I'd give a game ball to "Will the thrill" and Wright.

Grade wise:
    kicking         A
    kick returns   F
    Defense stop run   F
    Defense pass def   D
    Offense run      C when used in first half
    Offense pass     D
    Play calling        D

Let's do this!

This important...

Adam Schefter
@AdamSchefter
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38s
Starting QB roundup for today now includes…

?Steelers: Mason Rudolph
?Bengals: Joe Flacco
?Falcons: Kirk Cousins
?Jets: Tyrod Taylor
?Giants: Jameis Winston
?Browns: Shedeur Sanders
?Cardinals: Jacoby Brissett

Houston also had Davis Mills on Thursday night.

EAGAN, Minn. -- The Minnesota Vikings activated center Ryan Kelly from injured reserve Saturday, completing his nearly two-month recovery from a pair of concussions that seemed to threaten his career.

Kelly, who signed a two-year $18 million contract with the Vikings in March after spending his first nine seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, has suffered a total of five documented concussions since entering the NFL. The Vikings diagnosed him with concussions during their games in Weeks 2 and 4 this season before placing him on injured reserve. He has played a total of 113 snaps in 2025.

Upon his return Sunday for the Vikings' game at the Green Bay Packers, Kelly will wear a new helmet model and is also likely to use a Guardian Cap, according to coach Kevin O'Connell. It will be the first game this season when all five members of the Vikings' starting offensive line have played together.

The Vikings opened Kelly's 21-day practice window November 12, and he followed with six symptom-free days of practice over the ensuing two weeks. O'Connell said this week that the Vikings were waiting until Kelly was "essentially banging down the door to get back on the field."

"You never want to go on IR," Kelly said upon returning to practice. "But I think in the grand scheme of things it was the best option to give me time to see specialists and do what I needed to do, and I'm grateful [the Vikings] had the had the foresight to do it."

The Vikings had already created a roster spot for Kelly by waiving cornerback Dwight McGlothern Jr. on Thursday. McGlothern re-signed Saturday to the Vikings' practice squad and was then elevated to the active roster for Sunday's game.

ESPN

Vikings’ Ryan Kelly thought about retiring after multiple concussions, but says, ‘I still love this game’
The Vikings center has been fitted for a higher-rated helmet and will wear a Guardian Cap if he returns Sunday in Green Bay.

Vikings center Ryan Kelly sat in a hotel room at Hanbury Manor in Ware, England, about 4,000 miles away from home. He asked himself: “Why did this happen again? Is this the last one? Is it going to keep getting worse? Am I going to be doing too much damage to my head?”

Kelly had just suffered his second concussion in three weeks against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dublin, the first leg of the Vikings’ two-game international road trip ending against the Browns in London. It was the second time in the last three years that Kelly has been concussed twice in the same season..

That fact, and symptoms from the concussion, left Kelly in a vulnerable place as many questions flooded his healing brain. His first reassurance came from coach Kevin O’Connell inside a makeshift meeting room at the 200-acre English country club.

“You have a conversation where you’re emotional, a little bit erratic, kind of spiraling mentally in a big situation and big moment in your career,” Kelly told the Minnesota Star Tribune, “and to kind of have him be the calming voice and reassure you that you’re going to be fine, we want you to do whatever you need and take as much time as you need, it’s the best feeling as a player.”

“It’s a conversation I’d hoped we would have,” Kelly added. “You never know with a new coaching staff how everybody takes concussions.”
Back in Minnesota, the 30-minute drive between Kelly’s home and the Vikings training facility became his time to think about his four-time Pro Bowl career and what he wants the rest of his life to look like with his wife, Emma; their twin boys, Ford and Duke; and their daughter, Stella.

Kelly, 32, considered retirement. He’s had at least five concussions in his 10-year career, but he said he met with doctors who eased his concerns about his long-term brain health.

“A lot of soul searching, getting as many answers as I could,” Kelly said, “and then I realized I’m not done. I still love this game.”

When Kelly returns, which is expected to be Sunday against the Packers at Lambeau Field, he’ll be wearing a different helmet: a higher-rated Riddell Axiom 3D made for linemen. He’ll also be the first Vikings player to wear a Guardian Cap, a padded helmet cover, in a regular season game this year.

“If all systems are go,” O’Connell said, “then let’s attack this thing together with no kind of worry and let him go play football, which is what he wants to do.”

