Hopefully, this will be a series of articles taking an in depth look at the Viking players and the team as a whole.  Your favorite poster (Grime) and myself are collaborating on this series.  We figure we have several months to accomplish it in total.  We have differing views on the current state of the Vikings team.  I am more optimistic than he.  Grime is more knowledgeable on the technical aspects of football so his viewpoint is clouded with real facts rather than a simple fan perspective.

Here is how we will proceed.  We will start with the offensive line. Since "Jethrophet" just did a post using most of the same stats we thought it logical to begin there.   We will give some facts about the positions performance last year.  Hopefully we can draw some conclusions and give pointers on what to look for in the first few games for you to decide whether the Vikes are improved or not.  We hope to analyze all the positions in this same manner.

When it is all said and done we both hope that you found the series entertaining as well as educational.

Lets jump and get started.

GRIMES VIEW:

Hey all,  a couple of quick facts that hit the line as a whole and truly does tell how badly we are doing.  Last season we got stuffed at the line 23% of the time.  That ranks 31st out of all the teams in the NFL and is truly a terrible statistic.  On our over all power ranking (making a 1st  down or TD off a 3-4th short yardage situation) we were 23rd in the NFL with a 59% chance of success.  What does this mean? Our line is getting very little push off the line of scrimmage (los).  When you run the ball you want your linemen 2-3 yards off the line of scrimmage when the Back hits the hole, currently we’re pretty much sitting on the line of scrimmage hoping a hole actually opens up.

Now I’m terrible at tables probably because I’m so lazy, but here is something else that will interest the rabid Viking fan.    This table is going to show how we run at different positions on the line and how it maps to the rest of the NFL.

What I can extrapolate from this, is that honestly McKinney is the best run blocker we have.  When we run down him (3-5 gap)  we get the most yardage by far.  The center of our line is not great but it’s functional in a middle of the road must get better kind of way.  However, the right side of the line has serious issues, and we are terrible at running outside.  Being bad at end play can be the result of a lot of things one of them is that linemen are not getting into the defensive back field to slow down line backers.  Another is that the outside linemen is not quick enough to force the DE inside.  All in all this metric doesn’t really show fault but it does show we have some serious issues on the line.

Here’s another table to show where we run and if Childress is taking advantage of our one strong section of line.

Looking at this Childress runs a fairly even offense, however, since McKinney is our undeniable strong spot on the run, we should probably be running behind him a bit more.

Next we’re going to look at some more interesting statistics.   I know it’s so exciting!!  Ok.  Maybe it’s not but  here we go anyway.

Now this table might not make a lot of sense but let me see if I can figure out what is going on here.  It looks like the left and right are pretty close until you look at the negative yards.  I do not really put much stock in the +10 since a lot of that is AD’s elusiveness.  With that in mind we are 8th in open field rankings, which is how many yards one gets after the RB runs 10 yards past the los.  This is not a line stat.  It’s a pure RB stat and should tell you, if you already didn’t know,  that we have a solid RB. The right side is far more likely to let someone through their blocking.  I think with time you will see that go away,  as Loadholt realizes the speed of the game and figures out the Vikes zone blocking a bit better.  What is really telling is that McKinney is not good in short yardage situations, heck all in all none of the line are very good at it..

Grimes unExpert Analysis:

 Sullivan: is doing an average job as a center.  I watched a bit of tape on him and notice a couple of failures.  First he is a tad slow off of the snap.  As he is snapping the actual ball that may be hard to understand, however, when you look at him he is often still residing in his stance for a second or two while people around him are on the move.  He needs to be quicker at this to allow him to get to linebackers on run plays and support the guards on passing.  I watched tape of  Birk (our previous center) and  Sully.  One sees another big difference.  Whereas Birk was always  calling out line assignments, Sully is not quite as spot on in this.  I cannot hear what Sully  is saying, but he is a lot less active as he comes to the ball.

The things I see Sully doing well are waiting on the blitz.  What I mean by this is he does not commit to a support role to early and to hard.  He does a respectable job at keeping linebackers and stunting DT’s out of his gap even if they are doing delayed blitzes.  Bad part of this is,  he plays high and on his heals which means he is the spot where the pocket is collapsing quite often.

Loadholt:  This guy looks like a beast and he got better as the season progressed, however, he and Herrera had some problem with the zone system and making sure they shored up the holes on their side.  He actually did better against solid DE’s as he understood his role in the game a bit better.  He had issues picking up stunts and run blitzes though, and didn’t get enough push off the line on run plays.

