Vikings GM Says “Sky is the Limit” for Late-Round Offensive Lineman
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is a believer in Walter Rouse, the offensive tackle coming out of Oklahoma.
On Tuesday, Tatum Everett did a sitdown interview with the Vikings GM. A few minutes into the conversation, Everett shifts things over to a rapid-fire segment where she prompts Adofo-Mensah to reflect on each draft selection. The thoughts about Rouse are promising: “Sky is the limit. Extremely athletic in a short area, athletic and powerful in a short area […] he’s a late-developing bully but he’s a bully nonetheless.”
Vikings GM Thinks Walter Rouse Can Be Great
The man looks like an NFL offensive tackle.
At 6’6″, 313, Rouse has an ideal build to play the position. Initially, he was putting in work for Stanford before switching to Oklahoma for the 2023 season. Over the past three seasons, he has picked up 732 snaps (2021), 650 snaps (2022), and then 851 snaps (2023) at left tackle. He hasn’t played anywhere else along the offensive line from 2021-23 apart from a single, lonely snap at right tackle in 2023, per PFF.
The analytics website put him at 171st on their board, which is close to where Minnesota picked him: 177th overall. Or, put differently, the opening pick of the 6th Round.
The word from PFF on Walter Rouse: “Rouse is an experienced and well-built offensive tackle prospect with good size, length and football intelligence for a man/gap run scheme. In pass protection, he must improve his foot speed and consistency with leverage in order to become a starter at the next level.”
The scouting blurb on NFL.com offers more insight: “Rouse possesses the size and intelligence coaches like, and he might be able to continue improving if he can get stronger and prove he can play on the right side as well. He’s an average athlete with average bend, and that will show up in his lack of consistent anchor and in-line drive. However, that should not be oversold, as he tends to anchor enough and maintain a level of stickiness as a run blocker, even when it looks a little disheveled. Rouse has played almost exclusively as a left tackle but might be in consideration as a solid swing tackle prospect with some upside.”
The league website suggested Rouse should get scooped up in the 5th or 6th.
Minnesota needs more depth at offensive tackle, so the Rouse addition makes a ton of sense.
Christian Darrisaw is developing into one of the game’s elite left tackles. At 24 (25 on June 2nd), Darrisaw is going to be a cornerstone piece in Minnesota for 5-10 more years. The team just picked up his fifth-year option, but an extension will soon become the priority.
Across from the young LT is Brian O’Neill, who is soon to enter Year 7 in the NFL after being picked at No. 62 back in 2018. He, too, is foundational to what Minnesota wants to accomplish. He’ll be 29 on September 15th but hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down.
Otherwise, the main option would be David Quessenberry, a solid swing tackle who has bounced around the NFL since first entering the league in 2013. Quessenberry, 33, is playing on a 1-year, $1.8 million deal with the Vikings after impressing last season.
Add it all together and there’s a pretty clear path toward Walter Rouse becoming the OT4, a designation that would involve him making the team. In time, perhaps Rouse could keep climbing the depth chart, taking over as the main swing tackle before possibly becoming a starter down the road. After all, the sky is the limit, at least per the GM.
Walter Rouse is 23.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference and Over the Cap helped with this piece.
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K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter and as a co-host for Notes from the North, a humble Vikings podcast.