Friday mailbag: Kicking concerns, the starting 22 and COVID interruptions

We're less than a week away from training camp starting and Vikings fans have questions...

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday everyone! Wrap your head around this: By the time we do next week’s mailbag, the Vikings will have been back on the practice field preparing for the 2021 season. It’s been a long offseason folks, but football is back. So let’s get into today’s questions…

@JoshuaR_Smith I want you to build the perfect fullback with these traits: Short-yardage rushing, blocking, neck roll, number, hands, name, and anything else you think would make this Franken-fullback an absolute football masterpiece.

This is the perfect Purple Insider Mailbag question. OK, here goes:

Short-yardage rushing: Mike Alstott

Blocking: Sam Gash

Neckroll: Lorenzo Neal

Number: 41

Hands: Larry Centers

Name: Ironhead Heyward

General fullback vibe: Jon Ritchie

This would be the most unstoppable player in football history.

@robbQthibault I don’t think you answered this one from the past, if Darrisaw and Davis both play(unrealistically…but possible) average or better per PFF can the Vikings have a top five passing team in yards? Give KC some protection & #airskol! C’mon Zim’s not looking ;)

Well, let’s talk about the yards part first. It’s not really a very good stat to judge your passing offense’s effectiveness because you throw more when you’re losing. The Packers were ninth in yards but had the most dangerous passing attack in the league. So let’s go with top five passing Expected Points Added since Tampa, GB, KC, Buffalo and Tennessee were top five last year — that seems to tell us a story closer to the truth.

Annnyway, to answer your question, I do think cracking the EPA top five is possible with good offensive line play. Tennessee is an example of a team that runs the ball just like the Vikings and creates big plays through the air and they did it last year. Everyone talked about the 2019 49ers as a running team but they were top five in passing EPA too. It will ultimately depend on whether they decide to throw the ball enough to get there and whether Cousins can truly be more consistent with better OL play. Last year he caused a lot of his own pressure and sacks, so he’d have to cut down on that.

@LfcMay What is a non-player related training camp item that you’re really interested in? I assume that it’s pretty hard to identify schemes in training camp But I’m interested to hear about any wrinkles that Zimmer is bringing to the defense or Kubiak is to the offense.

Yeah, it would be virtually impossible to watch practices and say, “oh look they changed that route adjustment versus that coverage,” because you just don’t know what’s being drawn up in meetings and so forth. We can spot when players are making changes to roles sometimes. In 2017, Adam Thielen was playing more in the slot under Pat Shurmur and that turned out to be a majorly effective tactic throughout the season.

Camp is mostly a broad picture of how the roster looks on the field and figuring out who the coaches are moving up and down the depth chart. We can’t really spot the wrinkles to schemes until they get on the field and we can review the All-22 tape. And even then it’s hard to tell unless it’s something pretty glaring. Trust me, I asked Zimmer once (half jokingly) to let us watch the practice tape and he declined.

@youvikethat1 We know about the purple donut and red ball. Are there any new props that help the players this year?

I saw a video of DeVonta Smith in Eagles OTAs throwing a ball on a bungee cord and it snapped right back at him. Maybe they’ve acquired one of those. Orange ball was introduced along with red ball two years ago and that caused animosity between the apparatuses. Maybe at some point they get rid of the upside down garbage cans for some tackling dummies. We’ll see!

@CorporonWade At what point does Cousin say I have enough $$$ and take a pay cut to get a ring? Is 2022 the year he says let’s win one? Pay me $15 million and spend the rest on weapons and D.

The eighth of never. I mean, Tom Brady is truly the only person who has ever done this, so far as I can remember. I don’t really count Mahomes here because his cap hit by 2023 will be $46M. In terms of AAV, there are 14 QBs between $25 million and $40 million and Kirk is presently seventh highest. Brady still had a $25 million cap hit last year, by the way.

I can’t blame anyone in sports for agreeing to be paid what the market decides they are worth. It’s not his fault that the Vikings have made some choices and missed on some draft picks that resulted in the holes in the roster not being filled. Imagine if he took way less and then they didn’t win. Then he’s just out the money. Brady is the greatest QB of all time. He always knew he was going to win and get paid anyway. (Not to mention that the Patriots circumvented the cap and nobody cared).

I also feel like his contract has become somewhat of a copout. Like, “if not for his contract, they would have been in the Super Bowl.” That doesn’t exactly pass the sniff test. He had two chances with Super Bowl-caliber talent around him in 2018 and 2019 and won a single playoff game.

@benjackson0812 Who is under more pressure this year Cousins or Zimmer??

Zimmer. If Cousins doesn’t have a great year, he’s still under contract for next season and somebody will still trade for him and give him lots of money. If Carson Wentz can get traded for decent return, so can Cousins. It’s not like Cousins is going to be out of the league if he goes 8-9 or his QB rating drops to 98.7 or something. In Zimmer’s case, it could be his last chance to be a head coach if things go sideways.

