Tyler Forness diagnoses the game of former BYU Cougar Tyler Batty and discusses if he could make the Minnesota Vikings roster.
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00:00Minnesota Vikings have had a lot of success with UDFA classes in the past,
00:04and one guy has a seemingly easy path to make the roster. Let's talk about it.
00:11Over the three years that Cueso Dufa Mensah has been in charge of the Minnesota Vikings,
00:16he has had great success with undrafted free agents. Yes, the guys that you necessarily
00:22would not think are going to make the team usually end up doing so. Over the course of
00:26the last three years, eight have made the Minnesota Vikings. Shockingly, all of them
00:31on defense. And there's one common thread with all three years. An edge rusher has made the roster.
00:39And that's a really interesting paradigm when you talk about it, because edge rushers usually
00:44viewed as one of the more premier positions in the National Football League. But the Vikings are
00:48building out the back end of their roster with UDFA edge rushers. So what's the catch? Why are
00:53they so good at this? I'm not really sure, but they seem to be taking players who are undervalued
00:59by the market. Andre Carter's undervalued because he didn't have play strength. Gabe Murphy was
01:04undervalued because he didn't have arm length. And then Bo Richter was also undervalued because he
01:10didn't have arm length either. It's really interesting. And when you look at the first UDFA
01:15edge rush in 2022, Luigi Villain, he just didn't have any kind of production profile and he was an
01:21older prospect. But he had athleticism. All those guys ended up making the roster. Now,
01:26Bo Richter is more of a tweener between linebacker and like edge rusher. So on ball and off ball.
01:32He can do both. He did both at Air Force. He's more of a special teams maven. But when you look at
01:37this year's class, the UDFA class, there's one player that stands out. Tyler Batty, the edge rusher
01:45from BYU. He's about to turn 26 on Friday, but he's a really talented player. And one of the
01:51things that makes him so talented is run defense. He does not possess a lot of the athleticism upside
01:56that you would expect from a player who the Vikings would have brought in because they really target
02:02those high upside athletes. But what Batty does is provide a baseline floor. He's 6'4", 275, and he's
02:08a high motor effort guy. Really good in run defense. Solid can shed blocks. More of a base
02:154-3 end. But if you put on 10-15 pounds, he can be one of those space eaters at a 4-I and be able
02:23to really handle himself in the run game. Or you can keep him at 275 pounds and he can play base end
02:28for you. Be a stand-up linebacker. Utilize some of those odd front structures and he can be able to set
02:34an edge. Those things are impactful. Now he's not going to add a ton of juice in the pass rush,
02:39but he's had pretty consistent numbers throughout his entire tenure at BYU. But he is 26 years old.
02:45That can be a real deterrent for a team to potentially pick him versus somebody else.
02:49Maybe there's a 22-year-old who's got a similar profile. They're like, you know what? I'll take
02:53the younger guy. And that pushes a guy like him down. But they also made a sizable commitment to
02:58Batty. $259,000. $259,000. Fully guaranteed money. 25 of which was in signing bonus. The rest,
03:09well, it's slightly more than what a practice squad spot would be. So Batty's going to get a
03:13little bit of money no matter what. But when they've made these kind of commitments, those guys
03:17usually make the roster. Batty's going to be one to watch. And he might not be exciting,
03:22but solid play and consistent play, especially on first and second down, is definitely worth the
03:30price of admission. I'm Tyler Fornes with ADZ Sports. Skull Vikings.