{"id":161579,"date":"2025-06-27T03:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T03:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/161579\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T03:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T03:19:11","slug":"donovan-jackson-leading-vikings-lg-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/161579\/","title":{"rendered":"Donovan Jackson Leading Vikings&#8217; LG Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vikings first-round pick Donovan Jackson \u201chas the inside track to emerge from training camp\u201d as the team\u2019s starting left guard, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/45538598\/2025-nfl-draft-rookie-updates-minicamp-otas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">according to ESPN\u2019s Kevin Seifert<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.profootballrumors.com\/files\/2025\/06\/USATSI_25202622-scaled.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-366614 size-medium\" style=\"border: 2px solid #000000;margin: 15px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/USATSI_25202622-220x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\"  \/><\/a>Jackson, the No. 24 selection in April\u2019s draft, made his first 31 college starts at left guard before moving to left tackle to replace injured then-Ohio State teammate Josh Simmons. Jackson performed admirably on the blind side, leading to some pre-draft chatter about his potential as a guard\/tackle hybrid.<\/p>\n<p>But with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/D\/DarrCh00.htm?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.profootballrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-06-26_pfr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Christian Darrisaw<\/a> firmly entrenched as the Vikings\u2019 long-term left tackle, Jackson will play left guard in Minnesota. He took the majority of first-team reps during spring practices, per Seifert, though that is partially because starting right guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/F\/FrieWi00.htm?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.profootballrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-06-26_pfr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Will Fries<\/a>\u00a0is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.profootballrumors.com\/2025\/06\/vikings-ol-will-fries-expected-to-be-ready-for-training-camp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">still sidelined by last season\u2019s broken leg<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/BranBl00.htm?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.profootballrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-06-26_pfr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Blake Brandel<\/a>, who played every snap at left guard for the Vikings last year, has been working in Fries\u2019 spot, but he will likely still compete with Jackson in training camp once Fries is back on the field.<\/p>\n<p>Brendel struggled in 2024 with 46 quarterback pressures allowed, the second-most among starting guards, per\u00a0Pro Football Focus (<a href=\"https:\/\/premium.pff.com\/nfl\/positions\/2024\/REGPO\/offense-blocking?position=G&amp;minimum=50p\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">subscription required<\/a>). That gives Jackson a clear opening to seize the starting job by demonstrating better pass protection during the preseason.<\/p>\n<p>The Vikings turned over their offensive line depth this offseason, so there are no other obvious candidates to push Jackson and Brendel for the starting left guard job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vikings first-round pick Donovan Jackson \u201chas the inside track to emerge from training camp\u201d as the team\u2019s starting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[3971,19841,7,233,259,2529,6,234],"class_list":{"0":"post-161579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-blake-brandel","9":"tag-donovan-jackson-ohio-state","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-minnesota","12":"tag-minnesota-vikings","13":"tag-minnesotavikings","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-vikings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114753173426959625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}