Evolution of football helmetsKelly’s first concussion this season, on Sept. 14 against the Falcons, prompted him to change helmets for the first time since 2018. Vikings equipment manager Mike Parson helped Kelly pick Riddell’s Axiom 3D, which comes in three varieties, including a standard model that has earned the highest safety rating in the NFL and NFLPA’s annual lab testing in back-to-back years.

“By a pretty wide margin actually,” said Thad Ide, Riddell’s chief product officer.

Ide credits the customization of each helmet, which features a 3D-printed liner with tailored polymer lattice structures that provide padding where needed. The customization starts with Adam Groene, the Vikings’ assistant equipment manager, scanning a player’s head and uploading the images to a Riddell app.

Riddell’s “fit algorithm” then designs the personalized liner, Ide said.

Kelly’s order was submitted after the Sept. 14 game. While customization is faster than it used to be, his new helmet did not arrive before the team’s trip to Dublin, where he suffered a second concussion in his old helmet during the Sept. 28 loss to Pittsburgh.

Kelly is wearing a helmet made for offensive and defensive linemen that comes with additional padding in the front to account for the repetitive hits at the line of scrimmage. There’s also a model with more padding in the back of the helmet for quarterbacks concerned about falling backward.

Position-specific helmets were introduced by Vicis, a Seattle-based company that started in 2015 with a $1.1 million grant through the NFL’s Head Health Challenge. The initiative began in 2013, when the league first agreed to a settlement with more than 4,500 former players over concussion-related brain injuries.

Concussion numbers in the NFL have dropped over the last decade of awareness about the dangers of repeated blows to the head, on-field rule changes and off-field research and helmet development. In 2024, the NFL recorded the fewest concussions — 182 — in games and practices since it began tracking the data in 2015.

As helmet technology evolves, so do lab test standards conducted by Biocore and overseen by an NFL-NFLPA panel of biomedical, engineering and equipment experts.

Lab results produce a series of charts ranking available helmets in color zones: green for preferred, yellow for not recommended and red for prohibited. Those charts are explained to players every spring in a presentation before they pick a helmet for the year.

A recent influx of new helmet technology and varieties led to a churn, said Jeff Miller, the NFL’s top health and safety executive. At least six helmet types have been outlawed each of the last three years, driven out of commission by newer helmets with superior safety ratings.

The NFL’s data shows that players switching to higher-ranked helmets have lower injury rates “oftentimes substantially,” Miller added. “We share that with players individually as they get educated about new helmets that come onto the market, so they can trust the rankings on the poster.”

No mirrors in the equipment room
Jason Neubauer, the chief innovation officer at Certor Sports (the parent company to Vicis and Schutt), learned a lesson a decade ago when Vicis would host Seahawks players to try on one of the company’s new helmets.

“They’d say, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’” Neubauer said. “Mirror test is everything.”

That’s why there are no mirrors in the Vikings equipment room under Parson, the third-year equipment manager who first convinced left tackle Christian Darrisaw to switch to the better-rated Vicis Zero2 Trench Elite helmet. He wants players focused on the safest options available.

Parson instead has all safety-rating posters — for general helmets and those specific to linemen and quarterbacks — along a wall inside TCO Performance Center. Parson was fitting Darrisaw, who suffered back-to-back concussions in 2022, with the new helmet when teammates walked by and gave him bad reviews. Darrisaw said he was told he “looked like a Power Ranger” with the bulbous front that has extra padding.

“I told him, ‘Don’t even listen,’” Parson said.

Darrisaw will start his 31st game in the helmet on Sunday without yet sustaining another brain injury.

“Knock on wood,” he said.

Edge rusher Jonathan Greenard “look like he got a Transformer helmet” in the Zero2 Trench Elite, said teammate Isaiah Rodgers. But Greenard said the look — in addition to the top safety rating for defensive linemen — were draws.

“It’s a meaner look,” Greenard said. “I like it.”

Receiver Jordan Addison switched to Schutt’s new F7 Pro this year because it was lighter than his first NFL helmet, Riddell’s SpeedFlex Precision. Addison said his neck used to hurt.

He also thought receiver Justin Jefferson looked good in the sleek F7 Pro.

Addison needed a mirror to make sure he did, too.

“I go take it to the bathroom,” Addison said. “Make sure I’m right.”

Schutt produced the F7 Pro to have better safety capacity, but with the same outer shell as the F7 because of how many players like Jefferson and the Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase grew fond of the look. Because of the familiarity and higher safety rating, the F7 Pro was among the NFL’s fastest-adopted new offerings this year, Neubauer said.

