Ed
Ingram.
Ed
Ingram.
LSU· 6'3"· 307 lb· 5.02s 40
"A four-year SEC starting guard who wins the only way he knows how — by driving a defender off the spot — and whose draft slot was decided as much by the off-field question as by the pass-protection tape."Pre-draft read
A power-first right guard built to displace people. Ingram plays with a wide base and lands a jarring first punch, and he is at his best on gap and duo concepts where he can drive a defender off the spot rather than reach him. He fires low out of his stance, keeps his hands inside, and finishes through the whistle.
In pass protection he is a sitter rather than a slider — strong enough to anchor against bull rushes and reset his hands, but slower to redirect when a rusher crosses his face or a stunt asks him to pass off and pick up late. He is not a puller who eats up space in the open field. The signature is the run-game violence: when he is asked to move a body forward, few guards in the class did it more consistently.
Gap and duo-based run game that lets him fire out low and drive one defender, paired with a quick-game passing structure that shortens his sets.
Year 1: immediate starter at right guard in a downhill run scheme. Ceiling: a top-ten run-blocking guard whose pass protection is coached to average.
Wide zone offense that asks him to reach a shaded nose and climb on the move, or an empty-heavy passing team that leaves him isolated on interior rushers every snap.
The scheme decides how good he looks — the same player is a weapon on duo and a liability on the move.
Ed Ingram — LSU left guard highlights
College reel showing the base of the evaluation: low pad level off the snap, heavy hands, and displacement on gap concepts.
Zach Carter vs Ed Ingram — Senior Bowl one-on-ones
Isolated pass-protection reps against a drafted interior rusher, the exact context where his anchor and his redirect were tested.
Texans extend Ed Ingram — three-year deal breakdown
Post-2025 discussion of how a guard traded away for a sixth-round pick rebuilt his value in Houston.
A four-year LSU starter whose evaluation was decided by two things that had nothing to do with each other: the power he put on tape in the run game, and the off-field question that split draft rooms. As a player he was a plug-and-play interior starter, a guard with real functional strength and a mean streak, exactly the kind of prospect a team takes when it wants its run game fixed immediately rather than in two years.
The football résumé was unusually long. He started twelve games at right guard as a true freshman in 2017, missed the 2018 season entirely, returned to start twice in eleven appearances on the 2019 national title team, started nine games at left guard in 2020, and closed with twelve starts and second-team All-SEC honors in 2021. He was arrested in August 2018 on a sexual assault charge; the charges were dismissed and he was reinstated in September 2019. Several clubs still removed him from their boards.
For teams that cleared him medically and personally, the grade sat squarely in the second-to-third round range: a starting-caliber guard with a defined role, limited scheme flexibility, and pass protection that would need coaching. Minnesota traded down twice in the second round and took him at 59 as a day-one starter at right guard.
- 01
Displacement power
Generates real movement on gap and duo concepts, firing off low with a wide base and driving defenders off the line rather than simply covering them up.
- 02
Heavy, accurate hands
Lands a jarring first punch and keeps his grip inside the frame, which lets him sustain blocks long after the initial contact has been won.
- 03
Anchor against power
Sits down and absorbs bull rushes without giving up ground, resetting his hands rather than panicking when a rusher walks him toward the pocket.
- 04
Four-year starting résumé
Started as a true freshman in the SEC and closed with second-team All-SEC honors, so nothing about NFL speed or preparation was going to surprise him.
- 05
Finishing temperament
Plays through the whistle with obvious intent, the sort of guard who makes a defensive tackle feel every rep and sets the tone for the interior.
- 01
Lateral quickness
Slower to redirect when a rusher crosses his face or a game forces him to pass off and pick up late, which turns clean pockets into interior pressure.
- 02
Space blocking
Not a guard who covers ground on pulls or climbs efficiently to second-level targets, so wide zone and pull-heavy run games flatten his value.
- 03
Pass-set consistency
Sets with his weight forward and can be caught reaching, leaving him vulnerable to inside counters from quicker three-technique rushers.
- 04
Off-field flag
The 2018 arrest, though the charges were dismissed, cost him a full season and removed him from several teams' boards entirely before the draft.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.02sp50
- Vertical
- 20.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 102inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.81sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.76sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | LSU | — |
| 2019 | LSU | 11 |
| 2020 | LSU | — |
| 2021 | LSU | — |
| Career | — | 11 |
Offensive linemen have no box-score production. Games/starts from LSU and NFL.com pre-draft bio: 12 starts at RG in 2017, suspended for all of 2018, 2 starts in 11 appearances in 2019, 9 starts in 2020, 12 starts in 2021. Appearance totals for 2017, 2020 and 2021 are not published in a verified source, so they are left blank rather than estimated.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
The realistic outcome is a physical, scheme-specific right guard who is genuinely valuable in a gap run game and ordinary in protection.
The ceiling is a decade-long starter whose power in the run game is good enough that teams keep paying for it into his thirties.
The floor is a starter by default who leaks interior pressure often enough that his team keeps shopping for an upgrade.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Ed Ingram has played his entire career with the Minnesota Vikings, immediately becoming a starting right guard. He has been a consistent presence on the offensive line.
Minnesota installed him at right guard on day one and never took the training wheels off: he started all seventeen games as a rookie, absorbed a heavy volume of interior pressure, and stayed on the field through it. Year two brought the same job and better run-game tape, but the pass protection numbers stayed a problem. In 2024 he opened the season as the starter, lost the job in November, and was traded to Houston the following March for a sixth-round pick. That is usually where a second-round guard's story flattens out. Instead, he started fourteen games for the Texans in 2025 plus two more in the playoffs, graded out as one of the better run blockers at the position, and turned the season into a multi-year extension to stay in Houston.
The pre-draft read was right about all of it, in both directions. The power was real and it never left — he is still winning the way he won at LSU, by moving people forward. The pass-protection flag was also real, and it is the reason four seasons of starting have not produced a Pro Bowl conversation. What the evaluation underrated was durability and the value of a guard who simply plays every Sunday; the Vikings gave him away for a sixth-round pick and Houston got the useful version back for almost nothing.
Data note: from Green Bay