FanPost

How Have the Vikings Handled Risk This Off-Season?

A Glance at the Offseason Handling of Risk


As with anything, there are a lot of uncertainties when it comes to football and a football team. Some things are more uncertain than others. For that reason it is very important for teams to do their best to mitigate risks. I would like to assess how the Vikings have done in this regard this offseason as well as I can with the limited information I have. It is probably best that we keep in mind that our assessment of risks is most certainly handicapped in relation to the team's assessment, as the team generally has a lot more information at their disposal about the players, how far they are in their development, and how difficult it is for certain developing players to develop the skills necessary to succeed. Nonetheless, I will try to do the best I can with the limited information I have.

There are general risks that all teams have at every position. These are best mitigated by having good depth, especially behind the more premium positions. The Vikings picked up Shaun Hill after trading Matt Cassel, and he should be a solid backup. They also picked up Mike Kafka and Taylor Heinicke as developmental projects. Adrian Peterson improves the team at HB but also improves their depth. The team drafted Mycole Pruitt and signed Bostick to go along with Kyle Rudolph, Rhett Ellison, and Chase Ford. I will consider the offensive line depth below. They drafted Stefon Diggs who can probably find a niche to get playing time on offense, but he also provides valuable depth in the WR corp.

On defense they signed Terence Newman and drafted Trae Waynes, thus moving a solid CB in Josh Robinson to 5th in the depth chart at CB. They signed Anthony Harris to go along with Harrison Smith, Robert Blanton, Andrew Sandejo, and Antone Exum at safety, all solid players or prospects, with Smith already being an elite player. At LB they drafted Eric Kendricks who is expected to start right away and Edmond Robinson who is an athletic late round project. After these the Vikings have Barr, Greenway, Hodges and Cole, who have all played well at some point, though Greenway is 3 years past his prime. (They also have Mauti, Matthews, Kaddu, Mays (Nickel LB), and Watts, who each have positive traits Zimmer can potentially work with).

At DE the Vikings drafted Danielle Hunter who is an athletic phenom with a high ceiling, but is raw in the area of pass rush, but was already very effective in run defense at the college level. He will add to the rotation of Everson Griffen, Brian Robison, and 2nd year project Scott Crichton (as well as Justin Trattou who played decently in the preseason last year). They also drafted B.J. Dubose who could potentially rotate in as a run defending LDE or could maybe add to the depth at 3-technique if he makes the squad. They also resigned Tom Johnson who played really well as a rotational DT last year, especially as a pass rusher. These add to the rotation of Joseph, Floyd, and Stephen. Johnson is getting a little bit older, so the Vikings may want to invest a higher pick here next year to back up Floyd in the rotation as Stephen backs up Joseph. But for now they seem pretty solid here as well.

Now I would like to highlight the big question marks coming into the offseason, to see how the Vikings have handled the risks connected with them.

Offensive Tackle - The Kalil Question

Some very smart people on here seem assured that Matt Kalil is destined to failure. The analyses I have heard generally feature ceteris paribus clauses based on precedent of time it has taken other tackles to develop. Well, fortunately, everything is not always equal. In order to really get a good idea of the likelihood of Matt Kalil succeeding would require two things: 1); properly diagnosing the exact problems that have limited him these last two years; and 2) having a solidly based idea of how likely it is that those specific problems can be fixed. I have heard a lot of speculation from fans, and little bits of information released by the coaches or front office. I think the general ideas are that Kalil has had trouble with his knees, which last offseason cut into his time to prepare, and that he has not always had his heart into the game to give the best effort. It's hard to verify the latter, but assuming he gets back his effort, the next question regards his playing technique and how likely it is to be fixed. I don't know if these are the full story but that's all the information I have.