“You got a player like Justin Jefferson who is in the helmet already,” Neubauer said, “and he likes the way he looks in the helmet, we want to give him that same look with better impact performance.”

When cornerback Jeff Okudah suffered a concussion Sept. 8 in Chicago, he changed helmets and initiated a defensive back migration to the F7 Pro. Cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. and safety Josh Metellus followed suit. (Okudah entered the concussion protocol a second time after the Oct. 23 game against the Chargers.)

‘More than your standard concussion protocol’
Comfort is another prevailing factor for players, which is why Kelly continued to wear the Riddell SpeedFlex Precision that ranked eighth out of 11 recommended (or green-rated) helmets this season.

“I wore that helmet since 2018,” said Kelly, “so in that seven years I had two concussions [in 2023]. I guess I’d never really thought about making the change. It was still in the green.”

Kelly’s first concussion came in an outdated helmet in 2017.

His history with brain injuries prompted Kelly to visit Dr. Michael Collins, a clinical neuropsychologist and executive director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Sports Medicine Concussion Program, which has treated a number of professional athletes.

The Vikings training staff also set up twice-a-week physical therapy appointments at Twin Cities Orthopedics on the team’s campus, where over the past seven weeks Kelly had one-to-two-hour sessions.

“He had a list of things for me to work on,” Kelly said of his physical therapist. “Our training staff and him talked frequently, so they knew if I forgot all the different homework assignments: if I had to do this, focus on this, or time something, see how it all goes. So, it was a little bit more in depth than your standard concussion protocol.”

Kelly said he’s symptom-free and “in a much better spot than I was two months ago,” when he wondered whether he’d play again.

New questions have come to mind since then.

“If I had switched over in the spring to this helmet, would it have never happened?” Kelly said. “I don’t know. The Guardian Cap doesn’t hurt. Does it help a lot? I don’t know, we’ll see. It’s kind of to be determined, but I’m doing everything I can to protect myself.”


Strib

https://www.purpleinsider.football/p/don...is-driving

By Matthew Coller

EAGAN —From his first press conference with the Minnesota Vikings, it was evident that Donovan Jackson had a friendly disposition. He smiled and politely answered questions about his move from guard to tackle at Ohio State and talked about the viral video from his draft night in which his cat, named Leonardo DiCatio, made an appearance.

“I’m open to all animals,” he told the assembled media, who were probably expecting something a little more snarly from the 6-foot-4, 320-pound kid who was supposed to change the fate of the Vikings offensive line.

However, over his first eight NFL games, Jackson has proven that off-field personality and on-field personality are not always related.

He has quickly developed into a difference maker on the Vikings’ offensive line, ranking No. 1 among rookie guards in PFF pass blocking grade (16th of 58 overall) and has shown a nasty side in the run game that pairs very nicely with his elite athleticism.

This week, Jackson told Purple Insider that nastiness in the NFL doesn’t always manifest itself in the way people typically think. Being imposing isn’t the 1970s NFL Films Oakland Raiders style foaming-mouth, late-hit, screaming-lunatic type of thing that you would expect. He said that if you are playing technically correct football for the position, that it should look pretty darn violent on tape.

“[Offensive line coach Chris Kuper] told me when I first got here: ‘You can solve a lot of things by being aggressive,’” Jackson said. “If I come off the ball as hard as possible and put the crown of my helmet under their chin and just run, it just solves a lot of issues when it comes to technique. You have to know when to rein it in and when to crank it up.”

This is Jackson in a nutshell. The Vikings rookie left guard isn’t into trying to prove he’s a tough guy, instead he’s obsessed with learning the proper way to move giant men for his running backs and quarterback.

“I just try to be as coachable as possible,” Jackson said. “Sure, I consider myself a very smart player and I’m able to pick up things fast. When I came in, I wasn’t at the point where I needed to be but me having an open mind to coaching to make sure they can mold me into the player I can be. I’m still not where I need to be. I know that every week I need to continue to get better. I know where I want to go. Just having that mindset of coming in every day with something that I want to improve on.”

It didn’t take Jackson long to realize that he was going to need coaching in order to jump from Ohio State to the NFL. During his first training camp, he spent the summer trying to contain veteran star defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave and figure out defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ blitzes. There were a lot of tough lessons along the way.

