How Much Concern Should There Be About The Vikings' Plan at Guard?
With six training camp practices under their belt, the Vikings appear to be coming close to settling on their starting five on the offensive line. Mike Zimmer previously said they'd look to make that call after around three days in pads. They've had three padded practices now, but Zimmer backtracked a bit on Wednesday by saying they'll try to "settle in fairly quick" with that group.
Offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak, meanwhile, mentioned this weekend as an important time for sitting down with various coaches and having discussions about what they've seen from the offensive line so far.
"This will be five days straight for us, six tomorrow with a big padded practice, so I'm sure there will be a lot of meetings this weekend," Kubiak said Thursday morning. "I think we have a pretty good feel for our people. We need to sit down as a group, listen, see what our defensive guys think about our guys up front, listen to Rick [Dennison], listen to Phil [Rauscher]. So there's a lot of conversations to be had, but everybody's working really hard, doing their job, and those are tough decisions that eventually we'll have to make."
Based on what we've seen at camp thus far, the top five is becoming pretty clear. We've known for a while that Riley Reiff and Brian O'Neill are the two tackles and Garrett Bradbury is the center, which left just the guard spots as unknowns. It became apparent very quickly from watching practice and talking to Kubiak that Pat Elflein is cemented as the starter at right guard. Dru Samia, the 2019 fourth-round pick who was mentioned all offseason as a potential breakout player, has been with the second team all camp long and doesn't appear to be a threat to push Elflein for his starting job.
At left guard, it's been Dakota Dozier and Aviante Collins alternating reps with the first team, with rookie Ezra Cleveland only taking second-team reps. Thus far, it seems like Dozier has out-performed Collins and has started to separate himself in that competition, earning a larger and larger share of the first-team reps each day. Kubiak took some time Thursday to praise the veteran Dozier, who started four games last season and is entering his third straight year with Dennison (the two were with the Jets in 2018).
"I really just think Dakota's at a very good place in his life and his career," Kubiak said. "He's always been a good player, trying to battle to become a starter. He's a guy who's battled and battled and battled, and he knows he can do it, and he's out there every day really doing a hell of a job."
Things could still change over the next couple weeks, but as things stand right now, it's Dozier and Elflein at guard. That reality raises a number of questions, most importantly this one: Is this really the best the Vikings can do?
On the surface, Dozier and Elflein aren't even a remotely inspiring starting duo. Dozier is a six-year veteran who has made 11 career starts and graded as PFF's 69th best guard (out of 83 qualified players) last year. Elflein is on his third different position in the NFL and hasn't had a strong season since his rookie year in 2017. He was routinely overwhelmed by powerful defensive tackles last season, surrendering a team-high 32 pressures, six sacks, and six holding penalties.
Also, it's interesting that for a team prioritizing athleticism so heavily on the offensive line (as evidenced by the selections of O'Neill, Bradbury, and Cleveland in three straight drafts), neither of these two projected starting guards are anything resembling above-average athletes.
Again – is this really the best they can do?
The optimistic view of things is that Elflein will be more comfortable at right guard – where he spent two seasons at Ohio State – and will thus improve in year four, and that Dozier's experience will be an asset to the line on the left side. To be fair, both players have had fairly solid camps up to this point. Still, it takes some seriously purple-tinted glasses to look at those two players at expect great things, given their track records in nine combined NFL seasons.
The problem with complaining about Dozier and Elflein being on track to start is that the Vikings are doing their due diligence in evaluating all of the options. The fact that none of Collins, Cleveland, or Samia can surpass either player on the depth chart means that they simply haven't been good enough to warrant the coaches giving them that opportunity. While that doesn't say much about Cleveland, who has been a tackle his entire career and is still learning how to play on the interior, it's not a great sign for the long-term outlooks of either Collins (who is now 27 years old) or Samia.
As things stand, Dozier and Elflein starting the season as the team's guard pairing is extremely concerning. It raises the question of why the Vikings chose not to retain Josh Kline or bring in another capable veteran this offseason. Other than Cleveland, who will likely convert back to tackle in 2021, the only guard they added was seventh-round rookie Kyle Hinton. It also raises questions about what kind of effect that pairing could have on the growth and development of Bradbury, who is looking for a big second-year leap after some rookie struggles.
Of the two, Dozier is more worrying than Elflein, who has at least shown he can be an average guard in the NFL (and legitimately could benefit from moving to the right side). Even though Cleveland is still very green at guard, it seems difficult to believe that he would be a worse option than Dozier at that spot. Perhaps the hope for Vikings fans is that if Cleveland doesn't start the season at left guard, he takes over that job at the first sign of struggles from Dozier.
The Vikings can heap as much praise as they like on Dozier and Elflein, but until proven otherwise, this is a dire situation and a major weakness for a team with a lot of talent at virtually every other position on offense.
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