Purple Rumor Mill: Lack of Faith in Jaren Hall, Kwesi’s Lesson, Stephon Gilmore
VikingsTerritory’s Purple Rumor Mill is a two-day chronicle each week. All the week’s rumors are lassoed and plopped in two spots — articles on Saturday and Sunday — for review. Today is the September 1st edition.
Purple Rumor Mill: Lack of Faith in Jaren Hall, Kwesi’s Lesson, Stephon Gilmore
Remember — rumors are rumors. What you read on weekends in these pieces is what the world is talking about pertaining to the Vikings, not necessarily items that will come to fruition.
Here’s the second batch of the week. Yesterday’s can be read here.
Rumor: The Vikings don’t have faith yet in Jaren Hall for the regular season and hence added Brett Rypien as the QB3 for 2024.
General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said Thursday about signing Brett Rypien, “Adding Brett to the room, we feel good about that decision, but it gives us more time to pour into Jaren.”
Minnesota wants Hall back for the practice squad and more time to develop the 26-year-old.
The signal is clear — the Vikings would trust Rypien over Hall with regular season snaps. There is no other interpretation. It sounds like they don’t trust the regular season version of Hall at all.
Rumor: General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has learned his lesson after the swings and misses at the top of the 2022 NFL Draft.
Adofo-Mensah spoke at a press conference this week and acknowledged the errors in his first draft.
“When I entered the building, trying to compete, aging roster, salary cap stuff, I think there was times where I felt down 33-0,” he told reporters. “As we all know, that game, it starts with one play, one drive, and you build. I think at times I might have been guilty of trying to maybe have a 33-point play all at once. I think once I identified that, I kind of really just — I think if you’ve seen since then, it’s been really, foundationally, just taking good steps, building to a certain critical point where I think we compete over the long-term.”
Adofo-Mensah recently traded Andrew Booth and cut Lewis Cine, his first two draft picks.
“What you don’t want to do is try and solve all of the issues at once, right?” he added. “I think you still want to have long and short-term horizons when you make decisions, but you just don’t want to be in a rush to get to that end goal. You want to be deliberate in your process, and we’ve done a really good job doing that (since then).”
He tried to fix it all in one draft but has learned his lesson about building the framework.
Rumor: Stephon Gilmore signed with the Vikings because of Brian Flores.
Gilmore told the Pioneer Press this week, “I think offenses are scared to go against his defenses. He has always had a good defense no matter where he has been, and I’m just trying to be a part of that.”
Not much mystery here: Gilmore, a former coworker to Flores in New England, chose to play for the Vikings because Flrores doesn’t foster poor defenses. The Flores connection strikes again.
Beloved Former Vikings QB Out for the Season
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His MIN obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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