Vikings Message Board.Com

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Viki ... fety062213

The Minnesota Vikings have opened the last three seasons with three different strong safeties and the trend could continue in 2013.

The candidate carousel includes incumbent Jamarca Sanford, coming off of his best season, last year's initial starter Mistral Raymond, who is relatively healthy and second-year Robert Blanton, who is confident he can make it four safeties in four years.

The article goes on to say Sanford and Raymond...

... appeared to struggle in coverage overall, allowing opposing quarterbacks to convert three of every five passes (21-of-35) for five touchdowns and a 127.9 average QB rating.

That's where Blanton, in his second year out of Notre Dame, said he hopes to complicate the situation.

"It's definitely a strength of mine to have good eyes, see things well out there," Blanton said. "I'm not far off at all [from starting]."

This should be one of the more interesting position battles this summer, especially if Blanton can make a strong case for himself as a starter.

Jim

I want a real slobber-knocker back there who can make his presence known. I don't know if any of those guys really do that consistently, so I don't know what the deciding factor will be. Probably the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none guy. Can make plays on the ball, strong in run support and solid coverage skills.

Was it Mistral Raymond with a big hit on Marshawn Lynch? I was at that game and the collision was phenomenal and whoever hit Lynch was the first guy I've seen in a long while to ever knock Marshawn backwards.

PacificNorseWest wrote:I want a real slobber-knocker back there who can make his presence known. I don't know if any of those guys really do that consistently, so I don't know what the deciding factor will be. Probably the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none guy. Can make plays on the ball, strong in run support and solid coverage skills.

Was it Mistral Raymond with a big hit on Marshawn Lynch? I was at that game and the collision was phenomenal and whoever hit Lynch was the first guy I've seen in a long while to ever knock Marshawn backwards.

I don't remember if it was Raymond or Sanford.

PacificNorseWest wrote:I want a real slobber-knocker back there who can make his presence known. I don't know if any of those guys really do that consistently, so I don't know what the deciding factor will be. Probably the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none guy. Can make plays on the ball, strong in run support and solid coverage skills.

Was it Mistral Raymond with a big hit on Marshawn Lynch? I was at that game and the collision was phenomenal and whoever hit Lynch was the first guy I've seen in a long while to ever knock Marshawn backwards.

It was Sanford. Raymond was inactive for the Seattle game.

I'll root for him.

Man...That hit was real! I was hoopin' and hollerin' when I seen that because Lynch never goes down like that. Surprised me.

Sanford hits hard. He was the guy who hit EJ.

Great hitters are nice but "allowing opposing quarterbacks to convert three of every five passes (21-of-35) for five touchdowns and a 127.9 average QB rating" is downright pathetic.

I'll go against the flow here and say that when it comes to CBs or safeties, I always prefer a guy who can cover and wrap up tackles over just a big hitter.

losperros wrote:Great hitters are nice but "allowing opposing quarterbacks to convert three of every five passes (21-of-35) for five touchdowns and a 127.9 average QB rating" is downright pathetic.

I'll go against the flow here and say that when it comes to CBs or safeties, I always prefer a guy who can cover and wrap up tackles over just a big hitter.

Amen to that, although it's nice when a safety can do all 3.

Definitely a position of need going forward. A competition between these three? Don't we have some late round rookies we can "push" them with?

Boon wrote:I think Blanton will shine. Call it a hunch. Not much of a hunch seeing the competition but he should be able to beat out those two hacks for a starting position, and I think having his college beast teammate on the other side will help him tons. He's gonna need to put on a few lbs though IMO

I really and truly hope that wish comes true. But we've seen so little of Blanton to date that I can't say one way or the other. Just because Sanford and Raymond aren't very good doesn't mean that the job is Blanton's to be had.