To assess the likelihood that his knees are going to be a long-term problem we would need a solid medical diagnosis of the problem and knowledge about the likelihood of overcoming that problem for a long career as a pro athlete. I am not a doctor and I do not have access to his medical records so from my standpoint the most I can say is that the knee issue definitely presents a significant apparent risk and from our standpoint it certainly does not inspire confidence.

The next thing is to assess the playing issues Kalil has had even outside his knee issues, which I assume there are as well. This would require some expert knowledge regarding offensive tackle technique and physical training that I do not possess (and probably few do). Moreover, much like the health aspect, it would require knowledge as to how likely it is to fix these issues. Again, we are at a huge disadvantage not having the standpoint that the team has. I will at least say that Kalil's ability to play well his rookie year make it seem more likely that if his medical issues don't seem to be a problem and his effort is there that Kalil will be able to succeed. Moreover, Kalil did improve considerably the second half of the year last year, going from playing horribly to playing okay. If he can continue to improve like that he should be just fine. That being said, the combination of uncertainty in his health and playing ability certainly mean this is a risk the Vikings probably feel the need to mitigate.

Having examined the risk surrounding Kalil, I still think it is fair enough to suppose, especially given the admissions made by the front office and the coaches, that Kalil is at very least a question mark going into this next season. Thus, it is more important than with other smaller uncertainties that they have an insurance policy for him. In this regard, the Vikings were very fortunate that a first round talent in T.J. Clemmings fell to them in the 4th round this year. He is probably not ready to start at LT right away, but if Kalil struggles this next year he is a very likely candidate to be able to replace Kalil in 2016: though of course the coaches will have to reassess Clemmings' progress throughout the year to feel confident about this.

It at least seems to me that Loadholt's value increases with the return of Adrian Peterson, because while his pass protection ability is probably average, his run blocking is elite and this should help the Vikings to maximize their strength in the running game. Nonetheless, Loadholt is still recovering from his injury and is getting a little bit older. The team should probably start thinking about how they are going to replace him in 2-3 years when he gets to a retirement age. It seems the team really lucked out again in picking up Tyrus Thompson in the 6th round. He at least gives them a very plausible prospect to replace Loadholt when he retires. They also picked up developmental prospects Babatunde Aiyegbusi from Poland who probably will not play this next year but is worth a dice roll given his great physical measurables. Moreover, Zimmer specifically mentioned the other day how he was excited about the progress of Carter Bykowski, a player they picked up off the San Francisco practice squad. Grade on handling risk in this regard this offseason: A

Offensive Guard - Who Replaces Charlie Johnson?

The Vikings made a good move resigning Joe Berger because it gave them an insurance policy for the competition of young prospects they plan on having this training camp. With Berger you get a player who played well last year; garnering a positive grading by PFF in the games he filled in. He is certainly a good player to have as a last resort, but the hope is between David Yankey, T.J. Clemmings, Tyrus Thompson, Austin Shepherd, Carter Bykowski, and Mike Harris, that someone will be able to go beyond solid level of play Berger provides. Some people are uncomfortable with this situation, but from my standpoint it looks pretty solid. Yankey was a solid prospect out of college who needed work with strength training, Clemmings is a potential all-pro at tackle who may be ready to start right away at guard, and if he does he should be a mauler as a run-blocker. Tyrus Thompson is also a potential starter at Tackle who should be able to provide good competition as well. Grade on handling this risk this offseason: A

Long-Snapper

Cullen Loeffler has been a very solid long-snapper for the Vikings for years but the last couple of seasons he seems to have been declining. For this reason it is probably good that the Vikings signed a solid long-snapper in Kevin McDermott to provide competition for Loeffler. Grade on handling this risk this offseason: B

Punter

It looks like they'll be given Locke one last chance this year. A poor punter can really hurt a team, and ideally the Vikings would have signed some competition for Locke, but it's still a position that is easily replaceable next offseason when the Vikings probably feel more prepared to make a run for a title. Honestly, I think in a long-term strategy to build a roster, punter and long-snapper should probably be the last positions you settle on just because of how easy it is to find a replacement for them. (I.e. if you lose an extra game here or there during the rebuilding phase it equals a better draft pick, while fixing the problems of those losses for the longterm is an easy solution if its only a long-snapper or punter).Still, they probably at least could have gotten Locke some competition with an UDFA this year. If they still have a problem at 2016 at punter, they will be kicking themselves.

