The Minnesota Vikings have announced that four of their players have made the Pro Bowl: Harrison Smith, Everson Griffen, Xavier Rhodes and Cordarrelle Patterson.
Smith has been one of the top safeties in the NFL for quite some time and is the rare triple-threat at safety. At Cold Omaha, we covered Harrison Smith’s ascent as a top safety a few times. In this piece, we went over which number isolated his dominance as a safety.
As statistically the second-best pass-coverage safety and second-best run defense safety (behind Miami’s Reshad Jones) in advanced metrics, no other safeties come close to Smith’s overall impact.
Luke Inman also reviewed the film to see what made Harrison Smith such a versatile threat.
Everson Griffen has remained as one of the league’s most consistent threats along the edge and has been critical to a Vikings pass rush that leads the league in sacks from defensive ends. He ranks seventh among all edge defenders—that includes 4-3 defensive ends and 3-4 outside linebackers—in total pressures, and has been a force in the run game.
Of all the directions listed in the play-by-play for individual runs, opponents have had the least amount of success against the Vikings running to their left end on Griffen’s side—averaging 3.7 adjusted line yards per carry, per Football Outsiders.
Xavier Rhodes has been a blessing for the Vikings, and though it might be tempting to remember his recent spate of penalties returning to haunt him, he really has been an excellent cover corner—one who finally grabbed a few interceptions to show for it.
At the beginning of the month, Rhodes was leading the Vikings cornerbacks in passer rating allowed with only a 32.7 when targeted. A quarterback who throws into the dirt for every pass would get a higher passer rating of 39.6.
His highlight moment would be his pick-six against the Cardinals, but really his value has been in depressing the output of the opponent’s top wide receiver. Despite playing against elite competition nearly every week, he ranks 12th in yards per pass attempt when targeted, according to Football Outsiders’ premium statistics charting project.
The argument for Rhodes is, essentially, that top receivers like Odell Beckham, Dez Bryant, Allen Robinson, Kelvin Benjamin, DeAndre Hopkins and Larry Fitzgerald averaged 49.8 receiving yards per game against the Vikings and 0.33 touchdowns. How disappointed would you be to learn that Odell Beckham earned 797 yards and 5 touchdowns for your team?
Cordarrelle Patterson earned his spot as a premier returner in the NFL, once again leading the league in kick return average with 31.5 yards per return. This is a feat he’s repeated for the third time, leading the league in the metric in 2013, 2015 and this year.
He also leads the league in total kick return yardage, a fairly difficult feat for a team that doesn’t allow enough scores to create kick returns.
As a result, the Vikings are second in the league in average starting position after a kickoff—which follows three consecutive years as the leading team in the NFL in field position after kickoffs.
It also happens to come on the heels of his most successful season ever as a wide receiver, a fantastic development.
Who are the three who could have been selected for the Pro Bowl as well? I’ve already spoiled the surprise by putting them all in the photo above, but I might as well list them: Linval Joseph, Terence Newman and Marcus Sherels.
The argument for Linval is obvious; he’s a clear Pro Bowl snub. He’s the best nose tackle in the league, full stop. He may have had an embarrassing penalty against the Indianapolis Colts but he also had an absolutely astounding seven run stops.
He’s the only nose tackle in the league to be top ten in both stop rate and pressure rate—and he’s top five in both.
The argument for Terence Newman comes easily as well, but it’s not quite so intuitive as it is for Joseph. Newman tends to play the second receiver, though he shouldn’t be wholly penalized for playing next to a Pro Bowl cornerback. After all, he and Mike Jenkins both made it in 2009 (albeit as alternates).
He ranks first among cornerbacks in yards per target allowed (per both PFF and Football Outsiders), sixth in success rate in coverage and is Pro Football Focus’ ninth best cornerback. Again, the argument can be made with the second-most targeted receivers for the teams the Vikings played against; They average 41.7 yards a game (662 a season), and 0.17 touchdowns a game (2.7 a season). The Vikings rank fifth among all teams in DVOA allowed to second receivers.
Marcus Sherels is first among punt returners in punt return touchdowns (despite having fewer returns) and first in the NFC in punt return yards per return. Not only that, he’s one of the best punt gunners in the NFL, and the Vikings floundered for a bit in his absence there, with missteps from Cordarrelle Patterson and Laquon Treadwell filling in.
It’s still a tougher argument, admittedly, especially after having missed five games thus far this year—although that does give us some interesting context to his return yardage: he ranks seventh in the NFL in punt return yardage despite missing five games.
One could reach for an argument for Kyle Rudolph, Captain Munnerlyn or Joe Berger (especially Berger), but the three of them haven’t put together the kinds of resumes that the other snubs have. Berger has played extremely well, but not as well as last year or other NFC centers in the league—and no one would fault a voter for picking Dallas’ Travis Frederick over him. He’s played better and is on a better offensive line.
Unfortunately, players who were strong enough to have earned consideration last year, like Anthony Barr and Sharrif Floyd, couldn’t reasonably make an argument for the honor this year—either due to a dropoff in play or a complete absence of it.
Still, it’s a good showing for the Vikings. Undoubtedly, it would have been a better showing if they had won more games this year.
