Camp questions: Will Vikings' trust in offensive line rookies pay off?
Camp questions: Will Vikings' trust in offensive line rookies pay off?
The Vikings drafted two offensive linemen to start -- their progress ranks at the top of the team's training camp storylines
Over the next two weeks, Matthew and Sam will lay out all the biggest storylines heading into training camp, position by position. Today’s edition: Offensive line.
Read Part 1: Wide receivers and tight ends
The Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line has haunted them for the entirety of the Mike Zimmer era.
By PFF’s grading system, they have ranked 23rd, 28th, 30th, 17th, 27th, 27th and 29th in pass blocking from 2014 through 2020.
Over the past few years, the Vikings have invested a lot of draft capital into turning around those numbers, picking six offensive linemen within the first three rounds since 2017.
They are hoping this is the year that spending all of those picks turns the tide. But will the young group be ready yet to divert from recent history? Let’s have a look…
Will Darrisaw and Davis win starting jobs?
Awhile back we looked at which positions generally adapted to the NFL quickest. Spoiler alert: It’s not offensive linemen.
The recent history of teams asking O-linemen to be difference makers right away has more misses than hits, especially when trying to block the world’s best pass rushers.
But if we consider a grade above 65 as being solid, the performances haven’t been a disaster across the board. Here’s the number of starting rookie linemen that scored above 65 pass blocking grade in the last five years.
2020: 5 of 14
2019: 5 of 13
2018: 7 of 13
2017: 4 of 7
2016: 7 of 13
Total: 33 of 66
A split right down the middle.
The Vikings’ two offensive linemen that are expected to start were both high picks and if you guessed that higher draft picks usually have better odds of being at least serviceable pass blockers, you were right.
In 2016, six of the seven players that were at least average were picked within the first three rounds. Last year it was four of the five.
But draft status doesn’t always project performance. Last year’s leader in sacks allowed Andrew Thomas was the first tackle off the board. Same for 2019 first-rounder Kaleb McGary, who gave up 13 sacks as a first-year starter. The NFL leader in sacks in 2018 was also a first-round rookie in Kolton Miller.
How can we predict which side Christian Darrisaw and Wyatt Davis will land on?
There’s no easy answer aside from the fact that college pass blocking does tend to correlate to the NFL. Darrisaw had a 90.8 blocking grade for Virginia Tech and gave up a grand total of zero sacks and zero QB hits in 2020. Davis graded much lower at 67.1, though he performed better in 2019, giving up zero sacks in his RS-sophomore season.
Of course they have to win the starting jobs before we can find out whether they’re ready. Darrisaw and Davis will have to clear two veterans with previous starting ability — though both vets are more widely considered as backups. The starters in minicamp on the first-team offensive line were Rashod Hill and Dakota Dozier.
The ironic thing about the O-line competition is that the first-round pick failing to win the job would be the lesser of the bad outcomes. Hill played over 1,200 snaps between 2017 and 2018 and played at a little below average level and as a fill-in over the last two years he’s been very good. Hill’s career PFF Pass Blocking Efficiency (pressures vs. pass blocking snaps, weighted toward sacks) is 95.8. Riley Reiff’s career PBE is very close to Hill at 96.2. And, because of the progress he’s made through the years, the Vikings were ready to start Hill last year if Reiff didn’t take a pay cut.
So it might not be ideal to start a career backup like Hill but it isn’t nearly as scary as the guard situation if Davis can’t win the gig. Dozier had the NFL’s worst PBE among guards and graded as the worst pass blocker by PFF. Mason Cole, who the Vikings acquired via trade from the Cardinals, had the third worst pass blocking grade among centers.
Davis’s progress and the guard battle ranks at the top of the list of all Vikings storylines going into training camp.
Bradbury and Cleveland’s next steps
Among 92 starting guards and centers last year, Ezra Cleveland finished 90th and Garrett Bradbury 80th in Pass Blocking Efficiency. They each gave up five sacks, which was tied for the fifth most of all interior linemen.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is reason to believe both players can take another step forward.
In the story we referenced earlier about offensive linemen’s trajectories, centers showed up having the most difficult development curve. PFF’s data found that centers often didn’t hit their peak until Year 3. The Vikings desperately need Bradbury to follow that path.
