Vikings LB Blake Cashman Returns to the Field After Hamstring Injury
Coming out of their bye week, the Minnesota Vikings got some positive news on a key defensive starter. LB Blake Cashman, a former fifth-round pick of the Jets whom the Vikings signed in 2024, has been on Injured Reserve (IR) since Week 1 after sustaining a hamstring injury in the team’s Week 1 game against the Bears.
But in great news for the Vikings, head coach Kevin O’Connell announced during his Monday press conference that the team is opening the 21-day practice window for Cashman. When a player returns from IR, the team can activate a 21-day window during which the player can practice with the team, but does not count against an active roster spot until he’s ready to return to game action. The team can fully activated him at any time in that window, but if they don’t before the 21 days expire, the player reverts to IR and cannot be activated again that season.
“[I’m] also excited to open up Blake Cashman’s [practice] window, we’ll open [it] up today,” O’Connell said. “We’ll go out for some on-field work today to kinda get the week kicked off. …It’ll be great to get Cash back on the practice field, we’re opening that window up, and he’s done a heck of a job getting himself ready to go. And we’ll give him the week of preparation and see where he’s at towards the tail end of the week.”
O’Connell also announced that QB J.J. McCarthy, RT Brian O’Neill, G Donovan Jackson, and C Michael Jurgens all returned to practice on Monday after missing the Vikings‘ Week 5 game against the Browns in London.
LB Blake Cashman is Critical to the Minnesota Vikings Defense
“I think a guy like Blake Cashman coming back is critical as well,” O’Connell said later in his press conference. “Because he assumes that ‘green dot’ position and we have just seen since we got Blake, when he is out there, and we’re playing the kind of defense we’re accustomed to seeing, Blake’s got a lot to do with it. So [we’re] very excited to get him back.”
The “green dot position” refers to a literal green dot sticker that one player on each side of the ball wears on the back of their helmet. Only one player for each team is allowed to wear one on the field on any given play, but the green dot designates which player is allowed to talk to the coaches on the sidelines through the helmet communication systems. On offense, that’s always the quarterback. On defense, it’s typically the middle linebacker, but it can also be a safety or other linebacker position.
For the Vikings defense, that player is Cashman. He’s responsible for getting the defense set, communicating the playcall to the rest of the unit, making sure everyone’s in the right spots, and calling out any audibles or adjustments based on what the offense is doing. More than just what he offers during the play, Minnesota is getting the quarterback of their defense back.
It’s a Good Time for the Minnesota Vikings to Get Healthy
Texans’ $1 Breakout: Offensive Lineman is Turning Doubters Into Believers
Even after the Houston Texans made wholesale changes across their offensive line in the offseason as an attempt to make up for the fact that the unit was one of the worst in the NFL in 2024, there wasn't much more than lukewarm optimism that the group would
Sure, there was reason to believe that four fresh faces and a new offensive scheme might, in the best case scenario, result in moderate improvements, but based on the talent alone, there remained more questions than you'd like.
Take for example Ed Ingram, the Texans starter at right guard who Houston landed in the offseason for the price of a 6th Round draft pick. Ingram, a 2022 2nd Round draft pick out of LSU who fell out of favor in Minnesota, wasn't necessarily looked at as a concrete improvement over Shaq Mason, who held down the spot each of the two prior seasons.
Ed Ingram flashed decent potential during his rookie year with the Vikings, but never improved upon it in each of the next two seasons. But since arriving in Houston, Ingram hasn't looked like anything but a bonafide starter at the position.
Through the first five weeks of the season, Ingram was the top-ranked guard in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus, boasting the 2nd-best run blocking grade in the NFL behind only perennial All-Pro Quenton Nelson, in addition to a league average pass-blocking grade (63.3, ranked 43rd out of 106 qualified guards) that is right on par with Mason's pass-blocking grade last season (65.2, 53rd out of 136 qualified guards).
In fact, Ingram has been such a revelation along the offensive line that is performance prompted Bleacher Report's Brad Gagnon named Ingram the biggest breakout player on the entire Houston Texans roster over the first five weeks of the season.
"The Texans line has been through plenty of trials and tribulations, but Ingram has come over from the Vikings and shined at right guard," Gagnon wrote before noting how Ingram stacks up in PFF's player grades.
But frankly, it's not just Ingram who has represented an improvement over Houston's options along the offensive line last year.
Ed Ingram Just One Of Many Upgrades Along Texans Offensive Line
Now I feel as though it's my obligation to mention that PFF grades are not the be-all and end-all when it comes to evaluating player performance. Generally, it can be considered a solid indicator of performance, but there are always outliers. For example, care to take a guess as to who the highest-graded quarterback in the NFL was heading into Week 6?
You're probably throwing out names like Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield, Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford. All solid guesses. But that distinction belonged to -- drumroll please -- Marcus Mariota, backup quarterback of the Washington Commanders.
(Since we threw in a drumroll already, how about we toss in some canned laughter too, because that's objectively very funny.)
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because below, I've included a table with the grades of Houston's starters along the offensive line this year compared to their most frequent group from last year, and as you'll soon see, the PFF grades don't paint a picture of how well they've held up this season in comparison to last season.
Across the entire group, the grades are pretty similar -- if you total up the grades of all five players and average it out, the 2025 group's grade (58.7) is actually sightly lower than the 2024 group (61.7) -- but ask anyone within the Texans organization, and they'll likely tell you that this year's five-man unit is holding up better than last year's did.
One of the things we heard quite frequently in the offseason as the Texans were undergoing all of these changes was that it wasn't necessarily the individual talent of Houston's offensive line that was the problem during the 2024 season... it was how ineffective the group had been at coalescing and working together as a unit that was the issue.
This feels like a classic, 'the whole is greater than the sum of its part' situation for the Houston Texans, though having an emerging star in Ed Ingram certainly helps the whole. This year, Houston has given up just 12 sacks through 5 games, putting them on pace for 41 on the season, a significant improvement over last year, when CJ Stroud was sacked 52 times.
