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Mike Harris Is Still Leading At Right Guard

Photograph provided by Thad Chesley

On the first day of Minnesota Vikings Training Camp, it came as a bit of a surprise that the name of Mike Harris had been thrown into the mix to step into the vacated spot at right guard. Harris had served in the role of backup tackle after being signed prior to Week 1 of last season, and when he was pressed into playing guard against the Buffalo Bills due to injuries, he said after the game that he hadn't played guard "since Pop Warner."

However, a full week into camp, Harris appears to not only be hanging onto the right guard spot, he may be solidifying his grip on it.

"It's tough for a guy his size, his length, in there," Turner said. "But he's going against good players and I think he's doing well. He's gradually getting his pad level down. He can't play too high in there because you're going to play against big guys all the time."

Harris has played pretty much all of the first-team snaps at right guard thus far in camp. Offensive coordinator Norv Turner said that Harris has looked "surprisingly good," which sounds like a fairly positive thing to me. Will it last all the way to Week 1 of the regular season, or will someone like Tyrus Thompson (who Arif really seems to like) sneak in and take the spot from him?

NORV~! also brought us this important update from a local softball league that the Vikings' employee softball team is a part of.

"Just a sport update," he said. "The Vikings employee softball team got beat last night. Couple of the players are here. I think they got mercy-ruled. And one of our equipment guys, Terrell [Barnes], got run over at third base by a girl, they say. That's the sports update, if you missed it."

Jon Ekstrom, from the Vikings' PR staff, pointed out that if you take away the first inning, the Vikings' employees actually won the game, 9-7. Which, I guess, is sort of like saying that if you took away the first three quarters of the Thursday night game in Green Bay last year, the Vikings actually won 10-0.

The afternoon session of today's Training Camp is just getting underway. Check out our Training Camp Open Thread for today to keep up with everything that's going on!