bleedspeed177 wrote:Good write-up. I would love to see the line get younger, but honestly I think outside RT this line was acceptable. I think Clemmings has a future. Didn't they try to have him be the RG in OTAs? I worry Berger won't be able to do it again and have no faith in Sullivan or Loadholdt coming back.
Yeah they had him at RG then but Inthink that was partly because they were hoping to get him on the field right away and that was the only spot at the time. Obviously it didn't seem like that was his spot since they seemed to move on from that and it worked out sorta well since they ended up needing a RT all year. It is possible that a full offseason working at RT could make him much better going into next season. It seems almost weird he wasn't able to be better pass protecting considering his athletic ability but I think it may have been because he was too upright but I didn't really watch that closely.
I share your worries about age and injuries. Berger does have limited mileage since he has mostly been a backup so that may help some. It feels like the Vikings have tried to get younger but some of that talent has been lost to injury. Wentworth, Tiny, that local kid Bykowski this year. Yankey was supposed to be a steal but he has basically been a bust. He signed a futures deal with another team even though the Vikings offered the same deal. Oh well. On the other hand 2 years in a row the Vikings have taken on guys from the Chargers in Harris and Sirles and traded for Easton. It feels like Oline has been a struggle to hit on talent for them.
We haven't even talked about Kalil. He seemed alright but he might be part of the problem or not the solution there. LT are not easy to find though so maybe they can at least sign him to a reasonable deal.
My hope is that the new oline coach is Mike Tice like as a genius Oline coach that makes the unit better in every phase from finding talent developing players to making them a better unit. It feels like Davidson might have been good at developing guys individually but maybe not getting them to play together in games etc.