Top Vikings Items to Watch for in First Preseason Game
Dustin Baker
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No NFL teams played preseason games during the pandemic season, so tomorrow for the Minnesota Vikings will feel like a return to normalcy.
The Vikings host the Denver Broncos on Saturday at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Both teams are stuffed to the gills with esteemed defensive personnel while hoping to rebound from underwhelming 2020 showings.
For Vikings implications, these are the top items to watch during the event.
1. Oli Udoh as Starting Right Guard
Wyatt Davis, a 3rd-Round rookie from Ohio State, is supposed to eventually hold down RG duties for the Vikings. But it won’t be in this preseason game nor it will likely occur at the beginning of the regular season.
Per comments from Minnesota’s coaching staff, Oli Udoh is the frontrunner to start the season as the Vikings RG1.
Can he do it? Or is he merely a training camp success story? That’s the kicker. Minnesota passed on the free-agent services of Joe Thuney, Brandon Scherff, and Lane Taylor, choosing the rookie route in Davis with a Udoh Plan B at guard.
Plan B has arrived.
Udoh nailed training camp, showing enough skill to plop him on the depth chart as the starting RG. He faces a mean assignment with the Broncos defensive line — a team the Vikings just scrimmaged against for a few days in Eagan.
Saturday will be the first glimpse at Udoh in a starting capacity inside a quasi-meaningful game.
2. Rashod Hill at Left Tackle
See above.
Everything that applies to Udoh — also pertains to Rashod Hill. In this situation, Christian Darrisaw is recovering from a nagging injury, ensuring Hill sees some airtime as the starting left tackle.
And Hill’s been with Minnesota for five full seasons, if that can be believed. Previously, Hill acted as Riley Reiff’s backup, but Reiff traveled to the Cincinnati Bengals for his next chapter. Hill was slated as LT2 in most folks’ minds when Darrisaw was drafted. However, with Darrisaw hobbled, Hill gets the nod as protectorate of Kirk Cousins’ blindside.
According to Pro Football Focus grades and his eye-test body of work to date, Hill is a very good LT2. Now that must translate to LT1 — at least for a while — otherwise, Kirk Cousins will be under duress, a signature of Vikings football during the last three seasons.
In Darrisaw’s absence, Hill needs to be about as good as Reiff, or the pass-protection will regress. That should send tingles down your spine. The last thing the Vikings offensive line can endure is a step backward protecting quarterbacks.
3. K.J. Osborn vs. Dede Westbrook
General Manager Rick Spielman signed Westbrook last month as the first real semblance of WR3 that Minnesota has employed since the days of Jarius Wright. Recovering from a torn ACL, Westbrook is gradually working his way back to a clean bill of health. He may not even play on Saturday.
Nonetheless, Osborn will play, and per the Vikings unofficial depth chart, he’s the WR3 for a couple of weeks. Due to some fumbles last season on special teams, Osborn was largely considered a footnote on the WR roster heading into training camp. Yet, in Eagan, Osbon has performed marvelously.
He might just be a player that takes longer than one year to blossom — which happens routinely. The problem is that some fans tend to discard players based on a single bad game or single blasé season.
If Osborn can rip some balls out of the sky from Kirk Cousins and Jake Browning, his stock will rise.
4. A Kicker Competition
During the Zimmer era, kickers have risen and fallen in preseason games.
Welcome to the back to past.
In 2018, Daniel Carlson — full of rookie potential — was the presumed kicker. He failed miserably, jettisoned from the team after one nightmarish game. Then, for the most part, Dan Bailey brought offseason stability. He was another Vikings kicker, though, that weirdly crumbled in important games. He doesn’t play for the team anymore.
The 2021 edition is a competition between little-known Greg Joseph and rookie Riley Patterson. Joseph was pretty solid in training camp, but Patterson arguably has a bigger leg.
Kickers drive Zimmer bonkers, mandating this battle will be fun — and telling — to monitor.