Big Blue View tells us more about Brett Jones

In case you missed the earlier news, the Minnesota Vikings have acquired offensive lineman Brett Jones from the New York Football Giants in exchange for a seventh-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. We knew that the Vikings were likely going to be looking for offensive line help, and it appears that the deal for Jones is a pretty good one for the purple.

But, since I don’t know a whole lot about Jones, I reached out to our friend Ed Valentine from Big Blue View, SB Nation’s home for New York Giants football. He gave me a little bit of information about Jones, and here’s what he had to say.

Jones joined the Giants in 2015 after having been Canadian Football League Lineman of the Year in 2014. He spent 2015 on IR, but has been a valuable reserve at both guard and center. He filled in quite well last season when Weston Richburg went down for the season, and the natural assumption when Richburg left in free agency was that Jones would step in as the starter.

Pat Shurmur, though, had other ideas. It has been obvious since the spring that Shurmur preferred Jon Halapio, and to be honest I’m not quite sure I understand why.

Jones is a good player. He’s undersized, listed at 6-foot-2 but probably not that big. He’s smart. Really smart. The guy chose football over medical school, and I believe now has interest in becoming some type of engineer when his playing days are done. He’s a very good pass blocker, maybe not so proficient blocking in the run game though he is athletic enough.

My $.02? The Giants are going to regret choosing Halapio over Jones. I don’t know how quickly Jones will pick things up in Minnesota, but he will do a good job for the Vikings.

Well. . .the rule of thumb is that if fans of the other team don’t think it’s a good trade for them, then it must be a good trade for us, right?

As mentioned in the previous post about Jones, he did start 13 games for the Giants last season, with 12 of those starts coming at center (and the other coming at left guard). He got the same second-round tender placed on him this offseason as Nick Easton did, and could very well be playing for a big deal somewhere next season.

I’m still reading up on what Jones has to offer, but someone that’s watched him a heck of a lot more than I have seems to think that the Vikings got a pretty good player out of the deal, and gave up just a seventh-round pick next year, when the Vikings should have several extra picks in their back pocket thanks to compensatory selections.

On the surface, this appears to be a solid move by Rick Spielman. We’ll see where Jones fits in once he finally gets to Minnesota, but I don’t see anything to be disappointed with at this point.