“I could get away with a lot of stuff [in college] and when I was drafted I had a lot of bad habits that came with me,” Jackson said. “It took a lot of consistency and every-day practice to try to break those habits and then the overall strength of the game is different. Playing against grown men who have been playing this game for a really long time.”

In order to break those habits, Jackson has learned to be critical of himself without hurting his own confidence.

“You’ll come out of practice some days and there’s so many things that you have to fix and it can be a little overwhelming,” the rookie lineman said. “Or you’ll watch tape and you’ll be like, ‘that’s not me.’ I’ve had a couple of games where it’s like, ‘that’s not how I should play,’ and it’s like, not trying to get down on yourself too much and staying positive to make sure that you have that attitude that you’ll have another opportunity to go out there and play again.”

Jackson called dealing with the L’s on tape his “biggest mental hurdle.” He talked to veteran players about how to handle the tough games. They reminded him that the opposing players are pretty darn good at football too and that perfection at this level is not obtainable.

Pro Bowl tackle Brian O’Neill offered sage advice on how to learn from mistakes.

“The sign of a mature player, being able to say, ‘hey, this wasn’t good enough but why?’ Not so fixated or freaking out because you’ve had a bad result. Analyze what happened without attaching any emotion to it,” O’Neill said.

The important part, O’Neill said, is finding the right answers on the tape, not overreacting to one particular result.

“Rather than, ‘oh s— he beat me and now I have to try something completely different and go outside the scope of who I am as a player,’ acknowledge whatever happened good or bad — same way with good, ‘oh my god I just dogged that guy,’ instead it’s: why did I have success here?” O’Neill said.

During training camp, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell noticed that Jackson was making corrections at a very impressive rate. That has carried over to the season as well.

“The best part about him is if something gets him or he gets beat on something or he’s got to be a little altering to his technique in the run game or the pass game, he does it and doesn’t need Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, he’ll do it in game,” O’Connell said.

And Jackson hasn’t exactly had the most stable environment to work with throughout the season. Early in the year, he played next to backup left tackle Justin Skule. When center Ryan Kelly got hurt, he was alongside backup center Michael Jurgens and then his replacement Blake Brandel.

“He’s played next to a few guys now throughout the year on that offensive line, and both him and Will [Fries] have been really, really kind of guys that if they weren’t as consistent as they were, I don’t know necessarily if we’d be where we are now or even able to get through some of the adversity we have,” O’Connell said.

It’s also worth pointing out that the friendly, cat-loving guard has shown some of the blood-and-guts required to be a key starter in the NFL.

O’Connell was particularly impressed that Jackson, after injuring his wrist to the point of needing surgery, taped it up and played one more game against Cincinnati before getting it repaired. Was it advisable to play? Probably not, but he figured since it was already mangled, that he could get one more game in. After the surgery, he came back as soon as possible.

“You look at how he dealt with the wrist injury and then able to come back and beat the timeline…[that’s] as you would want a young player to be,” O’Connell said.

O’Neill said that Jackson has also started to let the competitive side of him take over during games.

“He’s playing his best ball when he’s got an ‘F-you’ mindset,” O’Neill said. “He’s actively talking on the sideline, talking about what he sees and how we can beat them. If he’s feeling it, he’ll let you know on the bench over there. Not talking s— to them but talking s— to us is a good thing in a game.”

While he might be all about the technique and improvement, it’s easy to tell that Jackson is enjoying the gritty part of the game too.

“It takes a lot to move grown men against their will but when it does happen, you’re like, ‘nice,’” Jackson said. “You want to get in the huddle and do it again.”

Detroit Lions tight end Sam LaPorta is likely out for the rest of the season after having back surgery, coach Dan Campbell said Friday.

LaPorta's absence leaves a big void as Detroit found out in last week's 16-9 loss at Philadelphia, where LaPorta was out of the lineup after going on injured reserve.

He has 40 receptions for 489 yards and three touchdowns this season and 186 catches for 2,104 yards and 20 touchdowns in 2 1/2 seasons.

"Certainly, losing Sam hurts," Campbell said. "That hurts. But we'll adjust, we'll adapt. We've got plenty of weapons here, and our O-line's going to do a hell of a job."

https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/sam...k-surgery/

A copy of the first ever issue of “Superman,” discovered in a Californian attic last year, has become the most expensive comic ever sold, fetching $9.12 million at auction.

Three brothers from northern California discovered the issue of “Superman #1” while clearing out their mother’s attic after her death. The 1939 comic had been kept in a cardboard box, protected by just a pile of old newspapers.

