Weighing whether a Brian O'Neill position switch is likely -- or necessary
O'Neill will likely be extended in 2021, but will his future be at right tackle or left tackle?
By Sam Ekstrom
Exactly 3,000 snaps into his pro career, Brian O’Neill is ready to cash in.
The Vikings’ right tackle is entering the Extension Zone, the window of time where the team usually tries to lock up homegrown talent before they enter a contract year. The former second-round pick may ink a deal worth over $10 million per year this summer, and the Vikings should feel comfortable popping a bottle of their good champagne when that happens — it’s a big deal when you hit on your tackle picks.
They might even get a little discount, too. O’Neill has been a right tackle since Day 1 of his pro career, and while the stigma that right tackle is less important than less tackle shouldn’t carry as much weight as it does, money talks. There are 18 left tackles in the league with average annual values of $10 million or more, while only six right tackles carry that price tag. The top five compensated tackles play on the left, eight of the top 10 and 16 of the top 20. Teams typically can only handle one massive tackle salary, and usually, they’ll find him a home on the left side.
The rumors of O’Neill hopping to the left have surfaced each of the last two offseasons, usually in conjunction with Riley Reiff kicking inside to guard. Neither has ever had serious legs, though a source told Purple Insider in August that the Vikings were seriously considering flipping O’Neill to the left if Reiff hadn’t accepted a pay cut following the Yannick Ngakoue trade. That also aligns with the team’s eagerness to train Ezra Cleveland at positions other than left tackle, since ostensibly they believed they had one in waiting.
Reiff, of course, did end up accepting a restructure and had one of his best career seasons, which leads us to Reiff’s latest contract staredown that may influence Minnesota’s O-line plan.
Keeping Reiff on the left and O’Neill on the right is a fine plan that keeps your tackle spots solidified, but it’s about to get expensive with O’Neill’s potential raise and Reiff’s exorbitant salary. With Reiff being a cap casualty candidate, it’s worth thinking about the succession plan on Kirk Cousins’ blind side and whether O’Neill should be the choice.
O’Neill was asked about a future switch before the team’s final game at Detroit last year.
“If they believe in me to do then I will attack that responsibility with everything I got and do it to the best of my ability,” he said. “Same with staying at right tackle. Whatever it is I’m content to help this team as much as possible and continually grow as a player.”
If Reiff is released and leaves a void on the left side, here are the questions we should be asking:
What is the precedent for quality tackles switching sides?
There actually aren’t many examples of players in O’Neill’s position making a position change.
Remember the 18 tackles I mentioned that are making $10 million or more? Only three of them had right tackle experience earlier in their career, and in each case it only took one season for their teams to move them left: Tyron Smith (2011), Eric Fisher (2013) and D.J. Humphries (2016). You could also toss Riley Reiff’s 2016 season in the mix, but that was a one-year right tackle experiment to see if the Lions could salvage his time in Detroit, and it didn’t go well.
O’Neill has gotten rather comfortable at his right tackle post, and the Vikings are presumably going to make a sizable investment to keep him in purple. A position switch post-extension, assuming it happens, would be a big display of faith on the Vikings’ part for a player without substantial experience playing that spot. It’s certainly not rocket science — swing linemen make position changes all the time — but they’re also not getting paid handsomely to protect a quarterback that a team has invested nine figures into.
What is O’Neill’s experience on the left side?
At the pro level, virtually none. Even in 2018 training camp when Reiff missed several weeks, Rashod Hill acted as Reiff’s understudy with O’Neill playing on the right side. Reiff has been healthy the last two years, too, missing only a pair of meaningless Week 17 games, which hasn’t allowed for any mid-season finagling. It’s possible the Vikings have experimented with O’Neill on the left side behind closed doors, but for all intents and purposes we’ve never seen it in his three NFL seasons.
Even in college it wasn’t O’Neill’s primary position. He spent his first two seasons at Pittsburgh on the right side before transitioning to left tackle as a junior, where he played well enough to win first-team all-conference honors and get drafted in the second round. His pressure rate allowed, however, was only about half as good at left tackle as it was at right, where he was nearly flawless as a sophomore. O’Neill then played right tackle at the Senior Bowl the January before the draft.
So in six total seasons since O’Neill permanently transitioned from tight end to tackle, he’s spent five of them on the right side.
If O’Neill moves to the left, won’t it just open up a hole on the right?
