Christian Darrisaw's transition to NFL rests on his mind
Vikings rookie is aware that the mental part of the game will determine his success right away
By Matthew Coller
It’s been a long time since reporters took part in an in-person press conference as they did for Christian Darrisaw’s introduction inside TCO Performance Center fieldhouse last week. One thing we can confirm from the event is that Darrisaw is a very big man.
In his press conference, however, the focus of GM Rick Spielman and Darrisaw’s comments wasn’t on the fact that he’s instantly the largest and most agile tackle this team has seen in a very long time. It was on the mental part of his game.
“When we go through this process and with Coach [Mike Zimmer] and the coaches and our scouts, not only are we looking for good football players that are schematic fits, but we’re looking for guys that love to play the game of football, that are high character guys that are extremely intelligent,” Spielman said. “As we go through our board, Christian hit all those boxes for us as an ideal Viking fit.”
The Vikings’ first-round draft pick, who will be expected to win the left tackle job in camp and protect Kirk Cousins’s blind side next season, said that the pre-draft interview process with teams gave him a better understanding of what he might be up against when he steps on an NFL field for the first time.
“To make it to this level, you've got to start breaking down everything. And it kind of helped me going through all these Zoom calls and everything with all of these coaches, I was able to pick up on it quick, and it really didn't take a lot of time,” Darrisaw said confidently.
When asked to expand on the schematic jump from college to the NFL, he did acknowledge that the X’s and O’s game is a different world but again reiterated his self belief.
“There's a huge difference for sure,” Darrisaw said. “Back at Virginia Tech, it was real simple…It's not hard once you learn it. I picked up on it quick.”
While Darrisaw may be envisioning himself grasping the NFL game in a snap, that has not often been the case for rookie tackles. In the last 10 seasons, only eight of 42 rookie tackle starters have registered a Pro Football Focus grade above 70, which would be considered above average.
To put that in context, last year Riley Reiff graded a 71.4 by PFF. So in order to match last season’s left tackle performance, Darrisaw would have to put together one of the better rookie seasons in the last decade.
How can it be done? How will NFL defenses attack the Vikings’ rookie? What’s the biggest difference between the NFL and college for a tackle and why is it so difficult to be good right away? Let’s have a look…
“There’s a lot to handle”
Former Cretin-Derham Hall star and Super Bowl champion offensive lineman Ryan Harris wasn’t thrown to the wolves right away. He was drafted in the third round by the Denver Broncos and sat the entire 2007 season before becoming a starter in 2008. He benefitted from having a year to adapt to a gigantic raise in the level of competition.
“In college you’re usually the best player by far in the game, probably one of two or three great players you’ll see along your [college] career,” Harris said on the Purple Insider podcast. “[Darrisaw] has to figure out that there are going to be grown men who have zero cares about his wellbeing…it’s a total raise of talent level at every single position around you. You may not have gone against that much talent in a four-year career in college.”
Harris discovered that if he was going to handle the best of the best, he had to put in many more hours away from the facility.
“One of the biggest struggles is learning how to study film. If I’m playing a guy like Von Miller or Terrell Suggs, I’m watching them on film for about 8-10 hours separately from the team,” Harris said.
Offensive linemen in the NFL often create their own systems for tracking the pass rushers they are set to face on Sunday. One way of preparing is to watch back every third down rush and mark down the types of moves their upcoming opponent will use. Why third downs? That’s when the D-ends usually bring out their nastiest moves.
“I’m learning what their characteristics are so I know that Von Miller really likes to use his spin move on third and 3-to-5….you’re going to get a bull rush on third-and-6 because he wants to collapse the pocket to make the quarterback feel pressure,” Harris said. “These are the things that young players do not realize. There’s a lot to handle.”
In the same vein, the level of coaching detail to absorb is much greater at the NFL level. College is like learning what each chess piece does; the NFL is like learning all the complex openings and counterattacks.
“I was in multiple meetings during my 10-year NFL career where guys were getting screamed at for stepping six inches off of the direction that they should have,” Harris said. “We’re talking about six inches…you have to be so precise.”
Studying the opponent and working in practice on the techniques mean nothing if they aren’t applied consistently through entire games. PFF’s data shows us that even poor offensive linemen get it right on most snaps but it’s the lapses that are costly.
To demonstrate: The No. 1 tackle in pass blocking efficiency was Los Angeles’s Andrew Whitworth. He did not allow a sack, hurry or QB hit on 98.3% of pass blocking snaps. Last year’s top-pick tackle Andrew Thomas had the league’s worst pass blocking efficiency. He did not allow a sack, hurry or QB hit on 90.7% of pass blocking snaps. Only a few plays per game. Thin margins.
One of the biggest criticisms of Darrisaw’s game from draft analysts was that, despite not allowing a sack last year, he had some inconsistency in his play (as NFL.com noted in their write-up). Brandon Thorn, who runs the website Trench Warfare and analyzed offensive linemen for Bleacher Report’s scouting project, tried to put a finger on that particular critique.
“There’s not a lot of things to ding him on in terms of my checklist, the biggest thing that I would ding him on is focus and concentration,” Thorn said on the Purple Insider podcast. “That was pretty up and down for a guy as talented as he is, he played down to competition quite often. That was a concern for me and the only reason why I had a late first-round grade. With offensive linemen, it’s not going to get any easier to fix that.”
