2019 Offensive Line Review

Last Friday, the Vikings entered their first live game action of 2019 with their Preseason Week 1 game against the Saints. There are many questions surrounding the team, but perhaps none more important than the offensive line, a group whose lackluster performances during the Mike Zimmer era has left fans consternated.

The line underwent a major renovation this past offseason, with different faces at each interior spot. Garrett Bradbury, the crown jewel of the Vikings’ draft class, will take over the starting C spot, which kicked Pat Elflein to LG, a position he hasn’t played since his first year starting at Ohio State. Josh Kline was brought in as a free agent to hold down the RG spot. Throw in the new faces and the transition to an outside-zone heavy blocking scheme, and there was a lot to watch for with the starting offensive line.

Starters are not the entirety of the group, however, and Vikings fans are very used to the team calling upon its depth along the offensive line in recent years. Dru Samia and Oli Udoh were also added in the draft, Brett Jones and Rashod Hill were pushed into action last year, and there are handful other players that were competing for a depth job, all got playing time.

PROCESS AND GRADING

In interest of full disclosure, below is a breakdown of how I charted each player. I have it broken down into good plays, where the player made a positive contribution, bad plays, where the player negatively impacted the play, and neutral plays, where the play was either too quick to evaluate or the player showed a bit of a mixed bag (but did not negatively impact the play).



When looking at this, I would suggest that blown block % is significantly more important that good block %. If an offensive lineman isn’t impacting a play, that’s typically a good thing. There can obviously be highlight blocks that help successful plays, but if an offensive lineman fails, that almost always means a play is dead. If he simply doesn’t dominate but doesn’t fall it may not impact the at all. Therefore, I would say someone like Norton, who has a low success rate but also low failure rate, had a better game than Samia, who had a lot of variance with a high success rate and high failure rate.

In terms of player stock, I am concerned about Rashod Hill. He still has a backlog of tape to justify a spot on the team, but he bears watching the rest of the preseason, because he could be a surprise cut if he can’t get his act together. After this game, I feel very good about Brett Jones’ chances to stick, and while I would have counted Storm Norton totally out before this game, I can see him having an outside shot at the roster now. Dru Samia did enough to keep considering the investment the Vikings made in him, and I think Oli Udoh significantly improved his chances. Dakota Dozier remains on the bubble, but probably looking out, I can’t see the Vikings keeping three interior guys with just 9 linemen, and I don’t see them going up to 10. John Keenoy is still an extreme longshot to make the team, but he a least deserves credit for a good game.