EAGAN, Minn. — The Vikings have added to their offensive line room with the signing of Ryan Kelly.

The 31-year-old center spent his first nine NFL seasons in Indianapolis, where he started all 121 games he played.

Kelly played 10 games for the Colts last season; he was inactive Weeks 4 and 5 and also missed Weeks 10-15 with injuries.

Over the 324 pass-blocking snaps he played in 2024, Kelly received a grade of 71.9 from analytics site Pro Football Focus. He scored slightly lower (64) over 277 run-blocking snaps.

Kelly was credited with allowing just one sack and one QB hit last season; he allowed nine QB hurries. In addition, he was penalized just once, being flagged for grabbing a facemask against the Titans.

Kelly was drafted 18^th overall by the Colts in 2016.

Here are five things to know about the Vikings new center:

1. Coached by Tony Sparano, Jr.

Kelly was coached in 2023 and 2024 by Colts offensive line coach Tony Sparano, Jr.

Tony Sparano, Sr., coached the Vikings offensive line in 2016 and 2017 and into the 2018 offseason, during which he welcomed rookie tackle Brian O'Neill. Sparano passed away suddenly and tragically on July 21, 2018.

2. Played at Alabama

Kelly redshirted his first season at Alabama and then came off the bench to play in 10 games as a freshman. He was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team, joining Amari Cooper and T.J. Yeldon. Kelly took over starting duties from Barrett Jones as a sophomore and helped the Crimson Tide offensive line rank fourth in the SEC (23^rd nationally) for fewest sacks allowed per game (1.3).

He started 12 games during his junior campaign and did not allow a quarterback sack over 806 offensive snaps, earning a spot on the Rimington Trophy watch list.

As a senior, Kelly played 1,012 offensive snaps and committed just one penalty. He was a consensus First-Team All American and won the Rimington Trophy.

3. Teamed with former Viking

Kelly grew up in West Chester, Ohio, where he teamed with former Vikings linebacker Jordan Hicks on the Lakota West High School varsity football team.

As a junior in 2009, Kelly was a First-Team All-Conference selection. He was selected the following season to the Under Armour All-America Game but was unable to participate after tearing his ACL during his final high school game.

Kelly was rated a three-star recruit by ESPN and ranked as the No. 4 center in the 2016 NFL Draft class. He committed to Alabama over offers from additional major programs that included Florida, Michigan and Tennessee.

4. Part of True Strength Awareness

Kelly is a part of Hicks' foundation, True Strength Awareness, which was founded last year to unite students and communities in celebrating Ability Awareness. The nonprofit was inspired by a former high school classmate of Kelly and Hicks who had Muscular Dystrophy.

True Strength Awareness partners to raise funds and empower local Special Education departments. These funds will provide much-needed resources for facility upgrades, life skill programs, and initiatives that promote inclusion and engagement.

5. Count the Kicks advocate

Ryan and his wife Emma are heavily involved with nonprofit Count the Kicks, which works to prevent stillbirths. The Kellys became passionate about the cause in 2022 after they tragically lost their first daughter, Mary Kate, 19 weeks into Emma's pregnancy.

"It's the most excruciating pain and the feeling of isolation and loneliness you feel walking out of [the hospital] without your baby," Emma told *The Indy Star* in November 2022."

Count the Kicks was founded by five women in Iowa who, in the early 2000s, all lost a baby to stillbirth or infant death. The women came together and started doing research, discovering a study in Norway that found a 30% reduction in stillbirths by teaching pregnant women how to monitor fetal movements during the third trimester of pregnancy.

Count the Kicks was launched in 2008 as a way to spread the message of the importance of knowing an unborn baby's movements. To make that easier, the program offers a free app mothers can download to count those movements in the third trimester.

Since the organization launched in Iowa, the state has seen a 32% reduction in stillbirths.

Ryan and Emma have welcomed three additional children since Mary Kate's passing: twin boys, Duke and Ford, and a daughter, Stella.