How much of the line's struggles are on Dennison?

Contrary to popular opinion, the Vikings have used a good chunk of their draft capital on trying to improve the offensive line. It seems as if the problem lies with either scouting and/or offensive line development. I think Brian O’Neill and Garrett Bradbury are the exception, but the others have been less than average. What’s your take on how the team develops their offensive linemen and what would it take to make an improvement in that category? — Tim F.

This is an interesting question, because their most significant investments trend positive. A first-round pick is demonstrating in his second year that he’s working out, while a second-round pick has been working out from the jump. Another second-round pick is on the bench as a rookie and could end up as a bust or a hit.

The other picks have been less than stellar. Pat Elflein has struggled and did so even before his injuries, while Danny Isidora and Dru Samia haven’t been huge assets. Going back further, fourth-round picks T.J. Clemmings and Willie Beavers didn’t work out. But Oli Udoh has been a hit and undrafted free agent Austin Wentworth was a great find until he was forced to retire as a result of a blood clot. I would also think that Rashod Hill counts here as well, despite being a signing from an opponent’s practice squad.

Hill was more likely evaluated for his college play than his limited preseason time, and was very likely a find by the Vikings’ college scouts, and they deserve credit for that.

If we throw out Cleveland’s evaluation for being too early to tell at the moment, getting two starters out of two early picks is above NFL average — they trend at about 60 percent — and they’ve been a little below average from then on. We need to remember that the hit rate for third- and fourth-round picks is low when it comes to finding eventual starters. Of the 77 offensive linemen drafted in those two rounds since 2014, only two have made Pro Bowls while another five — Morgan Moses, Joe Thuney, Shaq Mason, Brandon Linder and Gabe Jackson — appear to be high-quality starters. Two others are proving to be good assets for teams that didn’t draft them in Daryl Williams and John Miller and some are promising thus far, like Chukwuma Okorafor and Mark Glowinski. That’s about nine or 10 hits, and that includes players that needed a restart elsewhere — a 12 percent hit rate.

So out of four players drafted in the third or fourth rounds, they haven’t had a great player appear. But there’s not really any evidence to indicate that they’re any worse than the rest of the league at evaluating offensive linemen available around that part of the draft, and the fact that they picked up some late-round or undrafted players helps boost their record in that area.

The team obviously has an offensive line problem, but it’s so tough to say that this is a product of poor scouting and not just random variance. Maybe Elflein would have had a leap forward in development without injury and Clemmings would have been able to develop slowly if he wasn’t thrust into a starting role right away. Not only that, they’ve suffered some bad luck with the Wentworth retirement and later the Mike Harris retirement due to a congenital brain condition.

New holes on the line seem to appear a little bit faster for the Vikings than for other teams, magnifying the problems.

That’s not to say they’ve handled this entirely well. Cutting Josh Kline and choosing not to re-sign him was a big error and selecting Ezra Cleveland and placing him at guard, where he doesn’t seem to be a fit, seems to be another one. It might be worth considering more versatility for Brett Jones or Oli Udoh — who are both bad fits at guard but might still be better than Dru Samia. But I’m not sure we have enough evidence to say the talent evaluation and development is precisely the issue.