Last weekend the Minnesota Vikings ran their rookie mini-camp. Pretty much all the rooks showed up (can or should they do that without contracts? What is the insurance on weekends like this like?) and got to know coaches, players, facilities, and see how they looked in purple. Early results? THEY LOOK AWESOME. In purple, I mean. I have no idea if any of these kids will pan out.
Vikings.com posted a brief recap of camp highlights last Saturday (still timely!) and I found one piece that really stood out:
| I can’t say he’s the most impressive of the rookie minicamp because it’s virtually impossible to give equal attention to every player without watching hours of film, but in my eyes FB/TE Rhett Ellison is having as good a few days as anyone. Ellison is billed as a big, physical blocking-type of TE. But as I said on Friday, he’s a fluid route runner and smooth pass catcher. We recorded an interview with LT Matt Kalil on Friday for next week’s Wobcast, and Kalil – a teammate of Ellison’s at USC – spoke very highly of Ellison and described him as a do-everything type of player who is also a great teammate in the locker room. I noticed that Ellison was the last one off the practice field on Saturday morning and spent a few minutes beating up on a blocking sled before retreating to the locker room following practice. |
ALL HAIL ELLISON!! Really though, we haven’t done our post-draft feature on him, but it’s nice to know that the pick everyone was second guessing is turning in even a halfway decent camp showing. We probably still could have signed him as an undrafted free agent, but if he actually pans out it will make this pick retroactively look like some Einstein shit. Or, as we are now coining, we will all realize that we got Spielman’d. Do you think he could have shown a LITTLE candor though and not gone straight for the Kleinsausage #40 though? Geeze, Ellison, could you make it any more obvious who you’re trying to be?!
Other notes:
– After falling down, hitting his head, then throwing up like he was out binge drinking the night before, wide receiver Jarius Wright made it back to rookie camp on Saturday without dying. So that’s nice.
– The Vikings have a Canadian Football player, Soloman Elimimian, on the team, whom they signed in the offseason. I totally forgot about him. Hats off to him though, because he has an awesome name. THE ELIMINATOR. That’s what I will call him, whether he is good or not.
– The Vikings also drafted some white linebacker (hurray!) called Audie Cole. He showed exceptional white athletic ability this last weekend and snagged two interceptions. There’s hope for the white man yet! On the practice squad.
The team now continues the next phase of their offseason work outs, and if I’m understanding THIS post correctly, I think veterans will show up and work with rookies. Which may be cool. Maybe Ponder will ditch the Deep V and go back to being shirtless. A man can dream, right?
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