The offensive line for the Minnesota Vikings got a lot of grief for it’s poor performance against the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday. While they weren’t good as a whole, a lot of the blame got placed on right guard Ed Ingram.
Is that fair? We all know about his league-leading 63 pressures allowed during his rookie season and his inconsistent play, but Ingram only had one pressure allowed in 10 pass rush reps, including being 3/3 in his true pass rush sets with a grade of 77.0.
How did Ingram look? There were 12 snaps that he took on Thursday night that highlight his inconsistencies.
Inside zone
This is an interesting rep from Ingram. He ends up moving the defensive lineman away from the running backs path, but he tries to do a one punch knockout and it doesn’t work. This is something he tries to do too often and it is a major factor in his inconsistency.
Boot action
The Vikings run a wide zone play action with a short boot action. Ingram moves like he’s participating in wide zone but drops back where the ball was snapped to account for any blitzers or stunts. He sets his feet and goes to look for work.
Lunging
Ingram has a tendency to overcommit with his body weight and lunge at defenders. Oftentimes, it happens when he comes out of his stance and defensive linemen often take advantage of him. Here, he doesn’t keep his balance and lunges toward the defensive lineman and when you do that, your power decreases. That allows the defender to throw him off after initial contact. It didn’t make an impact here, but it has in the past and will in the future.
Speaking of oversetting
It’s a pitch play, so Ingram’s miss ultimately doesn’t matter, but he needs to be more in control of this seal block. He jumps forward (oversets) way too much and gets himself completely out of position for the block.
Looking for work
During his time at LSU, Ingram would often find himself without a blocking responsibility. When that happened, Ingram would do what your boss tells you: find something to do. He does that here and really often, laying into a defensive tackle.
Effort is lacking
Ingram gets out of his stance quickly to climb to the second level. He is tasked with taking out the second-level defender, but how he does that is what’s frustrating. Instead of burying him into the ground, Ingram just pushes him rather than burying him into the ground. Christian Darrisaw struggled to finish players coming out of Virginia Tech but fixed it in the NFL. Ingram needs to regain that consistency.
Great zone block
This is a great rep from Ingram. He has the defender jump on the inside of him and Ingram uses his leverage to drive the defender out of the A-gap. This is exactly what you want to see on inside zone.
Good hand usage
This is where the knockout punch method works well for Ingram. He gets the defender off-balance and prevents the defender from engaging Ingram. Utilizing his hands powerfully and quickly is what is arguably his best trait.
Excellent recovery skills
Every offensive lineman loses. In fact, your goal about being an offensive lineman is to lose as slowly as possible. Ingram here gets knocked off his axis early, but sticks his foot in the ground and recovers well using leverage. That type of recovery ability is key to being a successful offensive lineman in the NFL.
Passing off
This is a good pass-off by Ingram. You have Oli Udoh on the outside struggling a bit to handle his guy and Austin Schlottmann is free due to the protection. Ingram gets the initial hit and goes to help Udoh on the outside. Mullens misfires the ball, but the pass-off was good.
Passing off again
Just like the above clip, Ingram passes off the defender well. He feels Schlottmann right next to him with no responsibility and lets his guy go to help out Udoh. That is good awareness and something that will continue to serve him well.
Overcommitting can go wrong
This is an interesting rep. He technically wins the rep by keeping the defensive lineman out of the play, but he gets thrown just over a second into the rep. That is an issue long-term, especially when he is leaning too far forward. Playing more under control needs to be a focus long-term for Ingram.
Should we be worried?
Honestly, this game shouldn’t make you more concerned about where Ingram is. It was with the second team and Schlottmann had a rough game at center, which was the root cause of a lot of issues early on. He looks a little bit more consistent than last season, but it was a very small sample size. Be patient with Ingram and be careful to blame him too quickly when things go awry.
