Will the Vikings' offensive line actually be better in 2022?
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line is a major question mark in this training camp.
No, I didn’t pull this headline from 2015, 2018 or 2021 or every year in between. Once again, the start of training camp is producing significant questions about the viability of Minnesota’s O-line. As ESPN’s Bill Barnwell said in a recent column that discussed the Vikings… “same as it ever was.”
Minnesota now has competition along two positions of the offensive line: the ever-elusive right guard spot, which no player in recent history has been able to hold onto for longer than a season, and the center conundrum.
“I think there’s still competition,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said.
Seemingly, that’s between Garrett Bradbury, Chris Reed and Austin Schlottmann. Although, that doesn’t inspire much confidence. Bradbury has graded poorly in Pro Football Focus pass blocking every year of his career, Reed has never taken a snap at center during NFL action and Schlottmann has played just one game at the position, where he allowed four pressures in 27 pass-blocking snaps and amassed a rough PFF pass-blocking grade of 25.3.
With experts around the NFL are questioning whether it will get better, let’s take a closer look….
Recently, ESPN published an article projecting offensive line performance for 2022 using pass- and run-block win rates over the last two years, which measures exactly what it says, how often an offensive lineman wins their blocks.
The numbers didn’t look too kindly on the Vikings. The projections have Minnesota ranked as the No. 31 pass-blocking offensive line, behind only the Pittsburgh Steelers. In this same statistic, Minnesota ended the 2021 season ranked as the 25th pass-blocking unit in the league, meaning the projections show the unit is expected to get worse.
Then consider how that affects Kirk Cousins. In 2021, Cousins was excellent from a clean pocket. He amassed a 93.7 PFF pass grade when clean, second-best in the NFL behind only Joe Burrow. He graded better than MVP Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert. But under pressure, he graded worse than all of them. His PFF grade under pressure was 52.9, a 40-point differential and he averaged 5.1 yards per attempt.
The silver lining is that the projections show the team’s run blocking should improve, with Minnesota projected as the seventh-best run-blocking offensive line. That’s up 13th, where it ranked in 2021.
Still, because of the increased importance of pass-blocking, Minnesota’s overall offensive line is projected to rank No. 22 in the NFL.
A week later, Barnwell published an article looking at each contender’s Achilles heel. Guess what the Vikings’ was? Offensive line play. And when ranked among the 14 contenders’ biggest weaknesses, Barnwell forecasted it as one of the most worrisome.
Every team has its flaws, but having the offensive line as a team’s Achilles heel is worse than most deficiencies.
Using PFF grade instead of pass and run block win rates, only two playoff teams in 2021 had a below-average pass-blocking offensive line – the Raiders and Bengals. The Bengals made it to the Super Bowl despite that deficiency but it played a major part in their loss to the Rams and they immediately addressed the need in the offseason with several major acquisitions.
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Minnesota’s offensive line actually ranked worse than the Bengals in 2021. And while they invested by signing several low-cost right guard options and a second-round pick in Ed Ingram, it may not be enough to fortify the unit because of the nature of offensive line play, which inherently is a sum-of-its-parts position.
I make reference to this PFF study from Eric Eager frequently, but it’s worth mentioning again. The study found that the performance of the third-best lineman had the most significant impact on expected points added (EPA). The performance of the second- and fourth-best linemen had a bigger impact on success than the best offensive lineman’s performance. Of course having an elite offensive lineman is additive to a team, but the statistics show that one offensive lineman can be schemed around. Defensive linemen can be moved, blitzes can flip to the opposite side, and the other offensive linemen need to step up.
Applying this to the Vikings, the individual play of Christian Darrisaw, Ezra Cleveland, Garrett Bradbury and whoever wins the right guard spot will arguably be more important than Brian O’Neill. It showed last season. O’Neill allowed pressures on 3.5 percent of snaps, the eighth-best mark for all tackles. The Vikings still ranked amongst the worst pass-blocking teams.
While Darrisaw and Cleveland showed signs that they could be capable offensive linemen, there are still massive questions. Darrisaw ranked 67th out of 68 tackles in pass block win rate a year ago. Cleveland finished fifth-best in run block win rate among guards but third-worst in pass block win rate. If PFF grades are your thing, Cleveland ranked 44th of 59 guards in pass-blocking grade. Darrisaw ranked 37th of 54 among tackles.
Still, the pedigree of a first- and second-round pick should lead to immediate improvement, right? Not always. Offensive linemen take considerable time to develop.
Here’s another PFF study, this time from Timo Riske…
As the graphs show, it takes most offensive linemen at least two years to get their feet under them. Then a jump often comes in year 3 or 4. That may mean Darrisaw is a year away from really coming into his own, especially since he only played 11 games. By this progression, Cleveland could be in store for a big bump, which would be mighty helpful. However, like Darrisaw, he only played about half of his rookie season and then shifted positions on the offensive line.
This also leaves the door open for possible improvement from Bradbury. The center is entering his fourth season and, based on history, could hypothetically find a new form. However, PFF posits one of the reasons it takes so long for offensive linemen is they need time to physically mature to dominate weaker opponents as they often did in college. But Bradbury has continued to struggle with big defensive linemen. He was small coming out of college and he's still small, especially in arm size. It’s an issue he may not be able to correct.
If Ingram wins the right guard spot, he’ll likely go through these growing pains too. If it was just one spot that was an issue, it could be hidden. But when there are two clear unknowns and even Darrisaw and Cleveland aren’t sure things, it becomes a math problem. The probability that the new coaching staff can click all the right buttons – fixing Bradbury, finding a viable right guard, and pushing Darrisaw and Cleveland to the next level – is questionable. Likely, one or two of these things won’t work, and that could cause the whole unit to crumble. Not to mention the relative lack of depth and what an injury would force.
The Vikings could still use their roughly $10 million in cap space, according to OverTheCap, to address one of these issues. The only one that makes sense is finding a replacement for Bradbury. The team seems more open to that possibility than they did earlier in the offseason when O’Connell showered him with compliments and threw his endorsement behind him.
But with the current crop of free agents, there’s no guarantee it’s fixing the position. JC Tretter has long been the player fans look to and for good reason. Tretter boasted the fifth-best pressure rate among centers (1.79 percent) and allowed only one sack last season. He’s also one of the least-volatile offensive linemen, a recent PFF study found. That level of consistency would be welcomed. However, if the Vikings aren’t the only ones with center needs they could get outbid.
Minnesota could also throw numbers at the position as they did for guard, but that process would need to start now. The season is a month away and the likelihood major change happens gets slimmer every day. It could mean the Vikings are in store for another rocky season up front.
Same as it ever was? If anything goes wrong, that will probably be the case.
