Friday mailbag: How will the defensive line look on Sunday?

Vikings will be without key starters as they head to the Bay area in a massive game

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We’ve got a lot to discuss so let’s get right into Vikings fans’ questions…

@youvikethat1 I’m constantly amazed at Jefferson’s and Thielen’s footwork on route running. Who is on the Mt Rushmore of best footwork for wide receivers all time?

It’s truly amazing that this franchise has had elite receivers at almost every point in its history since Anthony Carter showed up in the 80s. If we’re talking all-time great footwork, it’s super hard to pick four but within my lifetime watching football, I’ll go Jerry Rice, Marvin Harrison, Chad Johnson and Antonio Brown.

I’d also nominate Tim Brown, Steve Smith, Cris Carter, Wes Welker, Andre Reed, Stefon Diggs, Jimmy Smith, Keenan Allen, Davante Adams and Isaac Bruce. I’m sure there are a few more but those come to mind first.

@Aoki5Chuck Is there a street free agent out there they could pick up to shore up the D-Line? Obviously Vince wilfork isn't sitting there unsigned, but it seems like they need bodies pretty badly

Well, they signed Tashawn Bower from New England’s practice squad. That’s about the best you can do at this time of year. It reminds me of the 2016 offensive line where they tried bringing in Jake Long and then when he got hurt, they signed Rashod Hill from Jacksonville’s practice squad. The Vikings did add T.Y. McGill, who has played 44 NFL games and has mildly decent PFF grades as a pass rusher. So there’s that. Eddie Yarbrough is back. It’s not great. Vince Wilfork is technically unsigned, by the way, he’s just 40 years old haha.

@dlbogosian who is likely to start at Center / play more at Center? do coaches feel like cole or bradbury is a long term solution?

For this week, your guess is as good as mine. Klint Kubiak indicated one of them might play guard. Could that be a last-ditch kind of thing to see if Bradbury is better at guard? Since the two players are similar in terms of strengths and weaknesses, the determining factor for who gets the nod at center might be how much Kirk Cousins trusts them to make the right calls at the line of scrimmage. We can’t really know that unless somebody says it out loud. In terms of long-term solutions, neither appears to be that. The fact that they went with Cole, a guy whose last team traded him away for nothing, tells you what you need to know.

@Ragnarskingdom With the latest turn of events... if we end up falling way short this year due to depth on the d-line and poor o-line play... does that make Spielman the most likely not back? Even this "improved" oline is still subpar

I’m not sure ownership would move the goal posts with Zimmer just because some stuff went wrong. It’s hard to see them continuing down this path if they miss the playoffs. You can’t go all-in on a QB and spend as much as they did this offseason on free agents and then make the playoffs once in four years. I would say that the reason you bet on the coach being the most likely to not be back is that any new GM is going to want to pick his own coach. Now, if they make the playoffs at 9-8, that previously wouldn’t have been considered good enough but after all they’ve gone through and factoring the shift to a pass-driven approach on offense, it may be viewed differently.

@smccullough5 If Everson can't play (really hope he is ok) what are the d line options for this week with the other Covid issues?

I’d suggest having a roster handy on Sunday because you’ll probably see everybody. If Kenny Willekes returns, he’ll get a good number of snaps. Sheldon Richardson is going to see a lot of defensive end reps. DJ Wonnum will need to be an every-down player. This was the one scenario we wondered about when the Vikings traded Stephen Weatherly. Sure, he wasn’t a star but he could rotate in and handle himself. Now the rotational guys are basically XFL (or new USFL?) talents.

@joe_ob Who out of the QB’s with SF & MN will still be with their clubs two years from now?

Kyle Shanahan has admitted that Jimmy Garoppolo isn’t their future quarterback, so it’s safe to say that he’ll be playing elsewhere next year. Cousins is very much up in the air. He’s played well but if they miss the playoffs, it seems likely the Vikings would look at other options. Since they still have a good shot at the playoffs heading into San Francisco, I’ll say Cousins is by far the most likely to be here two years from now and Lance will be the QB in SF. The offseason QB market is going to be wild.

