Too Soon To Panic ... ?

Maybe Zimmer wouldn’t be as peeved if the struggles hadn’t come from players that may be on his 53-man roster; players who may need to face starting-caliber competition in 2021.

“A lot of these guys are backup players,” said Zimmer. “The things they showed today were definitely not good enough. We gave up a fade in the endzone, we’re not even close to the guy. The bombs, the two young safeties had a hard time today of knowing who’s up and back and who’s down. The long bomb, they bit on it and Dantzler didn’t cover the guy.”

The right guard spot seems like an obvious place to start, where the performances by Dakota Dozier and Wyatt Davis made one thing clear: Oli Udoh might win the job by default. His omission from the lineup sent an early message that Udoh may have some security as a starter, and Dozier — allegedly his main competition to start — was the weakest link on a makeshift line comprised of youngsters. He was pushed around in pass protection with a first quarter holding call in the end zone resulting in a safety. Davis, his replacement, was equally overmatched against the pass rush, justifying why he’s been relegated to third-team duty in practice.

Deja vu much? The Vikings plans at guard continue to go by the wayside.

In the battle for starting outside corner, Cameron Dantzler has been losing ground to Bashaud Breeland since the day Breeland was healthy enough to put on pads. Asked to play most of the first quarter with Breeland watching from the sideline, Dantzler missed a tackle in the run game and got burned at the line of scrimmage by K.J. Hamler, who motored past for an 80-yard touchdown.

That’s probably Minnesota’s first corner off the bench this year.

“The little kid (K.J. Hamler) who caught the touchdown pass, we practiced against him for two days,” Zimmer said. “You’d think those guys would know his speed and what he’s done. They went one-on-one against him.”

Unfortunately for the Vikings, their issues went even deeper.

Brandon Dillon, who’s trying to become the third tight end in the rotation, had a drop and a holding call. His primary competition Zach Davidson also dropped a potential touchdown.

Myles Dorn is in the running for the third safety spot but missed multiple tackles and was beaten for a touchdown.

Ihmir Smith-Marsette, trying to wiggle his way into the WR3 conversation, dropped a pass, slipped on a kick return was the recipient of a Browning pick six in the second quarter.

Backup quarterbacks Browning and Mond combined for 84 passing yards.

“It was just us shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Smith-Marsette, “our offensive mistakes setting us back, we take one step forward, two steps back.”


The Vikings are operating with little wiggle room. The safety and linebacker positions are one injury away from having to play a concerningly young player extended snaps — and those players weren’t sharp on Saturday.

In the same way that the 2020 class struggled when thrown into the fire (aside from Justin Jefferson), this year’s draft picks — Wyatt Davis, Patrick Jones, Janarius Robinson, Chazz Surratt, Ihmir Smith-Marsette or safety Cam Bynum — probably aren’t yet ready to take on significant roles. Only Bynum has been taking the majority of his reps with the second team and he had a miscue on KJ Hamler’s 80-yard touchdown catch on Saturday. Zimmer talked several times about how Smith-Marsette’s role is going to be on special teams.

There aren’t a bunch of free agents running around looking for last-minute deals and there isn’t a magical “development” button that Zimmer can push to elevate the play of the recent Day 3 draft picks that haven’t been able to prove they can fill holes.

Sticking with the theme, the Vikings can only hope they don’t have injuries rain down upon them. Otherwise, they’ll need players to rise to the challenge. Those are the only two ways to avoid giant holes being left when “the good players” are out.

Now, about the BadWeather that they can potentially handle. Christian Darrisaw’s groin procedure is going to set the rookie left tackle back but historically the odds are more in the favor of a veteran swing tackle than a first-round rookie anyway — at least at the start of the year. Over the last two years, Rashod Hill has predominantly played left tackle and finished (in limited duty) with PFF pass blocking grades of 79.5 and 70.2. That would put him in the middle of the league.

Asking for 17 games from Hill might be too much. Asking him to hold down the fort until Darrisaw is ready is a task he was built to take on.

The rest of the line has its questions. Ezra Cleveland is more comfortable at left guard but we’re not entirely sure he’s a guard. Garrett Bradbury seems poised to take another step but we’re not entirely sure he’ll take another step. The Vikings are making a long-shot bet on Oli Udoh being able to switch from tackle to guard in one training camp after having played only in Week 17 of 2019.

In the same way that the unvaccinated players might never have a COVID absence and the key starters might stay healthy, the offensive line might click. All of these potential storms have a coin-flip chance to pass by.

But if we use a little bit of probability, the odds that three independent 50% bets hit is 12.5%.

So in the scenario in which one of those storms hits, there’s only two ways the Vikings can overcome them: 1) Mike Zimmer’s defense dominates 2) Kirk Cousins plays exceptionally well.

Zimmer and Cousins might not being singing in the rain together but they’re the ones who hold the cards. In 2017, Zimmer’s defense made up for the losses of Sam Bradford and Dalvin Cook. In 2019, Cousins put up his highest PFF grade and QB rating and won a road playoff game despite Stefon Diggs drama and imperfections on defense.

They can weather these storms by starting off hot against Cincinnati and Arizona and leaving preseason clashes in the dust. They can get past this rough camp by using it to come together, even if the locker room isn’t happy with Zimmer’s public comments.

Will that happen? We’ve seen it go both ways. The team did not respond well to Zimmer’s hard-nosed approach in 2016 but rallied around Case Keenum the following year.

You know in Minnesota the weather is always a main subject. Well, whether the storms hit will certainly be at the center of Vikings conversation all year.