vikings/nfl

The Vikings media guide contains four pages of brief bios on first-year players and free agents considered long shots to make the team. This year, 13 players were featured in the section. When the regular season began last week, only one was on the 53-man roster.

It's little wonder that player, Naufahu Tahi, had braced himself for the worst when he arrived in Mankato.

"That's what I had in my mind, just to expect the worst," Tahi said. "You don't want to come in with high hopes, thinking you're doing a great job and stuff like that. Because you never know."

But the "you never know" part goes both ways and in this case Tahi's hard work helped turn things in his favor. One of nine running backs and fullbacks who reported to camp, Tahi didn't simply win a spot. The second-year player made his NFL debut in the Vikings' 24-3 victory over the Falcons.

The decision to have Tahi active and veteran running back Mewelde Moore inactive meant the Vikings' talk about position flexibility isn't just lip service. Tahi is listed as the third fullback on the depth chart behind Tony Richardson and Jeff Dugan, but he also plays on several special-teams units and can fill-in at running back in a pinch.

With Chester Taylor injured, Tahi carried the ball twice for 5 yards.

"You've just got to be ready for anything," he said. "You never know what's going to go down so you just have to always be prepared and that's what the coaches have been telling us. You never know when the ball is going to roll your way."

The opener might have been the first time many heard of Tahi, but he actually has been with the Vikings since last November. He was signed off the Bengals practice squad on the same day Richardson was placed on injured reserve but was on the inactive list for each of the final six games.

Tahi continues to be considered a work in progress at fullback. He was a running back at Brigham Young and had 872 yards from scrimmage and eight touchdowns in 2005 as a senior. But pro scouts took one look at Tahi's 6-foot, 254-pound frame -- Vikings coach Brad Childress calls him "a load" and means it in a good way -- and decided his future was as a lead blocker.

"I was heavy throughout college, and I pretty much knew myself that my chances of being a tailback in the NFL were probably small," said Tahi, who signed with Cincinnati last year as an undrafted free agent. "My better chance was at fullback with my size and the speed that I had for my size. It wasn't a shocker to me that I wasn't going to be a tailback in the NFL. Whatever opportunity I had to be here is what I was going to do."

Tahi is improving. Childress admits one reason the team decided to keep three fullbacks in the final cutdown was because he knew if the Vikings tried to get creative with Tahi, the Bengals would re-sign him.

Tahi has proven to be an eager student when it comes to absorbing the finer points of a thankless position, often asking Richardson for advice.

"If I see something, I'll point it out to him," said Richardson, in his 13th NFL season. "A lot of times, he'll come and ask me a question and I'll try to give him advice. He'll say, 'What about this block?' and I'll just try to help him out as much as I can."

This is not to say Tahi is a chatter box, soliciting advice at every opportunity. Far from it. The 25-year-old is one of the most soft-spoken players in the Vikings locker room. But Tahi said the Mormon mission he went on from 2000 to 2002 did help him learn how to speak up when necessary. Tahi, whose family is from Tonga but who grew up in Utah, played his freshman season at BYU before leaving.

He spent the time in Jacksonville, Fla., getting up most mornings at 6 and being out from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Some days he found himself knocking on doors, and other days he talked to people in "some pretty bad areas of Florida." He might have missed football, but he now realizes how valuable of an experience it was for him.

"As far as the mental and growing part of it, it has helped me out in many ways that I couldn't have imagined," Tahi said. "Going out on my mission I wasn't the type to go out and just speak to anybody. I was kind of the shy type and kept to myself. But doing stuff like that, you can't be that way. ... It's helped me a lot being able just to talk to people and open up and speak my mind once in a while. Say the things that I believe in, say what I feel is right."

Judd Zulgad • jzulgad@startribune.com