@jls1968 What odds do you give the Vikings to make the playoffs? My biggest scare is the Eagles because they are playing well and they have an incredibly easy finishing schedule.

Ask me after this week. Seriously, it’s nuts how big this game is for their playoff chances. They’re up over 80% if they win and under 45% if they lose, per 538. But even though I’m going to pick the 49ers for this game, I’ll still go with them having better than coin flip chance at the postseason. Watching the Bears and Lions play on Thanksgiving, it would be shameful if the Vikings didn’t go 3-0 against them (yeah, yeah, Soldier Field, I get it). Three more wins puts them with at least an 8-9 record, so they would only need one win against Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Green Bay to be in position to make it. At least that’s the way I’m thinking about it. With other teams like the 49ers and Eagles charging, it’s hard to know if they’ll get the tiebreakers they need.

@NicholasMMiller With Kirk playing at his best, do you think about extending him or consider his trade value to be at its high? Also, does Kirk have a quasi trade clause in his contract with his cap figure and teams needing him to agree to a new contract to make a trade work?

If they reach the playoffs, win in the playoffs and finish the year ranked among the best offenses in the NFL, it would be very hard not to give him a contract extension. If he finishes with good stats but they go 8-9 and melt in big spots, they’d look like the Lions with Matthew Stafford. You move on from the guy because he can’t get you where you need to go, not because he’s bad. Cousins’s contract appears to be straight forward. If they trade him, they take a $10 million dead cap hit. The other team would very likely extend him but they wouldn’t have to do that as part of the deal.

@BIG_dannn Now especially with Tomlinson most likely out..I’m concerned even more so for a physical running team like the niners this week. Is it me or Watts and lynch greatly improved this season and not a liability anymore.

Your assessment is right, they are both greatly improved. But we’re talking about improved to the level of average rotational players. Asking them to play full games is a tough task. Watts, for example, has four straight games of 40+ snaps and all of them are under a 62 PFF grade. Tomlinson grades as a top 20 DT. That’s not easy to replace. The 49ers rank fourth in run blocking grade, which should be pretty concerning to the Vikings. They’re a rare team that’s able to sustain 10-play drives by slamming the ball down the other team’s throat. Guessing we’ll see a lot of that. Zimmer may have to load the box with Harrison Smith and hope his guys can cover deep.

@JasonJEngler I feel like the defense is going to keep this team from being anything but around .500 this year. Is it fair to question Zimmer as a coach on the lack of development on that side of the ball? Are his schemes just too complicated for the average player?

That’s a tough question. Early in the year they had a couple of mistakes that were costly but I haven’t seen a ton of mental errors or guys looking around confused. The issue with the defense is that they lost their best player and tried to patchwork the secondary together with three cheap free agents and a star in his 30s. Their Pro Bowl linebacker has been in and out. Their nose tackle has been mostly out. Defenses are generally weak-link systems and any given week with a lot of fill-in and average players, somebody is likely to be that weak link, like Xavier Woods was vs. Green Bay.

@Jeff_M_Mastro Vikes fans are overreacting to Sunday's win. Our D can't stop the run & gets worse every week due to injuries. Given the same pressure as Kirk had to deal with against GB, I don't think he will match that performance again. Ever. 7-10 still the likely final record. Reaction?

It’s hard to see 7-10 if Cousins plays all the games because of the schedule but I understand where you’re going with it. Last week he was way better than you’d expect under pressure. This year he averages 5.1 yards per attempt when pressured, so you can’t count on that every week. But even if he’s just average the rest of the way overall, that should put them in position to be in the playoff race down to the final game. If he’s as good as he was Sunday, they’ll go into the postseason as a dangerous team.

@smccullough5 Who wins the game and will I have another mini heart attack while finding out?

I’m going to go with San Francisco. It’s not as much the distraction as the personnel part of missing Griffen and Tomlinson. It has Baltimore vibes of a team with a strong O-line and front-seven that can wear them down. The one way around that is hitting on big plays again. This feels like a game where the heart attack trend won’t continue but who would be surprised if the icy veins of Greg Joseph are needed again?

