Vikings Offensive Line Holding Back Teddy Bridgewater, Minnesota Offense

The Minnesota Vikings worked like a machine for a majority of their 35-point outing against the Miami Dolphins, generating their highest point total since Week 4. Unfortunately, it all came crashing down in some of the game’s crucial moments due to the offense’s weakest link: the offensive line.

Statistics frame just what kind of efficiency Minnesota was operating with offensively. The unit’s 357 total yards are only topped by three other showings from 2014, but it pulled that off with 58 offensive plays for an average of 6.2 yards per play. It had success on the ground with 4.3 yards per carry and through the air with 11 passing first downs.

Teddy Bridgewater had one of his best days as a professional quarterback. Relating to the offensive line, he looked especially spry in the pocket and generally had a quick release, whereas earlier in the season he took a few unnecessary sacks and was prone to holding the ball too long.

The offensive line, including peripheral protectors, shoulders all of the blame for all four sacks on Sunday.

Its issues came to a head in the most crucial of moments as well, with two protection busts in the three-play drive late in the fourth quarter. Instead of marching on a game-winning drive, Bridgewater was harassed and sacked, leading to the fateful blocked punt.

Worst of all from the offensive line’s end is that the sacks allowed to Miami were hardly even results of coverage. On three of them, maybe even all four, the entire play is doomed for Bridgewater as soon as he plants his back foot and looks down the field. Pressure got to him entirely too quickly.

Let’s begin with the final sack of the game, which occurred two plays after the QB was forced off his spot before taking in any read of the coverage.

Credit: NFL Game Rewind

This shot captures Bridgewater with his final step down in a five-step drop. Before he can even gather himself, Cameron Wake has dusted Mike Harris around the corner. The play gives the QB no chance at all.

A drive-killing sack earlier in the fourth quarter fit the same description. This time in a seven-step drop—more to come on that—Bridgewater is overwhelmed before he can ever take a forward step and look to deliver the football.

Credit: NFL Game Rewind

In what is some impressive inadequacy, the rookie is bombarded from two directions this time. Vladimir Ducasse is chasing his man from behind, and Joe Banyard only does a less than adequate job picking up the safety blitz on the edge.

Minnesota was forced to settle for a field goal instead of pursuing a lead early in the fourth quarter. Even as the offense sustained success on drives down the field, the offensive line found ways to bring proceedings to a halt.

The OL’s four-sack day hardly flatters it, but maybe it should. Bridgewater bailed out the unit on a few occasions. Take this seven-step drop from the second quarter for example.

Credit: NFL Game Rewind

Matt Kalil is standing around blocking nobody, while Ducasse is again facing in the wrong direction for an offensive lineman.

Bridgewater slides his way past the pressure and scrambles for a gain of two, but plays that must be abandoned before they ever begin hold back what Minnesota is capable of offensively. Aborted plays usually become scrambles or checkdowns in the best-case scenario, hardly the stuff of top-notch passing attacks.

From a wider viewpoint, the line’s inability to execute in all aspects of the playbook also restricts what the Vikings offense can pull off.

Five- and seven-step drops combined with deep-to-short coverage reads are the staples of the Norv Turner playbook. When the Vikings have seven-step drops called, however, little good has come of it. That continued in Miami.

Steps	Comp/Att	Yards	TDs	Runs	Sacks
Quick	1/2	6	0	0	0
3	3/3	23	0	1	0
5	11/16	168	2	2	2
7	4/5	62	0	2	2
Boot	0/0	0	0	1	0

Credit Bridgewater for still finding ways to make positive gains on the deepest drops, including his 40-yard dump-off to Rhett Ellison. On others, though, all he could do was eat yardage by taking a sack or improvise for a few yards on the ground.

Despite the failures of Turner’s calls with seven-step drops—those leading mostly to checkdowns or worse—the Vikings still kept going back to that, well as they have all season.

"

The Vikings called 9 seven-step drops. Teddy sacked on two of them, had to scramble and run on two others. http://t.co/vdanmZ62bv

— Darren Page (@DarrenPage) December 22, 2014"

A week after having success with three-step drops and quick throws in Detroit, Minnesota reverted back to the playbook’s base plays. The current pair of starting tackles has little ability to consistently protect the perimeter in combination with deeper drops, so Turner’s insistence on their usage says a lot about how rigid his beliefs in his system are.

What do the offensive line’s struggles mean for the Vikings moving forward then?

If Turner is to remain the offensive coordinator into 2015 and beyond—and no signals point to a departure—then the Vikings need remedies on the edge. The five- and seven-step drops are not about to fall from Turner’s favor.

With only a week remaining, no short-term fixes are available. The unit will take its lumps for one more week before Rick Spielman and the coaching staff go back to the drawing board. When they do, patching up the offensive line will become a priority. The offense continues to bump up against a firm ceiling without significant improvements in the future.

Statistics via ESPN.com unless noted otherwise.