Vikings reveal reason for benching starter before Titans game on Sunday

Prior to the start of their Week 11 matchup against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings announced that Dalton Risner was going to replace Ed Ingram as the team's starting right guard for the contest.

The Vikings wound up getting a win over the Titans with Risner in the starting lineup, and after the victory Minnesota head coach Kevin O'Connell shared why he decided to make a change at right guard.

"I wanted to take a look, with Dalton being healthy now, seeing if we could get a little bit more just of a veteran presence in there [consistently].

...We'll continue to find that best five [starting offensive linemen combination]. It's definitely not going to be a week-to-week thing, but we are going to allow some competition to play out while the season [still has] seven games left."

Real reason why the Minnesota Vikings benched Ed Ingram for Week 11 vs. the Tennessee Titans is obvious

During his tenure with the Vikings, we've learned that O'Connell has the ability to say a lot without really saying much at all. That's exactly what he did on Sunday with his response about starting Risner over Ingram.

But it's easy to understand why Minnesota made a change at right guard this weekend because Ingram has been one of the worst offensive linemen in the NFL this season.

Among all NFL guards heading into Sunday, Ingram had given up the most sacks (five) and allowed the third-most pressures (24), according to data from PFF. The Vikings clearly didn't think things were going to change against Tennessee, so they let Risner see if he could perform any better as the team's starting right guard.

At first glance, it seems like Minnesota made a good decision. According to PFF, Risner didn't give up a sack and he only allowed two pressures during the Vikings' win over the Titans on Sunday.

One can assume that Risner will remain Minnesota's starting right guard for the team's game next weekend against the Chicago Bears, and there's a good chance that he'll keep the job for the rest of the season.

Who knows what will happen during the next few weeks, but it's possible that we might have already witnessed Ingram take his final snap as a Vikings starter.

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