Throughout the 2021 season, Minnesota Vikings fans wondered why rookie third-round draft pick Wyatt Davis didn’t see more snaps at right guard. It was obviously a trouble spot for the team with Olisaemeka Udoh clearly struggling with the lowest Pro Football Focus grade (54.7) of the five starting offensive linemen.
Well, ESPN analyst Courtney Cronin might have provided us with some answers in her recent appearance on the Purple Insider podcast.
“Do you want to know what I heard at the combine? That was a Rick Spielman special, where he didn’t listen to anyone else in the room on Wyatt Davis,” said Cronin. “He went after his guy. Two scouts I talked to in the Minnesota Vikings organization said that this guy wasn’t even a backup grade for them. Okay? That’s what the reality of the situation was.”
Spielman, the former general manager for the Vikings, was fired in January after the team failed to make the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.
There have been multiple comments regarding the growing dysfunction within the organization. NFL legend Deion Sanders, a friend of former Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer, claimed Spielman and Zimmer hadn’t spoken for months in their final season together.
Zimmer’s girlfriend made the same claims in a series of now deleted social media posts aimed at Spielman.
It’s important to keep the state of things in mind when considering the mindset Spielman had to be in when allegedly making that sort of decision. Davis played on just 28 snaps as a rookie with most chalking it up to him simply being groomed as a starter.
You don’t take a player that high with expectations of him being a backup.
But there’s no certainty what Davis could be at the moment. Perhaps he finally settles into his role under a new regime and helps fill a position of need for the Vikings, or he could continue to stumble further down the depth chart as one of the last remaining remnants of the mess the previous regime left behind.