Grade on handling this risk this offseason: D -

Cordarrelle Question: Not much of a risk, they have Wallace, Johnson, Wright ahead of him Diggs and Thielen behind him. Nonetheless, I am personally confident Cordarrelle develops. Some players fail because they don't have the ability, some because they are lazy, some because they didn't have the moral framework to handle becoming millionaires at a young age, but with Cordarrelle it doesn't seem like that. It seems like he was very raw coming out of playing one year in the FBS, he had a year in the simplified offense of Musgrave, and then became overconfident because of his success as a gadget late in his rookie season and didn't realize how much work he had to put in to excel as a route runner. This offseason the reports of him working both on his conditioning and his route-running have me optimistic, but my optimism won't mean much so he'll have to prove it on the field.

In another post, I argue that Scott Turner's week long visit with Bob Stitt might lead us to infer that the Vikings might use more spread formation with 4 WRs next year, which would give Patterson more opportunity to prove himself if they do that.

Grade: No real grade because it is not a real big risk, but I am optimistic Patterson turns it around.

Depth Grades (Not just how they handled it this offseason, but in general how the team is doing for depth)

QB: B (Of Course I give Teddy an A)

HB: A

FB: Pass

OT: B (I gave them an A for how they handled it in the draft as far as a long-term mitigation of risk, but in the short-term we still don't have an experienced swing-tackle who is particularly good. Rather, we have a bunch of young talent.)

OG: A (Seriously, we'll be fine. "Relax," - A-Aron Rodgers, err. I mean, Teddy Bridgewater would probably say that too.)

C: A (Berger; if Berger starts he can move over to C and one of the other Gs can move in)

WR: A (A lot of redundancy in depth as well, speedy guys who can replace speedy guys; though still some question marks at the top)

CB: A (I didn't mention earlier but we picked up Justin Coleman who maybe can compete with Jabari Price and Marcus Sherels as backup in the slot. We have 2 of the 3 among Waynes, Newman, and Robinson backing up the outside.)

S: A (Like WR, we have some questions marks about one of the starters but the depth is really good).

LB: A (We're always left wondering what is the inside information Zimmer has as to why Cole doesn't play more, and Hodges has done really well when he has gotten the chance. We also have some interesting prospects behind them in Mauti, Watts, E. Robinson, etc.)

DT: A (With Johnson getting older, they probably should draft a 3rd man in the rotation with Floyd and Joseph next year, but for now we should be good).

DE: Incomplete Information (Griffen is a stud; Robison still seems to succeed as a pass rusher but there are questions about his ability against the run so focusing his snaps on pass-rushing situations would be ideal. Those two had ridiculous snap counts last year so it would be big if Scott Crichton could step it up in year 2. He's a good prospect with really good measurables. As for Hunter, while he's a long-term project who will hopefully be an all-pro someday with his freakish measurables, he can still hopefully rotate in, especially on run downs, or if he progresses faster than we thought even as a pass rusher. I am very excited about both Crichton and Hunter in the long term but in the short term there are still some questions. Trattou played pretty well in preseason last year.)

K: Pass (There is high variance year to year with kickers but if you look at his career Walsh is a good kicker with high upside. I think even the fact that they looked at a kicker in mini-camp is enough to give a passing grade.)

P: D- (All these grades are based on incomplete information and as I subjectively judge it. Coach Priefer might have some great inside info on why Locke is a lock to be awesome; who knows?)

LS: B

This FanPost was created by a registered user of The Daily Norseman, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the site. However, since this is a community, that view is no less important.