Dalton Risner Interview

The Vikings’ latest acquisition Dalton Risner gave his first interview with reporters in the locker room on Wednesday. It was an interesting and surprisingly candid interview from Risner, who talked about why he remained a free agent so long, his role, and other things. The interview is available here:

A couple takeaways:

1) It seems unlikely that he’ll play on Sunday.

2) He sort of admitted the reason he remained on the market was a difference in what he wanted to be paid and what teams were willing to offer him.

3) He also mentioned that he was planning to meet with another team- he didn’t say which team- the next day to sign a contract, but the Vikings beat the other team to the punch.

One team that had a sudden need for a guard is the Detroit Lions, who lost their starting guard to injury on Sunday. Unclear if that was the team involved, but in any case the Vikings moved fast to secure Risner ahead of the competition.

Risner has played left guard since entering the league with the Broncos, but also played right tackle and center in college. He worked together with Vikings offensive line coach Chris Kuper for three years in Denver, so he is familiar with his new position coach. Risner also mentioned that there is some carryover in terminology from the Denver system, so hopefully that will help him get up to speed with the playbook quickly.