The Vikings looked abysmal vs. Broncos, but should fans be concerned?
Minnesota sat 31 players and almost all of their starters
By Sam Ekstrom
MINNEAPOLIS — Several times this offseason, Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer has uttered some variation of the phrase, “When we’ve been healthy in the past, we’ve been good.”
He’s not wrong about that. Previous teams that have dodged major injury bullets have generally been contenders. And that growing body of evidence clearly influenced his decision to approach Saturday’s preseason game with the utmost caution.
The Vikings sat 31 players against the Denver Broncos, most of them healthy. The only projected starter to suit up was defensive end Stephen Weatherly, if only to keep some measure of veteran leadership on the field against the Broncos first team, which scorched the Vikings in the first half and won 33-6.
But do these results really matter?
Not ultimately, but maybe more than you think.
A Denver team that got to play Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater most of the day along with their best receivers, linemen and secondary should not lose to an all-backups Vikings team led by Jake Browning and Kellen Mond. No way.
There were, however, enough individual performances involving Vikings players in roster battles that should alarm this team about its lack of depth. The head coach certainly seems worried.
Zimmer hasn’t always gotten worked up over preseason games, but he was practically steaming after this one.
“Really poor performance today,” Zimmer said. “That’s what happens when you give up an 80-yard pass, a long kickoff return, you had three defensive offsides on third downs, interception for a touchdown, a safety for holding in the endzone, three very poor punts. Just really disappointing with the guys that played today.”
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Maybe Zimmer wouldn’t be as peeved if the struggles hadn’t come from players that may be on his 53-man roster; players who may need to face starting-caliber competition in 2021.
“A lot of these guys are backup players,” said Zimmer. “The things they showed today were definitely not good enough. We gave up a fade in the endzone, we’re not even close to the guy. The bombs, the two young safeties had a hard time today of knowing who’s up and back and who’s down. The long bomb, they bit on it and Dantzler didn’t cover the guy.”
The right guard spot seems like an obvious place to start, where the performances by Dakota Dozier and Wyatt Davis made one thing clear: Oli Udoh might win the job by default. His omission from the lineup sent an early message that Udoh may have some security as a starter, and Dozier — allegedly his main competition to start — was the weakest link on a makeshift line comprised of youngsters. He was pushed around in pass protection with a first quarter holding call in the end zone resulting in a safety. Davis, his replacement, was equally overmatched against the pass rush, justifying why he’s been relegated to third-team duty in practice.
Deja vu much? The Vikings plans at guard continue to go by the wayside.
In the battle for starting outside corner, Cameron Dantzler has been losing ground to Bashaud Breeland since the day Breeland was healthy enough to put on pads. Asked to play most of the first quarter with Breeland watching from the sideline, Dantzler missed a tackle in the run game and got burned at the line of scrimmage by K.J. Hamler, who motored past for an 80-yard touchdown.
That’s probably Minnesota’s first corner off the bench this year.
“The little kid (K.J. Hamler) who caught the touchdown pass, we practiced against him for two days,” Zimmer said. “You’d think those guys would know his speed and what he’s done. They went one-on-one against him.”
Unfortunately for the Vikings, their issues went even deeper.
Brandon Dillon, who’s trying to become the third tight end in the rotation, had a drop and a holding call. His primary competition Zach Davidson also dropped a potential touchdown.
Myles Dorn is in the running for the third safety spot but missed multiple tackles and was beaten for a touchdown.
Ihmir Smith-Marsette, trying to wiggle his way into the WR3 conversation, dropped a pass, slipped on a kick return was the recipient of a Browning pick six in the second quarter.
Backup quarterbacks Browning and Mond combined for 84 passing yards.
“It was just us shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Smith-Marsette, “our offensive mistakes setting us back, we take one step forward, two steps back.”
The Vikings are operating with little wiggle room. The safety and linebacker positions are one injury away from having to play a concerningly young player extended snaps — and those players weren’t sharp on Saturday.
