2022 Offensive Line Discussion

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line is a major question mark in this training camp.

No, I didn’t pull this headline from 2015, 2018 or 2021 or every year in between. Once again, the start of training camp is producing significant questions about the viability of Minnesota’s O-line. As ESPN’s Bill Barnwell said in a recent column that discussed the Vikings… “same as it ever was.”

Minnesota now has competition along two positions of the offensive line, the ever-elusive right guard spot, which no player in recent history has been able to hold onto for longer than a season. And then there’s the center conundrum.

“I think there’s still competition,” O’Connell said this weekend.

Seemingly, that’s between Garrett Bradbury, Chris Reed and Austin Schlottmann. Although, that doesn’t inspire much confidence. Bradbury has graded poorly in Pro Football Focus pass blocking grade every year of his career, Reed has never taken a snap at center during NFL action and Schlottmann has played just one game at the position, where he allowed four pressures in 27 pass-blocking snaps and amassed a rough PFF pass-blocking grade of 25.3.

With experts around the NFL are questioning whether it will get better, let’s take a closer look….

Recently, ESPN published an article projecting offensive line performance for 2022 using pass- and run-block win rates over the last two years, which measures exactly what it says, how often an offensive lineman wins their blocks.

The numbers didn’t look too kindly on the Vikings. The projections have Minnesota ranked as the No. 31 pass-blocking offensive line in the league, behind only the Pittsburgh Steelers. In this same statistic, Minnesota ended the 2021 season ranked as the 25th pass-blocking unit in the league, meaning the projections show the unit is expected to get worse.

Then consider how that affects Kirk Cousins. In 2021, Cousins was excellent from a clean pocket. He amassed a 93.7 PFF pass grade when clean, second-best in the NFL behind only Joe Burrow. He graded better than MVP Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert. But under pressure, he graded worse than all of them. His PFF grade under pressure was 52.9, a 40-point differential and he averaged 5.1 yards per attempt.

The silver lining is that the projections show the team’s run blocking should improve, with Minnesota projected as the seventh-best run-blocking offensive line. That’s up 13th, where it ranked in 2021.

Still, because of the increased importance of pass-blocking, Minnesota’s overall offensive line is projected to rank No. 22 in the NFL.

A week later, ESPN’s Barnwell published an article looking at each contender’s Achilles heel. Guess what the Vikings’ was? Offensive line play. And when ranked among the 14 contenders’ biggest weaknesses, Barnwell forecasted it as one of the most worrisome.

Now, every team has its flaws. But having the offensive line as a team’s Achilles heel is worse than many deficiencies.

Using PFF grade instead of pass and run block win rates, only two playoff teams in 2021 had a below-average pass-blocking offensive line – the Raiders and Bengals. The Bengals made it to the Super Bowl despite that deficiency but it played a major part in their loss to the Rams and they immediately addressed the need in the offseason with several major acquisitions, showing they were extremely worried about that unit.

Minnesota’s offensive line actually ranked worse than the Bengals did in 2021. And while they invested in some changes, signing several low-cost right guard options and investing a second-round pick in Ed Ingram, it may not be enough to fortify the unit because of the nature of offensive line play, which inherently is a sum-of-its-parts position.

I make reference to this PFF study from Eric Eager frequently, but it’s worth mentioning again. The study found that the performance of the third-best lineman had the most significant impact on expected points added (EPA). The performance of the second- and fourth-best offensive lineman had a bigger impact on success than the best offensive lineman’s performance. Of course having an elite offensive lineman is additive to a team, but the statistics show that one offensive lineman can be schemed around. Defensive linemen can be moved, blitzes can flip to the opposite side, and the other offensive linemen need to step up.

Applying this to the Vikings, the individual play of Christian Darrisaw, Ezra Cleveland, Garrett Bradbury and whoever wins the right guard spot will arguably be more important than Brian O’Neill. It showed last season. O’Neill allowed pressures on 3.5 percent of snaps, the eighth-best mark for all tackles. The Vikings still ranked amongst the worst pass-blocking teams.

While Christian Darrisaw and Ezra Cleveland showed signs that they could be capable offensive linemen, there are still massive question marks. Darrisaw ranked 67th out of 68 tackles in pass block win rate a year ago. Cleveland finished fifth-best in run block win rate among guards but third-worst in pass block win rate. If PFF grades are your thing, Cleveland ranked 44th of 59 guards in pass-blocking grade. Darrisaw ranked 37th of 54 among tackles.

Still, the pedigree of a first- and second-round pick should lead to immediate improvement, right? Not always. Offensive linemen take considerable time to develop.

This type of uncertainty at the center and right guard position does not bode well for the Vikings. As everyone knows all too well, having two missing links along the offensive line can bring the entire offense down. That’s especially true with Cousins under center, who ranked 30th in big-time throw percentage under pressure and 32nd in yards per attempt under pressure last season.

However, when the O-line gave Cousins a clean pocket, he took advantage of it. According to PFF, he ranked second in clean-pocket passer rating, seventh in clean-pocket EPA/play, and fourth in clean-pocket big-time-throw percentage.

More importantly, this poor line performance could affect how Kevin O’Connell can call plays. Last year the Los Angeles Rams ranked first in the NFL in pass-block win rate (68%) with O’Connell as their offensive coordinator. Conversely, the Vikings ranked 25th in the NFL with a 54% win rate, according to ESPN. That kind of discrepancy in O-line capability could prevent O’Connell from unlocking the offense’s true potential by forcing him to play more conservatively to ensure that there isn’t too much pressure on the interior.

Ultimately, although the Vikings made an effort to improve their offensive line, it appears that they have not done enough. This unit seems as if it will continue to be a detriment to an offense loaded with playmakers at the skill positions.