VikingPaul73 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 12:41 pm
anyway, I don't want to sound like a whiney fan, and I am happy about the upgrades on D. But man, I am really really nervous about this OL - it could crater everything
It could, but I look at it compared to what the Vikings ended with last year and whether it's reasonable to believe the changes made to the OL along with expected evolution of the retained veterans should improve it, hold, or decline.
O'Neill is entering the prime of his career. He's been a steady presence at RT and will remain there. While he's not a dominant player, he's been competent and consistent and should be playing his best football heading into the upcoming season.
Cleveland was at RG last season. He might not play there this season, but he should earn a starting guard spot. I felt like Cleveland did well for the situation he was thrust into last season. He got overwhelmed at times, but for the most part I think he showed he can play the position. It's reasonable to expect he will have added some quality weight and strength over the offseason and he should also be improved.
Bradbury hasn't been consistent, but like O'Neill it's reasonable to expect him to be entering the prime of his career with two seasons under his belt. Some of Bradbury's struggles over his first two seasons might have been due to the lack of talent on either side of him. With Cleveland on one side and presumably Davis on the other, that has a chance of lessening the load on Bradbury. Bradbury has talent and is capable of playing better than he has so far, and hopefully he will show us why the Vikings took him in the 1st round.
Of those three, only Cleveland is still relatively inexperienced and more of an unknown in terms of what can be expected of him. All three are young players who have upside and are capable of surprising more to the upside. So I'm optimistic that the RT, one of the guard positions, and Center is taken care of.
That leaves the other guard position and the LT position as the wildcards. What can we expect there?
Well, I hope we can expect Wyatt Davis to win the other guard position outright. Davis was mocked in the 1st or early 2nd round throughout the lead up to the draft. He is a classic guard - big, stout at the point of attack and strong. His pass protection was what held him back in evals, and he has struggled in that role. Whether he can improve there is a question mark. But, if he can, then the Vikings have a starting guard who can actually move people in the run game. They struggled with that last year, especially in short yardage situations. If Davis doesn't win the spot then we're probably looking at another year of Dozier. Dozier also struggled with pass protection, but on the bright side, we know how the offense is likely to perform with Dozier in at one of the guard spots. In other words, Davis can only make things better if he wins the job. If Dozier wins it, they will remain at worst the same.
And last but not least we have the LT position that, barring some really bad luck, should be manned by Darrisaw. Darrisaw is a mountain of a man. Riley Reiff was a solid LT, and the Vikings will miss his leadership and experience, but Darrisaw brings a physical component to the LT position that Reiff simply could not match. Darrisaw is long. He's tall. He's strong. He's just a chore to get around. Darrisaw is a good run blocker too. He's a technician. He's not going to go out there and try to bury defenders, but he's going to execute and he's going to be effective. I'm not ready to say he's going to be a net improvement over Reiff in his first year, but I will say that if the Vikings need 2 yards and want to run, having Darrisaw in there makes it far more likely they'll get those 2 yards off LT.
In sum, I'd say the OL overall can't be worse than it was last year. As a run blocking unit I think it will be better, but as a pass blocking unit it might not be. However, if I had to pick which aspect of blocking was more important for an offense like the Vikings, I'd say run blocking is more critical. Dalvin Cook is a real threat, and if they can unleash him more effectively, that seriously reduces the effectiveness of defenses being able to go after Cousins. In essence, by being a better run blocking unit coupled with a home run threat RB, they become a better pass blocking unit as well even if they technically aren't any better at pass blocking.
There is more reason to be optimistic about the OL heading into this season than pessimistic even if the improvement is not even and even if they struggle a bit in the early part of the season.