On the solid point he’s quick off the ball and has quick feet.  I rarely saw him get bulled and he corralled DE’s to the outside fairly well.  I think as he learns the speed of the NFL and strengthens up in the off-season he’ll start showing more promise.  Having a year in the zone blocking system next to Herrera has to help as well.  I expect to see less people making it through the right side next year.  Hey, he was a rookie and he started on an NFL team that went to the NFCCG.  Got to respect that

Hererra:  Ok I feel somewhat bad for this guy, he’s not a great guard to start with but with Sully and Load next to him he was feasted upon.  Many missed blocks in this area caused penetration.  He is not the biggest guard in the league and so he and sully had some problems keeping the pocket from collapsing.  I think many missed assignments among these three were the cause of some of the negative yards being produced off the right side.  All in all this guy will never be a probowler but he isn’t terrible by any means

Good news is his biggest weakness that I saw was the inexperience of the people playing with him.  A year will help everyone, and at 30 he’s by no means at the end of his shelf life.  I don’t see Herrera himself improving but he’s not an Achilles heal either.

Hutch:  We have been relying on this guy for to long.  Last year was the first year he started to show the signs of wear and tear.  As the season progressed, it went from a shoulder injury to a back injury to whatever.  The issue isn't  will Hutch be in better health this year , but rather how long will he stay that way?  Even injured Hutch was the best side to run behind.  In between Hutch and McKinney, we ran the 7th best in the NFL.  That in itself should tell you something.  The rest of the line was over 20th in the league.  You really cant’ say anything bad about this guy other than age is a truck you just can’t outrun.

McKinney:  Ok,  this guy is much maligned however, he actually gave up the least amount of sacks on this line.  He is the best person to run behind and a solid pass blocker.  He had issues with his ankles and feet as the season progressed.  He actually is pretty quick for such a fat man as well.  The problem is he never uses it because after moving five feet he stops stands up and pants for a while.  If we could put half of JA”s motor into this guy we could run a geriatrics ward behind him.  McKinney is getting older though and it’s going to take a toll especially since physical training may not be super important to him.

The Nuts:  Here are the nuts, our line was terrible last year.  It wasn't  average and  certainly not good.  It was flat out terrible.  New people, injuries, system, closed gaps, solar flares what ever you want to blame it out feel free.  Next year I think the right side will start to improve (but not nearly enough) and the left side will start to slide (but not by much).

While we were writing this LLV and I chatted.  I knew there were  some tears in his eyes after he started looking at some of the statistics, and he asked me "if  the front office knows these facts why and how is this happening?"

  Here is my humble opinion.  Childress is a big name kind of guy, he’s not big on pulling small names out of the draft.  We get a lot of rookies of the year but not a lot of linemen.  Looking back it’s hard to see him even looking at linemen as solid options for a high draft pick.  That has been fine,  however eventually you are going to have to do it.  You can most heavily see this in the fact that our back up linemen are so poor.  That in itself is probably the scariest situation our back ups are terrible.  Look what happened to Green Bay last year.  If McKinney or Hutch go out do you think our second stringers are going to keep the QB safe?  Hell no they aren’t!  Anyway, hope this was interesting and entertaining.  There is a reason I don’t’ write fan posts.  They take way to long. 

LifelongVikes Humble Opinion:

I am surprised that McKinney's stats are as good as they were.  The way everyone has been bashing him I would have expected his stats to be worse.  Of course when you factor in that the "knowledgeable" pro bowl voters thought highly of him,  his stats do not surprise me.  The real problem with the line is the new guys.  Loadholt and Sullivan.  Did we really expect anything different?  Is there a reason the Viking front office didn't use one of their first three draft picks on an O- Lineman?  I believe so.  With more experience and familiarity the line should be significantly improved this year. Zone blocking schemes take longer to learn than "power running schemes." Thank God we had AP last year.  Hopefully having all the line back and healthy and a big dose of Gerhart will make the running game hum along like 2007.

Do the backups scare me?  Yes.  I think we will miss Artis Hicks. I just hang onto the belief that the front office knew all about the line prior to the draft.  The reason they didn't draft a O-Lineman higher is not a "Childress ego problem". Mr. Spielman certainly keeps that in check.  The real  reason is that we are more solid on the line than most fans believe. DeGeare was drafted because he is an excellent player that will fit in.  Not because we had to settle for him.  The line will be fine. The back-ups are prepared to step in if necessary.

It was frustrating to watch AP get stopped at the line so much last year.  On Grimes advice I will watch to see if Sullivan and the guards jump off the line faster, get a little deeper, and create a larger hole together for AP. That is how a zone blocking scheme works.  Work together to do more than a man can do individually. I will watch to see if Loadholt moves forward to create a lane.  I will watch McKinney and Hutch and see if they are making up for the mistakes of others or are accomplishing something on their own.

We hope this analysis was helpful.  Let us know.