@DingoDonny1 You ever think about any angles on the @JonKrawczynski story regarding the Metrodome only having a nine-yard end zone prior to the 1991 Super Bowl? How common is it for dimensions to be off??

Love Jon’s work. He’s always finding great angles like that. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anything like that before outside of baseball outfields. I wouldn’t think it would be very common for dimensions to be off, but I’m sure back in the day there were all sorts of crazy things happening with the fields and stadiums. The most hilarious dimensions I’ve seen are in the Chicago Bears’ road locker room. That room was not made for 53 large men.

@co0pgoesVr00m The kicker/special teams situation scares me. We were a terrible return team and currently we have no starter at kicker, punt and kickoff return. Kickers have crushed our souls and this needs to be a major talking point going into the season. Who is going to be our kicker?

Other than that though, everything is fine.

I can’t really talk you out of this take other than to say that it truly can’t be worse than it was last year. Even if Greg Joseph ends up kicking the same way that he did for Cleveland in 2018 (17 for 20 on field goals), that would be way better than what Dan Bailey gave them.

If he isn’t the kicker and it isn’t Riley Patterson, I’ll go with Dustin Hopkins. He’s had two down years and they were working out kickers last year. Zane Gonzalez and Stephen Gostkowski are also free agents, so they’re candidates too.

@PerrinsPurple How close do you feel woods is to Harris? Is he closer to the 19 version or the 20 version(possibly not an accurate representation due to young running mates) Or some place in between?

I won’t call Harris’s 2019 an aberration because he earned a lot of his interceptions but it was the absolute best version of Harris that was going to exist. It would be really surprising if Woods led the NFL in picks. By default that makes the answer to your question 2020. The caveat to that answer is that coverage units have to work as one, similar to offensive lines. If something isn’t in the right place, it falls apart. Last year, a lot of things weren’t in the right place and that hurt Harris. This year, presumably, they will be in a much better spot surrounding the safeties. I expect Xavier Woods to fit in pretty well.

@RobDN1 RDE, RG, 3LB -who are the starters week one? How different will it be to cover the Vikings this year as compared to last?

I’ll go with Stephen Weatherly, Wyatt Davis and Nick Vigil. Chalk across the board. I could see DJ Wonnum winning the job over Weatherly or Davis struggling or Vigil not being a fit but all of those guys have the best odds going into camp.

I actually have no idea how different it’s going to be. We don’t know the details yet of whether we’re getting in-person interviews or if we can be inside the locker room during the year or how road trips are going to work. I’m hopeful that all of those things eventually go back to normal. I do know that a full US Bank Stadium is worlds better than an empty one. It was a miserable atmosphere with no energy whatsoever.

@bigbadragz Is it fair to dismiss James lynch after what was essentially a redshirt year? Obviously we’ve added plenty so he’s buried now, but with a full offseason to get stronger, is it feasible he becomes part of 3rd down packages at the least, or dead man walking? After top 3 wide open

It’s never completely fair because you never know who’s going to pop up and surprise you but Lynch would have to go really far in order to do that. It says a lot about their confidence in him that they went with Tomlinson and Richardson. Probably Armon Watts is still ahead of Lynch too. In fact, I don’t even know if I mentioned Lynch when we were talking about the D-line storylines on the Purple Insider podcast because he’s so far out of the picture.

He’s going to have to make them think about him. At least this year Lynch will get plenty of run in preseason games.

@DingoDonny1 Would Childress still be coach if Favre throws to Berrian?

Definitely not. Even if they win the Super Bowl, that doesn’t often equate to a lifetime contract. Look at Doug Pederson. It probably would have bought Chilly some time post-Favre to figure things out rather than the team desperately trading for Moss in 2010 but eventually during the lean QB years it would have been time for a change. Mike Tomlin and Pete Carroll, he was not.

@robinderp Defensive lines situationally substitute so why can’t and offensive line do the same. So if Garrett Bradbury is an elite zone run blocker but terrible in pass protection why not replace him on passing downs with Mason Cole or last year Brett Jones?

In theory it sounds reasonable. In practice, it’s a much tougher ask for linemen to be running in and out with situations. Chemistry is important. Imagine being the QB and having to switch centers all the time. Or being the guard and having to learn two different guys’ tendencies. That’s tough. Also we don’t see it because there aren’t all that many good offensive line starters, much less enough to rotate. Mason Cole, for example, graded just as low as Bradbury by PFF last year in pass blocking.

@cmaek09 Not to open a can of worms, but do you know how many Vikings players have been vaccinated? With the new rules coming out and all.

Maybe we’ll find out when Mike Zimmer talks next week but right now I don’t know. They haven’t been listed in reports of the teams at the bottom or top, so that gives you an idea. Zimmer knew that things were going to be hard for teams that have unvaxed players and he wasn’t kidding. The NFL clearly doesn’t want to deal with another year of moving games around and having facilities shut down, so they’re doing everything they can to get those numbers up. I’m not the person to tell you if that’s right or wrong, I just know that teams with fewer vaxed players may be in danger of having some issues, so it’s something to watch for.