@gracefulmanitee What's your favorite burger place in the cities?

I was having this conversation with Gabe Henderson of Vikings Entertainment the other day: I’m so bad with trying new places. I’ve been to Blue Door. That was good. The 5/8 Club isn’t far from where I live but I’ve never been there. I end up eating at the same five places all the time. I need to be more adventurous. Suggestions welcome.

@benjackson0812 I feel like Cousins is a better QB than Garoppolo and Shanahan’s record with The 49ers is sub .500 ( I don’t think a lot of people are talking about that) but which HC and QB has the edge in this matchup??

Shanahan and Jimmy G have the advantage here. I’d give a slight edge to Cousins over Garoppolo in terms of talent but the 49ers’ coach and QB are one of the most in-sync combinations in the NFL. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Jimmy G ranks No. 2 in yards per pass attempt of all QBs since 2018. People gave the San Francisco running game a lot of credit in 2019 but they were top five in passing EPA and they’re top 10 this year. Zimmer’s powers are also a little limited with many of his players out.

@Nichola79135367 What are your top 5/bottom 5 NFL brands? As in combination of moniker, logos, jerseys, colors, mascots, etc...

Hm. The bottom five might be easier than the top. For the worst, Washington is automatic for not having a team name and then Jacksonville, Seattle, Tennessee, Houston. Best: Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New Orleans. The Vikings are clearly on the better side of this one.

@vikingsjazzfan Is there a scenario where the Vikings keep Zimmer and let Spielman go or are those two tied together?

I’ve always gotten the impression that they’re tied together. If George Paton was the GM in waiting still, maybe the new GM/same coach scenario could happen but if they make a GM change they’ll likely be going outside the building, which would mean looking for another coach too. Though it doesn’t 1000% have to be that way since Denver kept Fangio for a year. The Twins let Molitor continue when the new brass took over, so it’s not impossible. It really depends on the situation and how things play out.

@SamRoot43 Are there any good teams in the NFL?

We do not have ourselves a 1998 Broncos here but there are definitely good teams. Let’s do a tier list (that we can update later once everything I write blows up)…

Super Bowl favorite tier — Arizona, Tampa Bay

Dangerous but flawed — Buffalo, New England, LAR, KC, GB, Tennessee, Dallas

Might emerge as legit — Minnesota, Indy, SF, Baltimore, Cincy, LAC

Playoffs but probably not good — Philly, NO, CAR, LAV, DEN, PIT

@BeauSchmaltz Weird question: do owners have rivalries with other owners? Ex: If the Vikings continue this win streak, Zimmer’s hot seat will continue to cool. However, will games like the Cowboys stick out in the Wilfs’ mind ‘cuz for them there are some owners they want to beat? (i.e. Jerry)

I’m sure there’s some of that. Owners meetings are probably just like your HR meetings where you’re rolling your eyes at Bob from accounting. Maybe that’s just Jerry from Dallas instead. But I have no idea which owners hate each other or whether it would impact decisions. Like most billionaires, we don’t really get to know them.

@thomasmckoskey Brian O’Neill/Nick Bosa. Is this the most important one-on-one matchup Sunday?

That’s if Bosa matches up with O’Neill. Bosa has split his snaps between the left and right this year. Interestingly enough, he’s mostly stayed on whatever side he started on, so we may know pretty early on whether he’s going against O’Neill or Darrisaw. If I’m the 49ers, I’m putting him against the rookie.

@OldNorse Relative to other teams or QBs, how often does Cousins change the play at the line of scrimmage.

There was some buzz earlier this year about Cousins not having a lot of freedom at the line of scrimmage. I’m not sure how to go about comparing it to other QBs. It does seem that guys like Rodgers and Dak can do whatever they want at the line. Maybe that’s not the case with Cousins. If he is behind held back, I don’t understand that approach. Why wouldn’t he be able to change the play as a veteran QB? And as a veteran QB, why wouldn’t he take command and do what needs to be done?