Offensive line thread

One Stop Spot For All Vikings Related News
User avatar
bleedspeed
Posts: 8171
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by bleedspeed »

I will be curious if he gets much on the open market. Some teams treat LB's like RB's. There are the really good ones and then the rest. He is not in that game changer group. If I was building a team I would rather have Eric Wilson playing for 1M than pay Barr 8M.

I agree on fixing the OL. O'Neill has been good and Elfein hopefully will bounce back. 2018 was the year to draft a stud guard and we didn't do it. It is hurting right now. Will Hernandez would have been a game changer for this group. Hughes seems like a solid pick, but OL is still a mess. The CB depth has been huge for us though.
User avatar
bleedspeed
Posts: 8171
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by bleedspeed »

Looking at Bears OL. James Daniels was a player we looked at at the end of round 1. He started 10 games at LG for Bears. Bryan Witzmann was picked up and released by us. He started 7 games for Bears. I still don't know how he was not kept on this team. He surely was an upgrade over Compton of Remmers at guard. I really think part of fixing the OL will be finding an OL coach. I would be reaching out to James Campen. He seems to be able to put together decent lines for the Packers over the years and with the changes he should be available.

https://www.packers.com/team/coaches-roster/james-campen
User avatar
Monster
Posts: 23972
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by Monster »

bleedspeed177 wrote:Looking at Bears OL. James Daniels was a player we looked at at the end of round 1. He started 10 games at LG for Bears. Bryan Witzmann was picked up and released by us. He started 7 games for Bears. I still don't know how he was not kept on this team. He surely was an upgrade over Compton of Remmers at guard. I really think part of fixing the OL will be finding an OL coach. I would be reaching out to James Campen. He seems to be able to put together decent lines for the Packers over the years and with the changes he should be available.

https://www.packers.com/team/coaches-roster/james-campen


I noticed that Witzman played in the game last week and he played 60% of the snaps in that game. FWIW PFF have him rated as a pretty dismal 49.9 #67 rating at guard which...is lower than all the Vikings guys.

I was looking at some other guys on PFF including Sullivan (poor rating) and saw an article from earlier in December about the top 25 offensive lineman in the league. PFF had each top 25 olineman for both Rams and the Eagles.

One thing that isn't really takes about much is Berger retired and the Vikings didn't add anyone significant to replace him. I supposed Remmers was their plan with Hill playing at LT but Remmers was average at best. O'Neal was a nice pick and probably is part of the long term solution but that didn't help the situation that Berger retiring created. Soprano passing was likely a part of the whole offenses problem but Berger was the best offensive lineman and he was replaced by someone average at best. They were lucky that Compton was horrific and Easton wasn't a significant loss maybe a slight improvement over Compton.
User avatar
bleedspeed
Posts: 8171
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by bleedspeed »

I felt like Remmers was the worst RG ever. I would have loved to see us go with Isidora or Jones.

Losing Berger and Soprano really hurt us too. The good thing is I can't see it getting worse, but after another year of the OL killing this team we need a solution.
User avatar
Monster
Posts: 23972
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by Monster »

bleedspeed177 wrote:I felt like Remmers was the worst RG ever. I would have loved to see us go with Isidora or Jones.

Losing Berger and Soprano really hurt us too. The good thing is I can't see it getting worse, but after another year of the OL killing this team we need a solution.


I think what killed the Oline was there was never a guy in the interior that was actually much better than a replacement level guy like Sirels. Reiff is at least acompetemt tackle and O'Neill is certainly promising. A good guard or C would have gone a long way. I'm not saying that the Tackles couldnt be upgraded but I think the interior was a bigger problem which....is honestly kinda horrible.
User avatar
bleedspeed
Posts: 8171
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by bleedspeed »

I agree. We got killed up the middle. It will be interesting what we do. I like our tackles. They could be better, but Reiff is at least solid, O'Neill should be LT of the future, and Hill is a good backup.

The interior is a mess. Should we plan on Easton and a stronger Elfein being part of the solution?

I would love to see us going into next year with Easton as our backup interior lineman. Remmers and Compton should be gone.
User avatar
Monster
Posts: 23972
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by Monster »

bleedspeed177 wrote:I agree. We got killed up the middle. It will be interesting what we do. I like our tackles. They could be better, but Reiff is at least solid, O'Neill should be LT of the future, and Hill is a good backup.

The interior is a mess. Should we plan on Easton and a stronger Elfein being part of the solution?

I would love to see us going into next year with Easton as our backup interior lineman. Remmers and Compton should be gone.


Compton shouldn't be just dumped if we can keep him for the same price. I'd rather have him for basically peanuts than have to pay Eastong 2 or 3x as much. Easton seems like sort of a legend now just cause he didn't play for this group. He isn't the answer but like you said he is nice depth. I wonder if they think they can roll with Isadora as their backup at center.

As for Remmers...we were skeptical of him moving to guard it probably isn't a disaster but he wasn't good either. They could save over 4 million cutting him. The sad thing is that if he was kinda good at guard his salary would be alright. I think he could be a decent RT also...again the salary wouldn't be too bad. The problem is we don't need to pay him that kind of money to be a replacement level guard (or a bit better) or as a backup RT. This team...it's really hard sometimes to give them the benefit of the doubt in this position group. It seems like they struggle to add talent and then the guys they do have sometimes they end up mismanaging them. I try to give the benefit of the doubt but it's hard. Lol
User avatar
bleedspeed
Posts: 8171
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by bleedspeed »

Easton value to me was he can play center and guard. I think it will come down to who is OC and what they plan to do. Easton excels at screens and pulling. I thought he was the weak link in 2017, but once he went down we struggled badly.

I really think talking Tice out of retirement wouldn't be a bad idea. Not sure a former head coach for a team has ever come back and taken a position role.
User avatar
Monster
Posts: 23972
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by Monster »

bleedspeed177 wrote:Easton value to me was he can play center and guard. I think it will come down to who is OC and what they plan to do. Easton excels at screens and pulling. I thought he was the weak link in 2017, but once he went down we struggled badly.

I really think talking Tice out of retirement wouldn't be a bad idea. Not sure a former head coach for a team has ever come back and taken a position role.


I remember reading an article about Tice might be too old school and hasn't adjusted and I remember it seeming like a reasonably balanced article. I've thought Tice was a good Oline coach for a while but that did give me some pause. Like you said first we need to figure out who the OC is and what they want to do. That stuff does matter for Olineman.
User avatar
bleedspeed
Posts: 8171
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:00 am

Re: Offensive line thread

Post by bleedspeed »

This article? Tice coached 3 pro-bowlers on Raiders in 2017. I don't think any made it this year after he left.

https://www.silverandblackpride.com/2018/6/12/17457092/tom-cable-tough-approach-to-raiders-offensive-line-a-contrast-from-mike-tice-babying-guys
Post Reply