Jihad Ward

Good morning, good evening, good night to those watching episode 453 of the Purple Pain Podcast.

Bam Bradley, Dan Cody, Jameel McClain, Dalshawn Phillips, Kyle Van Nooy, Jihad Ward, Jeremy Zuta, edition of the Purple Rain Podcast.

If you're watching this after the fact, hello, comment replay gang if you are.

But I see that the live chat is already going a little crazy.

You were in the huddle, right? So I think they missed N'Kobi, for sure.

And Jihad not panning out so far.

When they drafted Jihad, that's when N'Kobi was gone.

They were not going to bring N'Kobi back, barring, God forbid, an injury to somebody, and it made sense.

But Jihad not turning into an every-down-impact player.

We probably don't discuss enough the fact that that it is about to be week eight, and they are rotating linebackers with Jihad.

And last year you could understand it a little bit because N'Kobi was coming back.

He had been a good player, and obviously Vic really liked N'Kobi.

I think...

The cutting of Najee Harris, the cutting of Jihad Ward, I think it sent a message to the locker room that, hey, you produce or you're not here, you don't hustle, you're not here, whatever.

But I think it caught everybody's attention.

It did catch everyone's attention.

And Shelby Harris at the three techniques.

That is the first time that they haven't used somebody like Darius Alexander, Jihad Ward, Chauncey Golston.

And the Texans got in the jumbo personnel.

And we talked about, that's another thing we talked about on the preview pause.

now that they have all those players back.

One additional note for this game is that the, well, not necessarily for the game, but just in general for the roster, the Vikings brought back outside linebacker Jihad Ward.

He was briefly with the New York Giants, and then they decided to let him go, so he returned to the Vikings.

Just a little extra veteran depth there, and I think we all remember he was good in terms of a depth role for the Vikings in 2024, so he is back.

It was Tremaine Edmonds.

The touchdown that we were alluding to, where he missed a tackle on the sideline, it was Jihad Ward, who's no longer on the team.

That's the touchdown, Alvin Kamara.

And then the last one was late in the third quarter.

I think he'll probably play.

um this weekend to be determined but uh i i can't blame it on the shoulder that's why i wasn't doing that because it was it happened before this right so it's primarily the linebackers wow and so it's i mean but it makes a difference sure because if you're hustling to the ball you're likely to get that that tackle after the runner the ball carrier breaks a tackle that that's why you need to hustle It's interesting.

So Jihad Ward is one of the guys you mentioned.

He got cut, and that's probably the reason why.