The defensive line was comprised of a true starter, Weatherly, and three apparent rotational pieces in D.J. Wonnum, James Lynch and Armon Watts. They couldn’t, for most of a full half, generate a pass rush. In fact, the Vikings’ only QB hit came on a safety blitz from Dorn in the second half.
Wonnum admitted the defense came out slowly.
“We have a lot of young guys out there playing,” he said, “especially guys playing for the first time in the NFL. We’ve just got to continue growing as a team, growing and playing together, learning each other and continue to get our game better from there.”
And at quarterback? It’s going to be tough for the Vikings to have faith in Browning or Mond if their command isn’t better in preseason games two and three. While the Broncos posted a combined passer rating of 141.9, the Vikings two quarterbacks posted a 34.8.
“I still feel that I can play at a high level and be a legit backup this year,” Browning said. “Keep playing well and not let one bad outing and bad throw derail all that but definitely come back ready to fight. Everybody's going to have some bad throws, some good throws, and staying even keeled, but when you have some bad ones definitely responding in a way that's going to help your play improve.”
How the Vikings respond this week will be telling, whether the starters play next Saturday or not.
If Zimmer doesn’t have any faith in his backups, that hurts the 2021 Vikings. Even the franchises best teams in recent years have relied on backups to play big roles: think Case Keenum and Jerick McKinnon in 2017 or Bisi Johnson and Eric Wilson in 2019.
Zimmer can cross his fingers and toes that no starters get hurt, but eventually some of the players that scuffled Saturday will need to play meaningful snaps.
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Seeing a lot of hysteria and negativity over Saturday's game across multiple discussion sites and for the most part I do not think it's warranted.
-There's not a group of 2nd stringers in the league that will look good against anyone's 1st team. Especially against a strong roster like Denver's.
-Over half of these guys were seeing their first live fire in the pros.
-I'm not even remotely bothered by Mond's performance or his comments after the game. The kid is 22 years old and anyone that watched him in college knew he was never going to be the backup QB this year. He's a project QB with high upside. I'm sorry to anyone who thought he should be fighting for or winning the backup spot, but that was never a realistic possibility. I like the pick, but he's a long term project.
-A lot of the guys we saw struggle on Saturday are going to be just fine. If they look like this after the 3rd pre-season game, then it's time to worry. A lot. But not yet.
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Where I think worrying IS warranted:
-In the comments below, Sandbun mentioned the mess that was special teams. This is indeed concerning after last year's catastrophic special teams. They looked lost out there.
-The offensive line. I was immensely frustrated with most of the media in this town who were falling all over themselves to applaud the Vikings for "fixing" the o-line with the Davis/Darrisaw pick. The chances of those two stepping in this year and just being serviceable would be a significant deviation from history for rookie o-linemen. This line currently projects out to being worse than last year. Kudos to Sam and Matthew for being 2 of the only media members in town that were unimpressed by the Vikings meager attempt to fix a horrendous line.
-Not a single player stood out in a positive way on Saturday in my estimation. Unusual and concerning. The ONLY player that I can give faint praise to is Greg "The Leg" Joseph for just going out and doing his job by hitting a couple of short/medium field goals without incident.
-Zimmer's demeanor after the game. His bluntness might make for good ink, but it's borderline insanity for a man who is ostensibly the leader of this football team to carry himself the way he did on Saturday evening. On rare occasion, calling a player out in public can have a positive impact when it's done in a strategic manner. But his press conference was more akin to a therapy session than strategy. Unless you're either a poet or a musician, there's not many professions where wearing your heart on your sleeve is a smart decision. For God's sake Mike, pull yourself together and act like a professional. You're the coach, not an angry fan.
When you say it’s justified that Davis is getting third team reps are you saying Dozier deserves to be ahead of him? If so, you must of watched a different game than the one I saw. I thought Davis improved throughout and was one of the few bright spots. PFF seamed to agree and give him a pretty nice grade for his first NFL game action.