[OC] Season in Review: Darrisaw's Impact

Getting Back to Darrisaw. I can't say I've studied him in depth......but there are times while watching a game again that I'll be stunned by how easy it is for him. The quickness-to-power (did I just coin a term?) is really impressive. He can have bad technique and still beat most guys to the spot. The power is impressive. I should stop now

It's easy to get all the various Bradbury manhandlings mixed up in one's memory.

the rams do have that one guy on the interior that's pretty decent.  Probably not the first guy to get manhandled by Donald.  

You'll come crawling back. 

Was he head up on Bradbury? I don't remember but Gaines was a beast last year and they had A. Robinson off the bench. Pretty nice

Vikings OL grades from week 9 onward in games Darrisaw played (weeks 9-12, 15-18), sorted by pass blocking grade:



Notes:

Darrisaw and Cleveland were the 2 highest graded OL for the Vikings in this 8 game sample, ahead of O'Neill. That was thanks to their very good run blocking grades -- O'Neill graded better in pass blocking.

Cleveland graded much better in the games in this sample, when he had an up-to-speed Darrisaw on his left, than in the rest of the year.
* For weeks 1-8 (Hill, then Darrisaw in his first 2.5 games at LT) plus weeks 13-14 (Udoh at LT), Cleveland's grades were 51.2 pass blocking and 59.7 overall: 43rd of 60 starting guards in overall grade, and 50th in pass blocking grade.
* For weeks 9-12 and 15-18 (Darrisaw once he'd gotten his feet wet at LT), Cleveland's grades were 61.5 pass blocking and 77.5 overall: 8th (!) of 58 starting guards in overall grade, and 37th in pass blocking grade.
* ...that might be confounded by the fact that Cleveland himself is still developing and this was his first year at LG. But it's notable that his grades in weeks 13-14 (next to Udoh at LT) were worse again (56.2 pass blocking and 64.3 overall) though not as bad as the first 8 weeks (50.5 pass blocking, 58.5 overall)

Bradbury's pass blocking grade was a non-terrible 51.1 during this sample, though his run blocking was uncharacteristically poor and dragged his overall grade down below 50.

Mason Cole graded badly as a pass blocker at center -- not shown in this screenshot (which includes one game for Cole at RG), but for weeks 9-12 Cole's pass blocking grade at C was 42.3, slightly worse than Bradbury's grade for the rest of the year (43.7)

...

So this suggests Cleveland may benefit considerably from playing next to Darrisaw at LT, making him more effective as a pass blocker and run blocker. Further development from Cleveland could see him as an above average starting guard.

Despite all the frustration with Bradbury (which is justifiable, he was overdrafted), guard has been the biggest liability on the OL for the last 3 years. It looks like Cleveland can be a long-term solution at LG especially if he's playing next to a good LT in Darrisaw. I'm hopeful that Ingram will be similarly effective at RG, and an upgrade especially as a pass blocker.