Minnesota Vikings left tackle Christian Darrisaw is finding his comfort zone
EAGAN — Christian Darrisaw is enjoying the weather.
He’s in his football happy place sitting on the sun-drenched concrete outside of the entrance to the Minnesota Vikings’ locker room talking about how different things are from one year ago.
“Having that whole [offseason] working out and training, coming back to OTAs at 100 percent and now being out here training camp and getting reps…it’s great,” Darrisaw said with a wide smile.
We didn’t see the Vikings’ 2021 first-round pick happy very often last year during training camp. He needed groin surgery and was sidelined for the majority of camp. By the time he was ready to get reps, the portion of camp where players get into game shape was over. Entering the NFL as a rookie offensive tackle is hard enough without the setback.
“Mentally it was a lot last year dealing with everything,” Darrisaw said.
He didn’t get the chance during camp to face off with Everson Griffen or Danielle Hunter at full speed or prove himself to his teammates when the practices were at their most intense. When he did return, the reps weren’t as intense because players were saving their bodies for gameday. Darrisaw was slowly trying to get his feet underneath him but the team needed him ASAP with veteran backup Rashod Hill struggling.
In Week 5, they mixed Darrisaw in against the Detroit Lions and then the following week in his first start put him up against one of the NFL’s best pass rushers Brian Burns. He allowed one hurry, zero QB hits and zero sacks in 53 pass blocking snaps, per PFF.
“That was a challenge, for sure,” Darrisaw said. “I’m way more prepared now.”
Being more prepared for, say, Week 1’s opposing pass rusher Rashan Gary, starts with his daily battles with Danielle Hunter and Za’Darius Smith.
“Getting these reps out here every day, it’s a blessing. Some teams don’t have those two premier pass rushers for the tackles to practice against. Having [Smith and Hunter], going against them every day it’s great work, it’s real reps like what you’re going to see every Sunday. You’re going to have that top rusher and you got the work in during practice so when the games come it’s easier, it’ll slow down for you.”
Smith in particular has raised the bar for Darrisaw in practice. He isn’t much different on the TCO Performance fields than on Lambeau Field, where he tortured the Vikings in past years. Darrisaw is now on the other side of his relentless pass rushes over and over during practice.
“There’s no day when I can come out here and be like, ‘Oh I can slack off blocking him,’ you know you have to bring it every rep,” Darrisaw said. “Having that challenge, winning the reps, losing the reps, we’re making each other better.”
Darrisaw also comes into this year understanding how to prepare himself mentally for each freakshow defensive end he’s going to face. In college he began studying pass rushers and NFL offensive tackles when COVID locked everyone down but over the last year he has developed a process for analyzing the opposition. He watches the edge rusher’s pressures and breaks down how he won, which moves he used and where he lined up. Was he set up wide or tight to the formation? Which foot was forward?
“It’s about finding those little things in the game that you can take away and saying, ‘OK I know what he’s about to do right here,’ so there’s no curveballs coming,” Darrisaw said.
He also looks at how other tackles beat a particular pass rusher. How did they set? What angles did they take? How did they counter moves. He takes note of everything he sees. Head coach Kevin O’Connell said that his diligence shows.
“I think it’s an underrated thing we don’t talk about enough – the game makes sense to him,” O’Connell said. “He’s not one of those guys that needs to be told every little thing, every little adjustment. He naturally sometimes just does things based upon the right play – the smart way to hit a block, how to pass off a stunt – just understanding how we want to execute in the screen game, the play-pass game. I couldn’t be more excited about where he’s at right now.”
In total, Darrisaw got 398 pass blocking snaps and allowed 22 total pressures, which ranked 35th of 57 tackles in pass blocking efficiency (per PFF), only slightly behind the top-pick tackle Penei Sewell.
“I like what I’ve seen from him so far,” Hunter said before Monday’s night practice. “He took a big leap from Year 1 to Year 2. Definitely not the same player he was last year. He’s above and beyond what we’ve seen from practice. That’s big time right there because…the potential for him, it’s limitless. He’s going to keep improving as a player.”
If Darrisaw can approach his “limitless” potential in Year 2, the Vikings might make a case for having one of the best tackle combos in the NFL and the offense would suddenly have a weapon at left tackle for the first time in a long time. They can simply dial things up for Darrisaw that they couldn’t with an average player at that spot.
“It benefits you on just about every play,” offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said of having a left tackle with Darrisaw’s physical ability. “When you’re talking about pass protection, his ability to anchor, his ability to pull if we want to run crack scheme type of plays where he’s pulling around, his ability to cut off a 3-technique on the back side of a zone play. There’s a lot of tackles who have a hard time of getting there.”
Getting there is the right way to categorize where Darrisaw stands. It’s true that potential only means you haven’t done anything yet but the Vikings’ second-year tackle is having a training camp that suggests he’s headed in that direction.
“It’s been fun,” Darrisaw said — several times.
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