First Danielle Hunter, then Anthony Barr, then myriad cornerbacks. An already-suspect Minnesota Vikings defense has been decimated by injuries. As a result, the losses have mounted and pushed the team to the brink of a significant sell-off at the trade deadline.
Whoever is left wearing purple after the Nov. 3 deadline will have nine games remaining to audition for a place in the team’s long-term plans, and nowhere are there more players auditioning than on the defensive line.
Prized nose tackle Michael Pierce opted out before the season, Hunter just had season-ending surgery on a herniated disc, and former-savior Yannick Ngakoue was shipped to the Baltimore Ravens for picks. Three of Sunday’s projected starters (Ifeadi Odenigbo, Jaleel Johnson and Jalyn Holmes) were backups on last year’s team, and nose tackle Shamar Stephen is playing a different position than where he started in training camp. The three primary backups (Armon Watts, James Lynch and D.J. Wonnum) have a combined four years in the league. Aside from Stephen, Johnson is the most experienced of the bunch with 10 career starts.
“It’s just kind of a different turn that there isn’t really many older guys, to be honest,” said the 26-year-old Odenigbo. “Like, I’m one of the oldest. But yeah, it’s been cool, just this new type of cohesion. But I think what’s most important is we’re getting better each week. We’re becoming more complementary for how we play with each other, and we just feed off each other, and I just think that’s the most important thing, that we’re getting better each week.”
The Vikings pass-rush grade on Pro Football Focus is a lowly 30th, while their run defense ranks 29th. But Odenigbo has a point that there have been flashes of improvement. Johnson, Watts, Odenigbo, Holmes and Wonnum have all received their highest single-game grades within the past three weeks. At defensive end, Holmes, Wonnum and Odenigbo combined for just three pressures in the first two games of the season; in Weeks 3-6, they combined for 28. At tackle, Lynch recorded a sack in his first career game in Week 5, while Watts has combined for four run stops in the last two weeks.
Of the eight defensive linemen currently on the Vikings’ roster, only one, Johnson, is an unrestricted free agent this offseason. Five are under contract next season, while Jordan Brailford (ERFA) and Odenigbo (RFA) can be cheaply retained. Hunter and Kenny Willekes — both on injured reserve — should also return.
In other words, the framework for next year’s defensive line can probably be found within the walls of TCO Performance Center, provided some of the in-house talent steps up in the second half of 2020.
Holmes will be entering a contract year in 2021 and has been declared as Ngakoue’s replacement for Minnesota’s Week 8 game at Lambeau Field. He is in Year 1 of his return to defensive end, where he began at Ohio State before transitioning to defensive tackle for the first two years of professional career. Though Hunter will, in all likelihood, return as a starter in 2021, Holmes could be playing for a spot in next year’s rotation.
“I’ve hit the ground running,” said Holmes, who is still looking for his first sack of the year. “I played defensive end four years at Ohio State, so it really wasn’t that much of a big leap from D-tackle back to D-end, so I just feel like I’m just playing football.”
Holmes will be entering a contract year in 2021. So will Stephen and likely Odenigbo if he receives a tender. But will either remain as starters? Stephen is likely keeping the seat warm at nose tackle for Michael Pierce, who opted out before the season over COVID-19 concerns, but with Johnson entering free agency, the Vikings will need another 3-technique, and they’ve shown a fondness for Stephen at that position. With a cap hit over $5 million, however, Stephen could also be a salary cap casualty. Odenigbo, meanwhile, may have the best chance to claim a starting job in 2021 with a strong finish to the year. He’s logged 4.8 pressures per game over his last four, a pace that could get him up to 70 pressures on the season, the same total as Khalil Mack in 2019. It appeared for a time as if Odenigbo would lose his starting spot behind Hunter and Ngakoue, but he’s started each game because of Hunter’s injury and is on track to be the team’s most effective edge rusher.
“It’s kind of been difficult, but I think as a defensive line we’re worried about what we have to do,” Odenigbo said. “At the end of the day, there’s a lot of moving parts going on, but all you can control is what your position group is doing right now. But obviously with Anthony Barr being gone and just kind of some shakeups on defense, it’s kind of been an unusual year. But that’s just the name of the game.”
A lot could also ride on the progress of Watts, Lynch and Wonnum, a trio of Day 3 draft picks in either their first or second seasons that have all seen an increase in role as the season has gone on. Watts looks to be a depth piece at nose for the foreseeable future, Lynch could vie for the 3-technique job in 2021, and Wonnum will likely be competing with Holmes for snaps this year and next.
It’s these youthful athletes that co-defensive coordinator Andre Patterson gets the most excited about.
“When you take pride as an organization in developing players, you enjoy being the mad scientist and able to get your hands on these guys and try to get them to improve,” Patterson said Thursday. “The difference now is we’re doing it at a lot of different positions and not just one or two or four. I enjoy seeing these guys make improvement from week to week.”
It’s realistic to assume, maybe even likely, that there is a long-term starter or two somewhere along the defensive line who has yet to blossom. The next 10 games will help sort out who that might be.