At the next level, Harris said, any shortage in concentration must be corrected.
“One of the things Darrisaw is going to realize is that you are going to get hurt if you’re not paying attention…he’s never had the intensity that he’s going to have coming up,” said the Super Bowl champ.
“O-linemen are some of the smartest dudes on your team”
The fact that the Vikings have a rookie offensive tackle will not be lost on defenses, you can guarantee that.
But how much will that matter?
Cody Alexander, co-defensive coordinator at Mesquite Horn High School in Texas and author of the Match Quarters newsletter, said that Darrisaw was barking up the right tree when he identified the defensive fronts as an area that will be used against the rookie.
“The first thing that they can end up doing is creating some sort of an overload away from the tackle,” Alexander said. “That way they slide away from that tackle and then they’ll put their best edge rusher on that tackle and now it’s just a one-on-one, ‘can my guy beat your guy,’ especially if it’s young [tackle], you’re going up against some of these seasoned veterans and these teams that have pass rushing talent.”
An overload could be defined simply as having three of the four defensive linemen to the center or right of the quarterback and one edge rusher on the left. Think of it like an isolation in basketball.
That’s only the beginning.
“The other thing that they can do is they can stack a guy,” he said. “What I mean is they can put a 4-[technique] on top of him or even a 5-[technique] and put a 9-[technique] outside of him. Now he’s got two guys outside.”
In English, that means lining up a defensive tackle to the outside shoulder of the guard or right in front of the left tackle and then having an edge rusher way outside the tackle. The defense can do all sorts of things from there, including “two-man games” like stunts/twists on that side or drop a D-linemen into coverage and replace them with a blitzer or send the DT inside to open up more space to rush inside for the edge rusher.
Got all that?
Here’s an graphic example from Alexander’s Match Quarters Super Bowl breakdown of an overloaded front to iso the right tackle combined with a Will linebacker over the guard and 9-technique over the left tackle and a blitzing corner.
The moral of the story: There’s a lot going on. It doesn’t matter how big you are if you aren’t prepared for it.
“So many people see these guys as these big human beings and they don’t realize that a lot of times your O-linemen are some of the smartest dudes on your team,” Alexander said. “You can’t be real dumb and play O-line. Your tackles have to be really smart. They have to identify tells outside looking in. Where’s the alignment of the overhang? Do I have a safety creeping down? What’s the edge of the box? How wide of a 9-[technique] is it? Who do I have inside so understand the manipulation piece. It can’t be one of those things where you say, ‘I’ve got that guy, I protect the edge.’ It’s not as simple as that because everything works together.”
So why is this all so much different from college? Harris says that colleges have their base defenses that they largely stick with whereas NFL teams change things every week.
“If you’re playing Ohio State, Ohio State is a cover-2 team, they are going to have two safeties back there all day,” Harris said. “They might send a middle linebacker, they might send an edge corner but that’s few and far between. You’re going to get that in the first three plays of the game [in the NFL]. You’re going to get many different types of blitzes.”
Pro defenses will also run things for weeks and weeks and then suddenly change course.
“To me that is where you can get tackles,” Alexander said. “Make it look the same, make it look the same, make it look the same and then all of the sudden it’s not.”
“They’re isolated on the edge”
Across sports, coaches try to protect rookies. In basketball you can limit minutes or give them easier defensive assignments. In hockey, you try to avoid tough matchups with line changes. In football, you can limit snap counts or keep rookie corners away from elite receivers or simplify route trees for receivers.
There’s very little that the Vikings’ coaching staff can do to protect Darrisaw.
“Use chip techniques by tight ends and running backs, I think that’s an easy way,” Alexander said. “Do some 12 personnel stuff where you’ve got a blocking tight end and a receiving tight end, get your receiving tight end out and into space and kind of manipulate that… That’s the first thing they’ll probably do is ask how they can get a chip on a D-end. Maybe set the protection to that way but you become a little predictable.”
One way or another, Darrisaw is facing Khalil Mack, Za’Darius Smith, Myles Garrett, TJ Watt, Chandler Jones and a dozen other beasts who will be looking to take advantage of a rookie.
“The problem with the tackles are that they’re isolated on the edge,” Alexander said. “It’s not like you can double a guy with a guard…then they’ll attack up the middle.”
So Darrisaw is facing a far more complex game with no backup. Patience will likely be required.
“It’s a matter of learning movement patterns, angles, timing, all that different type of stuff based on the alignment that you’re seeing, based on the opponent that you’re seeing,” Thorn said.
“It’s really nuanced and it takes time.”
However, some rookies figure it out. Darrisaw can only jump right into the mix and start taking steps forward toward, beginning with rookie mini camp.
“He will improve and I know [Vikings offensive line coach] Rick Dennison and Rick Dennison is going to be chomping at him to get going,” Harris said.
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Great meaty article on the 2nd most valuable position on the offense
So, we know that replacing the left tackle play from last year will be difficult, especially without the turnstile next to you drawing attention.
Would it be reasonable to hope for slightly below average play? Somewhere between Clemmings and Khalil?
P.S. Clemmings and Khalil sounds like a police procedural where they always let the perps escape, perhaps through wide open doors with little to no resistance.