Nevertheless the comic, which originally sold for 10 cents, was found to be so well preserved that it was deemed the “highest ever graded copy” by Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auctions, which made the record-breaking sale on Thursday.

The brothers, who have not been named, found a collection of old comics while clearing out their mother’s property over the holiday season last year, the auction house said in a press statement issued before the sale. Their mother had always told them she had a valuable collection of comics, but they had never seen the prized editions for themselves.

Up in the attic they discovered five early issues of “Action Comics,” the anthology from National Allied Publications that first introduced Superman to the world. But it was the copy of “Superman #1,” the first time Clark Kent’s alias appeared in his own dedicated comic after National Allied became Detective Comics, Inc. — or DC as it is now famously known — that proved most promising.

The late owner had bought the comics with her brother between the Great Depression and World War II and later in life the pair had decided to pass them on to her sons, as the brother never married or had children.

The youngest of the three brothers, who are in their 50s and 60s, said in the auction house statement: “This was never just about a collectible. This is a testament to memory, family and the unexpected ways the past finds its way back to us.”

The comics had been a “treasured refuge” for the siblings who had grown up in a cramped apartment with few luxuries, he said. “But they had each other and a shared love for comic books,” he said.

He said the box had been hidden in the “recess of the attic,” adding: “But as the years unfolded, life brought about a series of losses and changes. The demands of everyday survival took center stage, and the box of comics, once set aside with care and intention, was forgotten. Until last Christmas.”

What set the comic’s valuation so high was not just its superior condition, but the fact that it had been part of DC’s first print run of half a million copies, the auction house said.

Lon Allen, vice president of Heritage Auctions, said in a statement published after the sale that he was “thrilled” by the result, adding: “Superman #1 is a milestone in pop culture history, and this copy is not only in unprecedented condition, but it has a movie-worthy story behind it. I was glad to see the price reflect that and am honored Heritage was entrusted with this iconic book.”

The previous record was held by a copy of “Action Comics No. 1,” which introduced Superman in 1938, which was sold by the same auction house for $6 million last year.

Prior to that, another issue of the Man of Steel’s adventures in “Superman #1” took the crown in 2022, fetching $5.3 million in a private sale.

cnn

Fries had a good game last week if you want to believe PFF scores...This is another take on his performance to-date.
========================================


The Vikings could play with their offensive line intact Sunday against the Green Bay Packers if center Ryan Kelly, who has practiced in full two days this week, is given the green light to play.

The group has been hampered by injury all season: Kelly’s concussions, tackles Christian Darrisaw’s and Brian O’Neill’s knee issues, rookie left guard Donovan Jackson’s wrist surgery.

Only one member of the team’s projected starting five has appeared in all 10 games this season — right guard Will Fries, who said Thursday he has not paid much mind to the rotating cast around him.

“Where our season’s kind of gone up front there and the ebbs and flows, Will has been a rock for us,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said Nov. 7, adding that Fries was “coming into his own, finding his stride within our system, both the run and pass game.”

The Vikings signed Fries, 27, away from the Indianapolis Colts to a five-year deal worth up to $88 million in March. He was coming off a right tibia injury that ended his 2024 season five games in.

This year, Fries has played 592 snaps, the most on the Vikings offense by 11 over wide receiver Justin Jefferson (581). The next offensive lineman is multitool Blake Brandel at 466 snaps.

Within the expected starting five, Jackson (459) has played the most snaps behind Fries followed by Darrisaw (415) and O’Neill (413).

Kelly has played just 113 snaps across two games, as he missed Week 2 because of a concussion and then was put on injured reserve Oct. 4 after suffering a second concussion in Week 4.

The Vikings have used four tackles this year, three guards and three centers.

Fries said it’s “definitely super exciting” to potentially have the intended starting five for the first time Sunday but was complimentary of all the players who have stepped in in the meantime: “We have a really good group of guys that have performed really well.”

O’Connell said Fries hasn’t directly taken on a bigger workload amid all the shuffling, but it has likely put more pressure on his job as a guard to communicate things across the line, especially in those games when Kelly has been missing.

“They’re normally conveyors of information, either inside out or outside in from the lineman next to him, but I’m sure that he’s felt a little bit more of a role, maybe even a leadership role, regardless of who’s in there with them, that not only my play and performance needs to be to a standard, but I’m going to bring guys along with me,” O’Connell said.

Strib

I could only do 5 of them (I think)