@nonamestev Let’s hear your starting 22 and best guess on who we bring in at kicker. Also who wins KR/PR between Kene and ISM?

The whole staring lineup? Alrighty… *deep breath* …

QB: Cousins RB: Cook FB: Ham WR: Thielen WR: Jefferson TE: Smith Jr. LT: Darrisaw LG: Cleveland C: Bradbury RG: Davis RT: O’Neill

RE: Weatherly DT: Tomlinson DT: Pierce LE: Hunter LB1: Kendricks LB2: Barr CB1: Peterson CB2: Breeland CB3: Alexander S1: Smith S2: Woods

I think Nwangwu wins the kick return battle and KJ Osborn gets another chance to punt return. I’ll go with Zane Gonzalez as kicker.

@vikesfan1930 Pie chart of what you think will happen ? 1. SB 2. Wild card and out in Div 3 Miss playoffs 4. Zimmer gets canned during season or end of season 5. Championship game and something Vikingsy happens...

The Zimmer part of this doesn’t exactly fit in the chart but here I go…. 5% for the Super Bowl, 45% for wild card/divisional loss, 25% miss the playoffs, 20% Zimmer out and 5% NFC championship collapse.

@eleysium If the team underperforms and wants to move on to Mond next year, would it increase the odds of Klint becoming Head Coach to keep the system intact?

The problem with having both of those things come together is that if they underperform, it probably means the offense wasn’t all that great or Kirk Cousins wasn’t all that great, which means it’d be a tough sell to make Klint Kubiak the head coach. Klint has to have the same type of buzz that Kevin Stefanski earned in 2019. If they do really well offensively, it’s doubtful that Zimmer ends up being out. I suppose there is a world where the offense is good, defense is bad and Cousins lets them down just enough and Mond is great in practice and that all adds up.

But also… can we get to the first day of training camp before we fire the coach and dump the quarterback?

@jonhobbs612 With the increased Covid infection rate due to the Delta variant, is there a renewed league-wide (or team level) push for players and team personnel to get vaccinated? Or plans for such communication?

The announcements that the NFL made on Wednesday pretty much did just that. They are going to have very strict protocols for unvaxxed players and they’re going to hand out L’s if a team has an outbreak and can’t play its game. That’s about as strong of a push as they can make without the NFLPA fighting them to the death.

@tfundermann90 If the Vikings make another Ngakoue type trade during camp this year who is it for? Or what position do you think it would be for? Will not happen but I would love a trade for Scherff. At least 1 good vet on the interior would be nice!

Great question. I’m not sure I have a great answer. The two guys who have the best shot at being traded before Week 1 seem to be Stephon Gilmore and Chandler Jones but I’m not sure exactly how the Vikings could work out new contracts with them, even with their remaining cap space. We should never underestimate their cap manipulation skills but that would really be something. I can’t see Miami trading Xavien Howard. This one is hard because it doesn’t appear that any of the players who are on the block really fit the Vikings’ needs/cap.

@4_starter Which QB on the roster would you trust the most to grill you a steak?

Nate Stanley is from Wisconsin, right? I’ll go with him.

@havardms1 Do you think the injury to Pierce will lead to a renewed interest in other DL free agents, or is it not serious (long lasting) enough for that?

Only if it’s serious, which it doesn’t appear to be. Getting Sheldon Richardson means that even if one of the DTs is out, they still have two starting players in that spot and won’t have to dip into their reserves. It still makes sense, even with Melvin Ingram off the table, to poke around the remaining free agents for situational rushers or backup run stoppers.

Matt via email: As we prepare for possible COVID interruptions again this season, does the Vikings Training Staff have a backup plan in case Sugarman or others are out again?

I wish I had an answer for you here. I would imagine they had contingencies for everything last year. I’m guessing the training staff is vaccinated though.

@SamRoot43 Why don't teams hire Madden players in the off-season to help their coaching staff rep late-half/game situations? You could get a career's worth of reps in an off-season.

At this point, I’d assume that pretty much every team has people who are giving coaches advice on these types of things. The league has gotten way better at it over the last five years. It all depends on how much each coach decides he wants to listen to the people giving them the feedback. The Madden player idea made sense years ago when we didn’t have the data that we have now. At this point there’s an analytics person who can give the head coach more accurate data on every possible situation. Whether they listen or not is up to them.

@vikesfan1930 Who are your 5 Vikings players that you are looking out for at camp this year ? ( Either Vet or rookie or both)

Picking five is hard because there’s like 65 who have some type of storyline. Just as far as most interesting, I’ll go with Darrisaw, Davis, Hunter, Peterson and Nwangwu.

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