[OC] Bradbury’s Place in the 2022 Offseason

Before I going into anything else about the Vikings center – Bradbury or someone else – I’ll say this: I would prefer a good center over a bad one. In fact, I would prefer to have an All-Pro at every position; but I know that’s not possible (22 1st team all pros vs 32 teams means there’s less than 1 per team). So if I can’t have what I want, what players will produce the most wins?

I started looking at Bradbury with a basic question: how bad is he? Or more specifically, how much worse is he that what the Vikings need to be a Super Bowl contender?

The first assumption I started with seems so trivial, that I should have to state it, but apparently I do: Teams with good players will win games + teams that win more games make the playoffs = teams with good players make the playoffs.

I looked up the PFF ranking for the best player at each position on every playoff team just to make sure reality is in fact real.



Yep, just as expected. A lot of green and blue. I just pulled the best player at each position, so some positions like WR, T, CB, EG get extra credit since they have more than 1 per team. This tells me a lot of things I expected:

Good QBs are well represented. As are good WRs and Edge rushers. Teams can get by without an elite TE. The only real surprise is that CB was lower than I expected (but I think that has more to do with PFF rankings where only 8 CBS had grade > 80 vs 14 WRs, I guess it’s just harder to play corner).

I also added the Vikings for comparison to see how far off the Vikings are. Not really unexpected. We could still improve at Tackle and we need better play from our LBs.

OK, so this same general trend should hold at the center position, right?



What the heck happened? This is horrible!

Centers are rated terribly across the board for playoff teams. It’s not an exaggeration to say that centers were, by a wide margin, the worst position on playoff teams. The Packers and Bengals were both highly successful with terrible centers.

It’s even worse than that when you look at the centers that did stand out in a positive way,

Creed Humphry - was the best one (by far) and is a 2nd round rookie. This was likely not the plan to have him come in and dominate the position; it’s nice to be sure, but the Chiefs won more games in 2020 with 46.7 70 rated Austin Reiter. That’s right, their center rating went up by a massive 4521 points and their wins went down by 2.  Edit: Reiter dropped to 47 the following year

Jason Kelce – has been a rock for a long time. Did his being a rock help the Eagles look like they belonged at the big boy playoff table while the Bucs had the Eagles behind the woodshed? It did not.

David Andrews – Sure, he was good. After 10-7, how did the Patriots season end again? Answer: hilariously.

What about Bad Teams?
I like to look at the opposite position of analysis to see if the original case holds water.  So were centers even worse on bad teams?  Not really.  The Chargers had a great center in Linsley and were one of the most disappointing teams in the league.  Good protection from Roullier didn't make Heinike looks like an NFL starter for the commanders.  Connon McGovern at center was the highest rated player for the Jets (which is really sad). 

Why all this?
Here is where I share my motive for writing this: I was looking at the Vikings free agent dollars and draft picks and wondering if we need a DE, CB, LB, how the heck do we replace Bradbury?  

Now I’m left asking a different question: why do we replace Bradbury? Because I go back to the question I started with:
[+1 self quote... note to self: like own post...]

I usually look at adding players as needing some sort of resource to use to get a guy; those resources are: Free agent $, Draft picks in the first 3 rounds (I expect nothing from 4th rounder’s or later… even 3’s are generous).

So if you look at this list: DE, CB, LB, G, C, Succession plan for WR/S/QB:
Really good DE’s show up on a lot of playoff teams
CBs are particularly hard to find and teams play 3 at a time
Vikings are well below their playoff peers at LB
Centers… bad ones are everywhere and playoff teams figure it out.

Now you have limited resources: 3 picks in the first 3 round and maybe 1-2 free agents above minimal value, that’s 5 chances to fill in those gaps. So what position so you spend those resources on?

The offseason reality
Garrett Bradbury was not good. But he was so not good that he was better than the center for 4 of the 14 playoff teams (including 1 super bowl team). If you gave me 3 choices:

Choice 1: Keep Garret Bradbury – Add free agent CB – Draft DE/LB early

Choice 2: Spend big on a Center – Draft a CB early – roll with Wonnum / Surratt

Choice 3: Draft Tyler Linderbaum – Play Hand / Boyd big snaps – Sign an edge rusher

I’m taking choice 1 without hesitation (feel free to flip the FA / Draft picks in any scenario)

This was originally supposed to be a post about who we could sign or when to pick a player to fix what I thought was a huge need. I looked at playoff teams to see where they got their guy at center, when they drafted him whatever clues there were - but the reality of wins, losses and making it to the Super Bowl don't justify replacing Bradbury unless there is a great opportunity (i.e. the Chiefs with Humphry in the 2nd).

The point of all of this: If the Vikings keep Bradbury (or bring back Cole) and use their free agent dollars and picks on other position things can still be fine. Center is not the position to point at and say “Bradbury sinks! We’re screwed!”