Interestingly, through the first half of last year it appeared that he was on an upward swing. Through 10 weeks, he ranked fifth in overall PFF grade among centers and while his blocking grades weren’t exciting, he was in the middle of PBE, ranking 51st of 92 interior offensive linemen.
From Week 11-18, Bradbury was 31st of 33 centers in overall grade, last in pass blocking grade and 78th of IOL in PBE. At the end of the year, Mike Zimmer alluded to Bradbury playing through injuries in the second half of the season and that appears to show up in the numbers.
It would be a big ask to demand Bradbury become the next Matt Birk, but if he can build on his first half performance from last season, the Vikings’ offense would greatly benefit.
It’s hard to say how we’ll be able to spot growth during training camp but if you believe in “iron sharpens iron,” the Vikings have two of the NFL’s most powerful defensive tackles for Bradbury to work against during practice.
The other part we’ll be watching for is Bradbury playing with more talented linemen on either side of him (assuming Davis wins the job). Since coming into the league, he’s been flanked by Pat Elflein, Josh Kline, Dakota Dozier, Dru Samia, Brett Jones and a rookie Ezra Cleveland. This year there is a chance to build stability with other high draft picks. We should get a general sense of where he’s headed by the time camp ends.
As for Cleveland, he’ll be asked to play his third different position in three years.
While Cleveland got deserved credit for battling through an injury and working his way through an extreme position switch, the results were not good. He finished 85th of 92 in Pass Blocking Efficiency and 58th in pass blocking grade.
But he showed flashes in the run game, grading 23rd of all interior linemen, which opens the door for some belief that he can be a difference maker so long as he becomes more comfortable pass blocking now that he’s back on the left side.
“It's just that's where I have the majority of my experience and with offensive line I feel like experience is a really big thing,” Cleveland said. “It's more of a comfort zone over there.”
The difficulty comes in trying to project which direction Cleveland’s game will go. When the Vikings drafted him in the second round of the 2020 draft, analysts projected him as a Brian O’Neill type whose athleticism would help him overcome some shortcomings. But you’d be hard pressed to find anyone arguing that he projected better as a guard.
As with Bradbury, we will be tracking his progress throughout camp as he practices on a daily basis against very good interior defensive linemen.
O’Neill, the reliable
The biggest story surrounding right tackle Brian O’Neill is his contract. An extension appears to be a foregone conclusion, but the dollars and cents could be interesting. Carolina recently signed tackle Taylor Moton to a five-year, $85 million contract in which he received $43 million fully guaranteed at signing. That could be a ballpark figure for O’Neill’s side to work with.
As far as whether it makes sense to sign O’Neill, he checks off a few key boxes: He’s good and he’s durable.
Over the last two years, the former Pitt linemen has ranked 22nd and 28th overall among starting tackles by PFF’s standards and he’s produced a Pass Blocking Efficiency marks of 97.4 (7th) and 97.7 (25th), putting him among the better players in the league during his time as a starter. He’s also played nearly every snap, totaling 1,069 plays in 2019 and 1,070 in 2020.
O’Neill’s role is now expected to go beyond simply solid right tackle play. He enters 2021 with the potential to become the leader of a young Vikings offensive line.
“It’s definitely probably the biggest change since I’ve been here, not having Riley around,” O’Neill said. “But in terms of my mentality I don’t think it changes that much. You might have a few more pointers for the young guys, but at the end of the day, it’s all about trying to progress myself and have the best season I possibly can and try to help lead this group the best way I can.”
The only potential holdup an an extension— though it is unlikely — would be if O’Neill wanted to play left tackle in similar fashion to Orlando Brown Jr. and decided he’d prefer to hit free agency and find a team that will move him to the other side. There has been no indication that is the case. There have been O’Neill-to-left tackle rumblings for a few years and the Darrisaw draft pick brings that notion to an end.
The depth battle
Beyond the Darrisaw-Hill and Davis-Dozier battles, there’s going to be a lot of jockeying for roster spots. It’s plausible that Mason Cole could put his name in the mix for a starting guard job if neither Davis or Dozier plays to the coaching staff’s satisfaction. Cole has some previous experience at guard, so he could possibly follow the Nick Easton path.
