Vikings’ Rookie Ed Ingram Appears to be Winning the Starting Right Guard Position

At the beginning of training camp, and really for at least the first week, it looked like Jesse Davis had the starting right guard spot pretty well in hand. It was his to lose anyway. Well, it appears he may have done just that.

Prior to last week, Jesse Davis was getting most of the first-team reps at right guard. There were times when he split them with Ed Ingram, and before that with Chris Reed as well, but eventually Reed was dropped from that competition. That left Davis and Ingram, but with Davis still getting the majority of reps. But at last Wednesday’s practice Ingram got all the first-team reps. But it was Davis who got the first-team reps (all eight of them) in the first pre-season game against the Raiders.

And while Davis had only eight snaps in that game, his PFF pass protection grade was only 4.7 (very, very poor) and he was the worst graded player overall on offense for the Vikings.

Ed Ingram, by contrast, played 30 snaps at right guard and had a PFF grade of 87.3 (near elite) for the game, including an 84.4 run blocking grade and a 74.0 pass blocking grade. Yes, he may have faced mostly 2nd string, but the contrast with Davis is still significant.

Today in the first practice against the 49ers, it was Ingram who once again took the first team reps at right guard.

That has caused some of the Vikings beat writers like Judd Zuglad and Will Ragatz to conclude that Ingram may well be the starting right guard week one against the Packers. It certainly appears that Ingram is working toward overtaking Davis as the starter at right guard, if he hasn’t done so already.

That could be a positive development for Ingram, who was widely considered somewhat of a reach at #59 overall (he was ranked 101st on the consensus board). Still, interior offensive linemen went off the board ahead of schedule throughout the draft, and G Luke Goedeke, ranked 100th on the consensus board, was taken two picks prior to Ingram by the Bucs. Here is my breakdown of Ingram after he was drafted.

We’ll see how things progress this weekend, but I imagine Vikings offensive line coach Chris Kuper, OC Wes Phillips and HC Kevin O’Connell want to get the first team offensive line established sooner rather than later, so they can get as many reps working together as a unit as possible before week one.