Vikes Views: Should Risner Start at RG Tomorrow?

The Minnesota Vikings take on the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday Night Football! There are some ridiculous rumors swirling about the two teams and potential trades. I thought about asking about those, but they are covered in other posts and, quite frankly, aren’t really based on anything real. Rumors of talks from an unverified random X/Twitter account seems to be what they are at this point.

The question that is burning in my mind is will Dalton Risner start on Thursday. Risner has been listed as a Full Participant in practice the first two days of this week. He’s been activated from the IR and can be moved to the active roster at any point. The Vikings have no incentive to do that before Thursday. It will likely by a game day decision, but he’s healthy and seems to be ready to go.

The worst spot on the offense has been RG. Ed Ingram just hasn’t panned out the way the Vikings had hoped. PFF has a grade of 48.3 on Ed Ingram. 60-69 is backup level and replacement level is considered 59.0 and below. He’s not even good enough to be on the roster. Some fans rave about Ingram’s run blocking and those grades are slightly better, but he’s not good enough to be on the field. If the Vikings have any hope of going deep in the playoffs, they need better from the Interior OL. Ingram is the weakest spot and must be replaced immediately. We’ve proved over the years it can always get worse at OL, but if you know it isn’t good enough, what’s the difference. Ingram isn’t improving at all, he’s somehow regressing.

Kwesi picked Ingram in the 2nd round of his 1st draft. It wasn’t a great start to the draft with Ingram, Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth Jr all being picked in the 1st two rounds. Akayleb Evans in the 4th, Ty Chandler in the 5th and Jalen Nailor in the 6th are the only useful picks left. None of those are in the starting lineup when everyone is healthy.