Sales pitch of new Vikings regime already lacking honesty

After praising Garrett Bradbury earlier this year, the Minnesota Vikings will reportedly not pick up the fifth-year option of their starting center.

Back in March during his first press conference at the NFL Scouting Combine as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, Kevin O’Connell raised a few eyebrows when he spoke about the team’s starting center, Garrett Bradbury.

When talking about Minnesota’s offensive line at the Combine, O’Connell said Bradbury is “what you look for from a core center” and that “obviously, [he’s] a guy that was drafted really high for a reason.”

Well, two months later, the Vikings’ actions are certainly not reflective of what their head coach said in March as the team will reportedly be declining the fifth-year contract option for Bradbury according to KSTP’s Darren Wolfson.

Tenure with Minnesota Vikings nearing the end for Garrett Bradbury

While the decision to not pick up Bradbury‘s fifth-year option is the correct one, there was no need for O’Connell to try and create some sort of narrative that Minnesota was all set at the center position.

Anyone with working eyes who has watched a second of film of Bradbury during the last few seasons knew that his weaknesses were due to much more than him not being a fit for the Vikings‘ offensive scheme.

There is a way to be honest about a player without throwing them under the bus, as Minnesota’s previous regime did at times. O’Connell could have talked about how Bradbury has some positive traits that they can work with moving forward or something like that. He didn’t have to speak about the Vikings center like he’s a future Hall of Famer.

But this is probably just a taste of what we should expect from Minnesota’s new regime. They’re going to do whatever they want with their team regardless of what they say in public, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s actually more of how the majority of the teams in the NFL are run.

Vikings fans were just so used to the blunt, in-your-face honesty from Mike Zimmer that was, sometimes, a little too honest. That type of honesty is clearly a thing of the past, and once again, that is perfectly fine. Maybe in the future though, just avoid talking about draft busts like they’re multiple-time All-Pros.