Vikings

Another Year, Another Position for T.J. Clemmings

Photo Credit: Brian Curski

T.J. Clemmings is used to being moved around.

The third-year Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman made a clean transition in high school from basketball to football. Then in college he swapped pass rushing for pass blocking as Pittsburgh coach Paul Chryst moved Clemmings from the defensive line to the offensive line.

Now in Minnesota, Clemmings’ tumultuous tenure continues with yet another transition that he and his head coach hope will stick. He is being tried out as the team’s backup right guard, and if this move doesn’t click, Clemmings’ next transition may be to a new team.

When the Vikings picked Clemmings in the fourth round in 2015, they foresaw a path where he played guard.

This transition, however, is somewhat full circle. When the Vikings picked Clemmings in the fourth round in 2015, they foresaw a path where he played guard — maybe even at left guard, where the team had an opening following the departure of Charlie Johnson. “‘If you ever came to the Vikings, we’d probably throw you in there at guard and see how it turned out,'” Clemmings remembered the Vikings telling him.

Minnesota experimented with Clemmings at left guard in rookie camp, then he was moved to right guard in OTAs since the Vikings thought it would be easier for him to stay on the right side, where he’d played tackle in college. By training camp, though, Clemmings had moved back to right tackle, which ended up being a prescient decision by the team. Phil Loadholt tore his Achilles less than two weeks later, sending Clemmings into action as the team’s Week 1 right tackle.

The one-year experiment there went poorly even though Clemmings started all 16 games and one playoff game. Head coach Mike Zimmer pointed to mental errors as one of Clemmings’ primary pitfalls, and the Vikings were forced to remain conservative offensively, often protecting Clemmings with two- or three-tight-end sets.

The Vikings brought in Andre Smith as the team’s new right tackle for 2016 and moved Clemmings to left tackle last spring. When asked if Clemmings might try guard again, Zimmer said, “I doubt it. He will probably be a tackle all the time.”

Clemmings wound up starting 14 games last season in relief of an injured Matt Kalil and struggled again. The main culprit was balance, as Clemmings tended to overcommit to pass rushers, lunge out of place and fail to recover.

Now that the Vikings have spent two years being hamstrung by a dismal offensive line and addressed it with two eight-figure contracts in free agency, they will now try moving Clemmings back where, in retrospect, he might have been better off playing initially.

“I felt like the best place for him is where it’s a little bit more condensed,” Zimmer said Tuesday.

Clemmings’ new spot will force him to react more quickly. It will also prevent him from getting stuck in the open field against talented defensive ends.

He also has the benefit of knowing what the right tackle is supposed to be doing since he played the position two years ago.

“It’s definitely helpful because I do understand what it’s like to be out there,” Clemmings told Zone Coverage. “Reacting on the inside is a little bit different than being at tackle. Things happen a little bit faster. But other than that, it’s been going well.”

Zimmer also called the move “a work in progress,” leaving the door open for Clemmings to move back to tackle once again as he did before training camp in 2015.

He is like the understudy at the school play, only he hasn’t been given all the lines, and he’s filling in for a different actor every show.

In a way, Clemmings has been granted an incredible opportunity to start virtually his first two years out of the gate after being drafted 110th overall. But it’s that same opportunity that makes him snakebitten, having never been given the chance to apprentice for an extended period.

He is like the understudy at the school play, only he hasn’t been given all the lines, and he’s filling in for a different actor every show.

“Obviously he’d like to be comfortable somewhere,” said Zimmer, “but I think this might be a good spot for him.”

Clemmings’ movement around the line is not all that unusual. Many fledgling linemen around the league are in a similar position as they try to become more versatile and therefore more valuable.

Vikings swingman Jeremiah Sirles has claimed to have practiced all five positions at some point in time and last year was called upon to play left guard and right tackle at different junctures. “I think that that’s just something that you kind of live with until you become that cemented starter in whatever spot that is,” Sirles said.

Sirles, however, was given something Clemmings never was — two years to hone his craft (one in San Diego, one in Minnesota) before starting 10 games in his third year.

He also never dealt with the pressure of being declared the “draft’s highest upside left tackle” by The MMQB. That is Clemmings’ cross the bear.

The main concern with the fourth-round pick used to be that a foot injury he sustained before the draft would affect his health, but durability has never been a problem for Clemmings. He and the Vikings are still trying to figure out where he fits, why he’s struggled and how he can improve.

“I’m actually happy that I moved so many times,” Clemmings said. “It’s just part of my process. Jump in head-first and take it as it comes.”

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