Vikings Training Camp Preview: Will Dalvin Cook keep his workhorse status?
While the Vikings have cycled through offensive coordinators on a yearly basis, a constant during the Mike Zimmer era was Minnesota’s reliance on Dalvin Cook.
He may not have been the most influential piece to whether the Vikings won or lost, but from a volume perspective, there was not a single offensive player that Zimmer and Minnesota’s revolving door of OCs depended on more than Cook.
But with a new regime now in place, should it be an assumption that Cook will once again be the catalyst of Minnesota’s offense? Let’s explore.
Will Cook’s workload change?
Despite missing at least two games in each of the last three seasons, Cook has finished in the top-10 in carries each season. In 2019, he was 8th. In 2020, he was 2nd. And in 2021, he was 5th.
In the 13 games Cook played last season, he accounted for 74 percent of the team’s total rushing attempts. It was only in the four games that Dalvin Cook missed that Alexander Mattison saw significant action. Since Mattison joined the Vikings in 2019, there have been only seven games in which Mattison had 10 or more carries in a game that Cook also played. Last season, it happened just once.
So for nearly the entire Cook era in Minnesota, the Vikings were not interested in splitting carries. Will that change?
Well, Kevin O’Connell has yet to indicate whether he expects Cook to carry a similar workload, so our best predictor of how this might fare is based on history.
And to do that, we’ll look at the three seasons he has spent as an offensive coordinator (two with the Rams, one with Washington).
2021 Rams
- Sony Michel – 208 attempts (49.5% of total team rushing attempts), 848 yards, 4 TDS
- Darrell Henderson – 149 attempts (35.4%), 688 yards, 5 TDs
Note: These totals are a bit deceiving as the Rams’ rushing attack was truly a tale of two seasons. Through 11 games, Henderson had 142 carries while Michel had only 79 (roughly a 65/35 split). Michel only assumed the starting duties after Henderson went down with an injury.
2020 Rams
- Cam Akers 145 attempts (30.6%), 625 yards, 2 TDs
- Darrell Henderson 138 attempts (29.2%) , 624 yards, 5 TDs
- Malcolm Brown 101 attempts (21.3%), 419 yards, 5 TDs
2019 Washington
- Adrian Peterson 211 carries (59%) 898 yards, 5 TDs
Note: No other running back had over 50 carries. Derrius Guice was expected to challenge Peterson for the lead running back duties but was hurt in Week 1, and then again in 14 which limited his role significantly. The only other running backs that got more than 20 carries were Wendell Smallwood and Chris Thompson.
So what does this tell us?
Generally, O’Connell has operated with several different strategies. In 2019, Peterson was the only playable running back on the roster. Thompson was much more of a receiving back, Smallwood was nothing more than a third-stringer and thus Peterson had a heavy workload. In 2020, the Rams fully embraced the running back by committee approach. They rode the hot hand throughout the season and didn’t commit to one running back week in and week out. And in 2021, they employed a bit of both strategies. Henderson was clearly the lead back when both he and Michel were healthy, but still, he only took 65 percent of the carries when the room was fully healthy. Remember Cook and Mattison’s split was much closer to 75/25.
Cook could see his touches decline. As mentioned before, he finished in the top-10 in carries in all three of these seasons. Only once in the last three seasons did a running back in an O’Connell-coordinated offense finish in the top 15. Then consider Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s past. He was most recently in Cleveland with Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. Before that, he was with the 49ers, which frequently used the running back by committee strategy with Matt Breida, Tevin Coleman, and Raheem Mostert.
The Vikings’ splits may mirror closest to the 2021 Rams where Cook is likely to remain the lead dog but see his rushes decline slightly.
Beyond that, Cook is aging and battled injuries in each season. The Vikings poached several staffers from the Rams including Tyler Williams, the team’s director of sports science, which may mean more of a focus on keeping Cook fresh. It’s safe to assume they’ll employ some Rams-style strategies to keep Cook healthy and fresh throughout the season.
But will his role change?
Ah, the age-old question… will Dalvin Cook be used more in the receiving game? That was the talk of the offseason in May as Cook was seen taking snaps out of the slot during practices. But how realistic is it?
Like the Anthony Barr, “could he be an edge rusher” conversation, this has long been floated and hardly ever acted upon. But with a new regime, it’s certainly a possibility.
So, let’s again compare Cook to Henderson, who was the Rams’ best receiving running back.
In 2021, Cook lined up in the slot or out wide on only six percent of snaps. Henderson did so 22 percent of the time. Narrowed down to just pass snaps, Cook lined up as a wide receiver 11 percent of the time to Henderson’s 31 percent. But in terms of actual production, Cook was targeted 43 times and caught 34 passes while Henderson caught 32 passes on 46 targets. So while Henderson lined up in the slot considerably more often, he was used more as a decoy than an actual threat.
Still, that deception would be a welcome change for the Vikings’ offense. The threat of using Cook more in the passing game can be as productive as actually using him. His presence and potential to be used in the passing game can only free up the rest of the roster. But will it actually lead to more production? Cook has largely put up the same numbers in the passing game other than 2019 when he was used heavily in the screen game and caught 62 passes. Because of that, it seems hard to believe his production will take a massive jump.
However, the one main difference that could be put on display is the types of routes Cook runs. In Minnesota, Cook has been pretty exclusively used in the screen game. That can be seen in his average depth of target (ADOT), which has hovered around -2.0 for most of his career, meaning on average he catches the ball two yards behind the line of scrimmage. Contrast that with Henderson, who finished with an ADOT of 2.3 last season, and there could be an opportunity for Cook to run a larger route tree that pushes him down the field.
Other plot points to watch
Is this Mattison’s last year with Minnesota? It sure seems like it. Mattison is in the final year of his contract and will most certainly look for a starting role elsewhere. The only scenario in which he returns is likely if Cook is gone. Cook still has three years on his deal but could be cut after this year and only have a dead cap number of about $6 million. Still, it seems the Vikings would continue with Cook and let Mattison walk, especially with two other running backs on rookie contracts in Kene Nwangwu and Ty Chandler.
Speaking of Nwangwu and Chandler, will either of them have a role? Nwangwu certainly made his case for seeing a few more touches on offense. His explosiveness is undeniable and the Rams have certainly used three running backs before. But it’s hard to know what the new regime thinks of Nwangwu. For now, it’s safe to assume he’ll see a slightly increased role, but how much? Nwangwu and Chandler seem destined to battle it out for the backup spot next year when Mattison is somewhere else.
How many running backs will the team carry? For the die-hard training camp fans, this will be a position to watch. With C.J. Ham likely to make the roster, how many other backs will O’Connell opt to keep? At the beginning of 2021, the Rams carried only three running backs, Henderson, Michel, and Jake Funk. Will the Vikings keep five? Or is Chandler destined for the practice squad? With other clear needs and areas where depth figures to be important, will the Vikings prioritize running back? Without a clear history to point to with Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell, it’s hard to know.
