2022 Offensive Line Discussion

Yes I would be very surprised if the team doesn't keep Cleveland. Think of the pathetic OL we have been fielding for the past decade, and even now we (over)draft a rookie and he isn't exactly setting the world on fire. Why would we believe we can let go of those who rise to even the level of league-average? I think they will try to keep both Cleveland and Bradbury.

Schlottman was horrible when he started last year for the Broncos, and he looked the same yesterday. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say he’s the worst center in football who has played enough snaps to qualify. I guess that’s what you get when you sign a guy based off familiarity with the system (see Dozier) rather than how well the player has actually played.

It’s hard to believe I’m saying this, but we desperately need Bradbury back and we’ll probably need to extend him once the year is over. He’s come a long way since getting benched last year.

I’m not sure a mid-round center starting day 1 would wise… I don’t like Bradbury all that much either, but if it’s him for $6M a year or an unknown I’ll take him. I don’t anticipate they’ll be a big player in FA how many guys they need to re-sign.

Can't properly evaluate these two with Bradbury and Schlottman playing between them. Gotta upgrade the pass blocking and I'd follow Uncle's suggestion and do so via FA.

PFF is not reputable as it relates to O-Line grades. 2nd in Run Blocking? And yet how many times the last 4 or 5 games have we seen Cook and Mattison contacted behind the LOS?

It's a useful tool overall, but the eye test absolutely doesn't match how they've ranked this Unit.

Getting to the point where PFF grades for the O-Line can't be taken seriously at all. Cousins has been hit the most times of any QB in ages. Ingram and Cleveland are 1st and 2nd in pressures given up. They can't get the running game untracked even against light boxes...

And this Unit is ranked 10th? It's almost like they're trolling us.

We might've discussed this before, but that total pressures allowed stat is misleading for a few reasons:

Vikings are passing more than most teams -- they're 3rd in attempts.

Ingram and Cleveland have stayed healthy and so have had more pass blocking snaps than almost any other guards (trailing only the Chargers guards, Feiler and Zion Johnson, and Shaq Mason, the one guard whose played all year for the Bucs). Only 16 guards have had more than 600 pass blocking snaps, while Ingram is at 700 and Cleveland 699. By the time you get down to the guard with the 64th most pass blocking snaps (64th since that's 2 per team), you've got guys with less than 300 pass blocking snaps who've only played 7 games. 

O'Connell's scheme involves deeper dropbacks, quite a bit of play action, and a lot of option/choice routes that are read out post-snap. Those plays take time to develop. They're not using much quick game (which is a bit of a surprise, since Cousins was pretty good with that last year and the Rams had Stafford in empty a lot) or screens. Cousins has one of the highest percentages (5th) and total number (2nd) of dropbacks of 2.5 seconds or more -- those are the plays where OL pass blocking losses will lead to pressures. 

On top of that, the Vikings OL have almost completely avoided offensive holding penalties when pass blocking this year. Ingram has been called for 4 penalties and Cleveland 2, a total that will include false starts, illegal man downfield, holding on run plays, etc. Holding when beaten on a pass play will usually save a pressure and so won't add to the total you're complaining about.  

Sum that up -- the Vikings guards are pass blocking a lot, and for longer developing plays, and they're not taking penalties, and so almost all of their mistakes are showing up in the total pressures tally. 

With that context...

2022 -- Cousins 58.8% dropbacks >2.5 seconds (5th)
Ingram 54 pressures on 700 pass blocking snaps (4 penalties)
Cleveland 47 on 699 (2)

2021 -- Cousins 53.5% dropbacks >2.5 seconds (15th)
Udoh 45 on 662 (16)
Cleveland 34 on 695 (3)

2020 -- Cousins 56.2% dropbacks >2.5 seconds (7th) 
Dozier 46 on 614 (9)
Cleveland 23 on 361 (1)

2019 regular season -- Cousins 59.0% dropbacks >2.5 seconds (4th)
Elflein 32 on 481 (8)
Kline 21 on 381 (3)

2018 -- Cousins 50.6% dropbacks >2.5 seconds (16th)
Remmers 42 on 705 (8)
Compton 34 on 560 (6)

...the longer-dropbacks percentage is useful, since it shows the effect of scheme changing from JDF (lots of screens), to Gary K (long developing bootleg shot plays) to Klint (more quick game and 3-step alert deep fade routes) to O'Connell (option plays).

So Cousins is holding the ball a lot (highest percentage of long dropbacks aside from 2019) this year, while throwing a lot (~150 more pass attempts than in 2019 through 15 games). That's led to a higher number of pressures/hits/sacks even though the pass blocking is no worse -- Ingram is grading better as a pass blocker than Udoh 2021 or Dozier 2020, and Cleveland's grades are similar (only slightly worse) to last year.