Was the Vikings offensive line actually good Sunday?
If you looked only looked at social media and message boards after Sunday, you would think the Vikings had an atrocious performance from their offensive line. Welp, not so fast.
According to an aggregate of three different offensive line metrics compiled by The Athletic's Ben Baldwin, the Vikings had the eighth best offensive line performance of Week 1.
Aggregated pass protection measures from 3 sources.
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) September 13, 2023
Honestly this mostly checks out, though the ratings for PIT are all over the place.
The teams with 100 in the "SIS" column are teams with zero charted blown blocks
(BUF/NYJ not shown bc no data yet) pic.twitter.com/HWBqjqnABB
Baldwin's aggregation takes the offensive line metrics from Pro Football Focus' pass block grade, Sports Info Sources pass block points and ESPN's pass block win rates to aggregate a score out of 100 (0 being the minimum, 100 being the maximum). The Vikings received a score of 80.
In Sunday's 20-17 loss, Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins was sacked just twice, facing a Bucs defense that blitzed on 44.7 percent of their snaps, the second highest in the league behind only the Vikings. Despite facing such a high blitz percentage, Cousins was pressured on 27.7 percent of his drop backs.
PFF's 73.4 team pass block grade was 9th best in Week 1.
"I feel I played pretty well," Vikings right guard Ed Ingram responded when asked about his performance against the Bucs. "I, kind of, had some slight mistake but other than that I liked my performance."
Well, according to PFF, Ingram was the lowest grade pass blocking lineman on the Vikings Sunday. Of the lineman to take over 40 snaps, Ingram's 40.3 trails the next lowest by over 20 points (Austin Schlottmann 66.9) – and his errors included a turnover that saw him accidentally knock the ball out of Kirk Cousins' hands.
I don’t think anyone can blame Kirk cousins for this. Your starting center goes out with a back injury (should’ve played in preseason) and the backup takes a few snaps to find the rhythm. Ingram (good effort, wrong timing) proves he’s not starting caliber
— Ivan, Czar of Bohunks (@Up4Discussion_7) September 11, 2023
pic.twitter.com/6jUIBPPZ5n
"They were good pass blocking, most of the time, but the couple times it went bad, it went real bad," Purple Insider's Matthew Coller responded when asked about the Vikings pass blocking.
If Vikings fans are disappointed by the offensive line's performance on Sunday, they can be comforted by the fact they're not alone. Just about every fanbase in the league is screaming about their offensive line issues and begging their team to bring in help.
But with center Garrett Bradbury already out of Thursday's game against the Philadelphia Eagles and left tackle Christian Darrisaw questionable, the Vikings' O-line has a tough task ahead at Lincoln Financial Field.
