Vikings Message Board.Com

Eric Thompson

Can the #Vikings just start David Morgan at right tackle?

IIsweet wrote:I would love to see Clemmings, Bykowski, or Sirles become "that guy".

I can't see Bykowski even making the team, he doesn't really seem to do much at all. I think Austin Shepherd has a better chance.

IIsweet wrote:Someone asked the question, what else would you have done?
I think going after Osemele and not losing out on him and still adding Boone would have been priority #1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8......
Not sure exactly what the salary cap situation was but I didn't think that we needed to address a lot anyways.
Taking Treadwell was a no brainer and other players would have been reaches. Mackenzie was not just a luxury pick but a great one. Offenses run 3 WR sets now all the time. Probably next year, 2017, we will be running Rhodes, Waynes, and Alexander all the time on D. That's as formidable of a trio of CB's as there will be... period !!! With Smith and maybe Kearse, where will the ball be thrown to?

Thus again, addressing the OL. FA was the key and we did not get what we needed.
Spielman believes in drafting "athletes" and then plugs the fatties and let's them gel. Problem is that they haven't gelled as a unit and their talent is overwhelmed by DL talent.
I agree 100% that OL has to be addressed. Spielman will just find another athlete that slips to him in the draft every year. This is my take. Eventually a HC that says OL is priority #1 will get it fixed. Hopefully Zimmer says that in the offseason next year !!!

Over the years the Vikings as a whole could have been a lot better.

The OL seems to be a hot mess...Since Khalil is injured and they played Clemmings & Beaver at LT yesterday have they given up on Sirles at that position?
It also would be interesting to know exactly what Khalil injury is.

We don't hear much about Kerin, Shepard or Bykowski.

halfgiz wrote:The OL seems to be a hot mess...Since Khalil is injured and they played Clemmings & Beaver at LT yesterday have they given up on Sirles at that position?
It also would be interesting to know exactly what Khalil injury is.

We don't hear much about Kerin, Shepard or Bykowski.

I had hopes for Kerin and Shepard

halfgiz wrote:The OL seems to be a hot mess...Since Khalil is injured and they played Clemmings & Beaver at LT yesterday have they given up on Sirles at that position?
It also would be interesting to know exactly what Khalil injury is.

We don't hear much about Kerin, Shepard or Bykowski.

Probably his brittle knees.

Mothman wrote: We hear the same thing year after year. At some point, they need to take away from somewhere else and build a better o-line. I don't think Spielman has taken that unit seriously enough.

This and decent (not overpaying, but paying for a decent QB backup, and then someone like Stave as 3rd (I like this kid even if he is raw as can be, he seems like he really wants to learn), is something Ive been hoping the Vikings would have done vote years, but the Oline is where they try and make deals, rather then gain talent. Im getting sick of it. I dont see this year as looking much better then last. And I am so hungry to eat crow, but at the end of the year we will be talking about the Oline one more time. Eventually Zim is going to HAVE to get some good Oline, cause too many CBs are going to equal too many 3 and outs, and that will make the defense tired the whole game.

giving credit where credit is do the line do pass protect very good a few times and gave the QB a nice horse shoe pocket
against Seattle...given the talent Sparano (sp) seems to be giving them better technique

They did attempt to address the unit this year. However, I wonder if they knew about Loadholt retiring. If they did, that takes some of the sparkle off of the moves they made. The Kalil injury couldn't have been expected or planned for.

Ugh...

mansquatch wrote:They did attempt to address the unit this year. However, I wonder if they knew about Loadholt retiring. If they did, that takes some of the sparkle off of the moves they made. The Kalil injury couldn't have been expected or planned for.

Ugh...

Whether they knew Loadholt was considering retirement or not, they had to at least recognize the strong possibility that he wouldn't be able to come back at a starting level.

This unit continues to be mismanaged and I'm betting the Vikes will pay for it again this season.

Mothman wrote: Whether they knew Loadholt was considering retirement or not, they had to at least recognize the strong possibility that he wouldn't be able to come back at a starting level.

This unit continues to be mismanaged and I'm betting the Vikes will pay for it again this season.

I don't think they was expecting Harris to be out also.
We could be revamping half the O - line next year.

But the last two years it has also been a combination of things - injuries, rookie talent and mismanaged line.

halfgiz wrote:I don't think they was expecting Harris to be out also.

I'm sure they weren't.

We could be revamping half the O - line next year.

But the last two years it has also been a combination of things - injuries, rookie talent and mismanaged line.

If I owned this team, I'd let Spielman know he's on thin ice.

While I agree I don't believe that they have put enough urgency on drafting lineman recently, I think they did try to make significant moves to improve the line in the offseason. We have to compare what they had starting last year and where they "thought" they would be coming into this season. Last year's starters were Kalil-LT, Fusco-LG, Berger-C, Harris-RG, and Clemmings-RT. Coming in to training camp they thought they were going to have significant competition and depth. Some of the occurrences (injuries, retirement) could not have been expected. While you need to plan for injury and try to have adequate depth, there is only so much you can do when 4 (Loadholt, Kalil, Fusco, Harris) out of the 8 players who were going to be realistically competing for starting jobs on the line either retired or have missed significant time due to injury already. Its hard not to feel that they have had some bad luck very early on with long term losses especially with Loadholt retiring and Harris looking to be out potentially for the season.

In effect, they were adding 4 additional players to competition and depth compared to last year. They added Boone (where Fusco was clearly ineffective), were getting Sullivan and Loadholt back from injury, brought Smith for competition at RT. They resigned Harris. You could even throw in Fusco for the number to increase the number to 5 due to his previous success at RG if you're feeling generous.

While saying this you'd would have to acknowledge some of the question marks about 2 players returning from injury, one moving positions again and playing at the same level he had previously at the position, and a huge question mark at LT. But I do give them credit for at least trying to address it in the offseason with free agency additions, competition, and players returning from injury.

With that said, this does not address the strategy to neglect adding younger, promising players to a line that is starting to age, especially with the injuries and effectiveness level we have seen in the recent past. I think I would join the echo of calls for them to start concentrating on the line in the draft.

They haven't invested heavily enough into the O-line but they've also had some really really bad injury luck the past couple years and the moves they did make sadly haven't worked so great making the situation a lot worse than normal.

It's frustrating because it's going to be very hard to overcome a weak o-line.

Actually, the Vikings have invested heavily in the O-line. It's one of (or the most?) expensive line in the NFL. Whether or not they invested correctly remains to be seen but they certainly have invested heavily.

The injuries have been unfortunate, Loadholt, Sully and Fusco last year. Loadholt and Harris this year with a side of Kalil. There aren't many teams that can lose 60% of their line without a significant drop off.