackles, two pass deflections and his first career interception in the Vikings’ 10-9 loss to Seattle in the NFC Wild Card game on Jan. 10.
Zimmer told ESPN.com earlier this month that Waynes’ progress has continued throughout the offseason.
“Last year was more about learning what to do. Now it’s having a feel for the game and playing -- understanding the tightness that he has to be in to cover,” Zimmer said. “It’s time to continue to push him into making more plays on the ball, and that’s what I’m trying to get him to do. My expectation is to get him to be more aggressive in the coverage because he knows what to do now.”
Waynes said some of that has to do with adjusting to the hands-off NFL officiating. In college, he and former teammate Darqueze Dennard got more leniency in making contact with receivers downfield. It’s more about employing techniques he learned at MSU rather than discovering something new, Waynes said.
“In the NFL, you can’t really touch receivers that much, so that’s kind of a negative. After 5 yards, you can’t really put your hands on them,” he said. “But here (at MSU), you know how aggressive we played. But it’s also helped because we had a coach like coach (Harlon) Barnett who had experience here and at the next level. He was able to translate that to us.”
Waynes was the fastest cornerback in the 2015 NFL draft with a 4.31-second 40-yard dash. His speed developed in that house in Kenosha – his father and mother Ron and Erin Waynes both ran track in college, and his brother, Mason, recently completed his senior year as a middle-distance runner for Eastern Michigan’s track and field team.
He said his parents didn’t ask him for anything when he signed his four-year contract worth nearly $14 million with the Vikings last spring that included a signing bonus of more than $7.6 million. Their background as college athletes, Waynes said, wouldn’t let them infringe on their sons’ successes in sports.
They can now drive a little more than five hours from that house in Kenosha to watch their son chase even more success in the NFL. And he can drive his other major purchase, a new car, home to see them.
“It was a big relief, a dream come true, I guess,” Waynes said. “As a kid, you grew up watching the NFL, watching the NFL Combine, stuff like that. Just hoping one day you could get to that level. I was lucky enough for that to happen.”