Save for injuries there isn’t anyone else who is expected to put their name in the ring for a starting job but the second team battles will be worth watching. Dru Samia struggled last year in limited playing time, which means he’ll be fighting for another chance. Blake Brandel switched positions over to center during OTAs and minicamp, so he appears to be up against Cole and UDFA Cohl Cabral for a backup interior spot. Former seventh-round pick Kyle Hinton was considered a project last year. We’ll see if he can take another step and make some noise.
At tackle, the Vikings are pretty much set in stone with Oli Udoh locked into a backup job. Evin Ksiezarczyk and Zack Bailey are long shots who will be hoping for a practice squad gig.
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Initially, at the risk of turning myself permanently into a broken record, I think that this article is entirely right in arguing that it is likely that our OL will grade out poorly over the course of the full season, but I personally do not think the operative question is how the OL will perform over the course of the full season - I think the question is how good the OL can be by December and January. With such a young line, it is extremely unlikely that they are average (much less good or great) on September 12 against the Bengals. However, I am more concerned with how well the OL performs on January 2 against the Packers at Lambeau (which, incidentally, is French for "rags" - neat trivia fact of the day!). This is relevant because young OL tend to flounder substantially in the first half of their first season - take the aforementioned Andrew Thomas, who as mentioned had an extremely rough rookie campaign in 2020, arguably a worst case scenario for Darrisaw (being as any worse and he would be benched). Even Thomas had a substantial upswing in the second half, jumping from a 52 overall grade in the first 8 weeks to a 62.7 overall grade in the last 8 weeks), even being PFFs rookie of the week in week 13. Now obviously a 62.7 grade is still pretty dang poor, but the point remains that what will likely matter most is not how the team starts the year or average over the entirety of it but how they end it, particularly because of how much harder the DLs on the schedule will get once it gets to week 11 (after which the Vikes play GB twice, the Bears twice, SF, Pittsburgh, and the Rams), and in this specific instance there is reason to believe that our OL might start bad and end up okay or even good.
Beyond that, I honestly think that the performance of the OL is very likely to be the thing that determines the fate of Zimmer, Spielman, Cousins, et al.
If the defense is as good as we think that it can be (say top 5 by DVOA) but the OL is even worse than last year, I think that we are probably saying goodbye to all three of them. If our OL doesn't take a step, that basically guarantees a best-case-scenario of a first-round exit from the playoffs, which feels like enough that the Wilfs will want a restart. I mean look at the Steelers and the WFT from last year - defense, by itself, doesn't win playoff games anymore, even if you are at home.
However, even if the defense is merely, say, 14th in DVOA, and even if Cook is hurt for 8 games, and even if all of our kickers' legs all fell off (the Vikes have had the lowest FG% in the NFL in 2 of the last 3 years - that's gotta change just by random luck, right???), if our OL truly clicks into place I think that is what is needed for Kirk and ZimZam to surprise some teams and save some jobs, for better or worse (I am fine with Zimmer and Rick to get another shot, but I wouldn't mind sending Kirk on his way with a friendly pat on the back to usher him out the door).
The big wildcard in this is Kellen Mond. 95% chance he is fully irrelevant once the season starts, and 3% chance that if he does start that it is a disaster, but in the 2% chance that he starts and shows legit flashes and the Vikes somehow end the season 4-2 with him starting (and even if the Vikings don't win a playoff game with him), that is probably enough to save Rick and Mike. It would be basically identical to the 2018 Ravens, who began the season with Harbaugh bizarrely on the hot seat before Lamar saved his bacon with a 6-1 stretch to end the year. And yes, I am aware of how categorically ridiculous it is to compare MVP Lamar to 3rd round pick Kellen Mond, but this is more about trying to compare between two teams that have been recently floundering (incidentally Zimmer has more playoff wins and a higher winning percentage in the last 5 years than Harbaugh had in the 5 before Lamar) and how a rookie QB has a tendency to make everything look exciting again.
I've read and watched over the years how the Vikings have positioned themselves in this predicament... limited financials to invest in top-tier talent, drafting rookies mid rounds instead of higher, structuring offense based on X's and O's instead of actual people on the field... I'm all for putting the rookies out there and finding a way. It's the only legit option that will teach the coaching staff, team owners, and players how to manage with what they can afford/acquire.