The Vikings were armed with myriad depth players last year that possessed interior flexibility. Dakota Dozier, Brett Jones and even Kyle Hinton off practice squad could play center and guard but probably not tackle. That didn’t really bode well for Minnesota’s tackle depth and doesn’t offer a plethora of options for impending training camp competitions.
Rashod Hill would be the leader in the clubhouse to backfill a spot, but he’s also a free agent. Oli Udoh could take massive strides in his third season, but we shouldn’t bank on that. And hey, Cleveland seems to be a jack of all trades — they could try him at O’Neill’s old spot if they don’t view him as a left tackle.
There aren’t a lot of sure things there, and the Vikings have continually been burned when they enter a season without a concrete plan (see 2020 left guard spot). The situation honestly screams for a free agent to bridge the gap — Demar Dotson or Daryl Williams, perhaps — because in a world where Reiff is released, the Vikings will have a little more money to spend on replacements.
It also comes down to how irreplaceable the Vikings believe O’Neill has been as a right tackle. Over the last three years his PFF rank has risen from 50th to 28th to 22nd among full-time starting tackles. In pass blocking productivity he ranked sixth in 2019, but sandwiched that with rankings of 24th and 27th in 2018 and 2020, respectively.
O’Neill has been solid, particularly in the bottom-line business of overall sacks allowed (four in three years), but it’s not as if he’s been so otherworldly at right tackle that you’d be splitting 10s at the blackjack table by moving him. Conversely, if right tackle is O’Neill’s better position — and a decline at left tackle could be realistic — then it may not be in the team’s best interest to force a change. And counter-conversely, could you afford having a player less trustworthy than O’Neill in Reiff’s old spot?
Where is the pressure coming from?
Ah yes, let’s reverse engineer this thing. The assumption has often been that opponents are challenging opponent’s left tackles with their best pass rushers, but that was far from true in 2020. Eight of the top 10 pressure producers took a majority of their snaps opposite right tackles last year, including five opponents that went up against O’Neill and the Vikings. So how did he fare?
Shaq Barrett of the Bucs registered two sacks against the Vikings in Week 14, but neither were charged to O’Neill, who only allowed one pressure on the day. Barrett split his reps between the right and left side that afternoon.
Cameron Jordan had two pressures and a sack when the New Orleans Saints beat Minnesota in Week 16, but none were against O’Neill.
Khalil Mack of the Bears faced off with O’Neill twice this year. O’Neill permitted five pressures in those two games but didn’t allow a sack to Mack.
Detroit’s Romeo Okwara worked primarily against right tackles last year but was mostly lined up against Reiff in the team’s first meeting. In the second meeting Okwara had one sack but not against O’Neill.
O’Neill only allowed one pressure when he faced Brian Burns and the Panthers.
That’s a strong track record against some of the league’s best and definitely worth accounting for, not just because it shows O’Neill’s mettle as a right tackle but also because it shows that opponents are not solely hellbent on attacking a quarterback’s blind side.
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Until the Reiff domino falls, we can only speculate on O’Neill’s future.
It’s tough to imagine the Vikings sitting on an asset of O’Neill’s caliber and not at least trying him at left tackle as they presumably almost did last summer, but if he ends up being a career right tackle, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the universe with the amount of good edge rushers in the league that are coming from every angle.
In reality, it’s probably more important to hit on your next tackle decision (i.e., draft pick, free agent, in-house project) than it is to nail O’Neill’s future home.
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moving O’Neill to LT would be a mistake, the Vikings haven’t proved they can develop an offensive lineman in a long time, either move Cleveland to LT where he played in college, keep Reiff (not likely) or get a guy in the draft.
Count me in as someone that would prefer to see O'Neil stay at RT. If only because this is a team that can't seem to help itself when it comes to forcing OL personnel to play at something other than their natural position. Draft a guard? Move him to tackle. Draft a tackle? Move him to guard, ideally to the opposite side of the line. Draft a swing tackle? Move him to linebacker.
On a more serious note, as Matthew rightly states, so much of what the Vikings do in free agency is dependent on how they handle Reiff. I'd hate to see them let him go, but keeping him all but ensures there will be no major signings in FA. Although I would contend that this won't be the worst thing in the world if they don't.
There should be a ton of bargain players available in FA with the salary cap being lowered. Supplementing the defense with quality 1-2 million a year players that are league average would be a nice boost for this defense, not to mention just acquiring a league average right guard.
Now, I firmly believe that acquiring that upgrade at RG won't result in significant growth for this offense without a philosophy change on the part of one Mike Zimmer, but you've got to get that RG first and I'd greatly prefer that we find him in FA rather than the draft.