Viking's offensive line much less 'offensive' than last year

The full narrative on the OL and team is about to be written the back 1/2...

6/2 is great, we're in the hunt...

Lets see how this position group and team face the upcoming stretch. 

@"purplefaithful" said: The full narrative on the OL and team is about to be written the back 1/2...

6/2 is great, we're in the hunt...

Lets see how this position group and team face the upcoming stretch. 

I'll be honest: my expectation is that the team falters. This requires a step-up situation and the Vikings have been woefully inadequate in those situations. As you say, love that the team is 6-2 and in the conversation: but the season is 16 games. As always, hopeful that the results are different than what I'm guessing for the remainder of the year but its not what I'm expecting. 

For the Vikings to even sniff the playoffs, they have to and must beat both the Bears and Packers no matter what.  Division losses can come back to haunt them at the end of the season...

@"ArizonaViking" said: For the Vikings to even sniff the playoffs, they have to and must beat both the Bears and Packers no matter what.  Division losses can come back to haunt them at the end of the season...

Not only divisional losses, but to a lesser degree (but still importantly), conference losses which are big in tie breaker scenarios. I don't expect Minnesota to compete for the NFCN crown when its all said and done.

@"StickyBun" said:

@"purplefaithful" said: The full narrative on the OL and team is about to be written the back 1/2...

6/2 is great, we're in the hunt...

Lets see how this position group and team face the upcoming stretch. 

I'll be honest: my expectation is that the team falters. This requires a step-up situation and the Vikings have been woefully inadequate in those situations. As you say, love that the team is 6-2 and in the conversation: but the season is 16 games. As always, hopeful that the results are different than what I'm guessing for the remainder of the year but its not what I'm expecting. 

@"jargomcfargo" said:

@"StickyBun" said:

@"purplefaithful" said: The full narrative on the OL and team is about to be written the back 1/2...

6/2 is great, we're in the hunt...

Lets see how this position group and team face the upcoming stretch. 

I'll be honest: my expectation is that the team falters. This requires a step-up situation and the Vikings have been woefully inadequate in those situations. As you say, love that the team is 6-2 and in the conversation: but the season is 16 games. As always, hopeful that the results are different than what I'm guessing for the remainder of the year but its not what I'm expecting. 

That seems to be wired into the Vikings DNA despite owner, coaching, and player changes over the years.

I see Keenum with a terrible O-line, posses Houdini like skills, escape pressure, time and time again, to take his team to the NFC championship game in 2017.

I see Cousins start 2018 hot as a star only to turn into a check down QB under unrelenting pressure as the season progresses.
My fear is Cousins starts getting pressured more and reverts to his check down nature. Good personal stats, less wins.

However, the O-line is much better this year because of players who fit the scheme, which allows for a much better running game. If that continues, Cousins should do fine.

The defense on the other hand may be another story.

The other thing I like about the O-line, they have some attitude.  Did anyone catch O'Neill protecting Dalvin last week?  Whistles blew and they hadn't got Cook down yet and kept trying.  O'Neill got involved and shoved the LB away.  Rieff looks to have his attitude back as well. 

Although the O-Line is not great, it is better than last year's, and the offensive scheme we are running this year covers up some of their problems.  The zone blocking and Dalvin and Mattison are doing a really good job, but part of that is that Cousins and the receivers, including the TEs, are playing really well because Cousins is not under too much pass-rush pressure thanks to our scheme. 
The play action and the roll-outs are working as intended.  If the line and Dalvin are moving left, the entire defense has to react because Cousins may hand it off and Dalvin usually makes at least one defender miss.  But if the entire defense does react to all that motion and Cousins fakes the hand-off and keeps it and reverses course, he ends up with no defender in his face and scanning the field for Diggs, Thielen, Smith, etc. 
The defense that can handle our zone blocking while also keeping defenders home to prevent the reverse bootleg is going to give us serious problems.  Until that happens, so long as they stay healthy, this offense (assuming the play-calling stays aggressive) will give defenses fits.

@"greediron" said: The other thing I like about the O-line, they have some attitude.  Did anyone catch O'Neill protecting Dalvin last week?  Whistles blew and they hadn't got Cook down yet and kept trying.  O'Neill got involved and shoved the LB away.  Rieff looks to have his attitude back as well. 

I like that too. Remember the little scuffle in the victory formation against the Lions at the end of the game?
Oneill started that by giving the guy in front of him a hard shove.
This year the line is playing mostly on the other side of the line of scrimmage on runs. Didn't see much of that last year. This line is better than some on this board give them credit. And it doesn't seem to matter which guy is carrying the ball. The line must be doing something right.

As one of the biggest critics of the OL over the years I must admit that they've been better this year.  Could they improve, of course, but on the whole they are a hell of lot better than the the last several versions.  Dennison needs to get a lot of credit for this turn around.  Bradbury was a great #1 draft pick and I really like the right side of the line.  Reiff is holding his own, now if they could fix the Elf issue they'd be a very good line.  On the whole pleased though.