For seemingly the past decade, the Minnesota Vikings enter the 2024 campaign with question marks throughout the interior of their offensive line. This year, 2020 sixth-round pick Blake Brandel, who the Vikings originally drafted as a tackle, steps into the starting left guard spot vacated by Dalton Risner. Brandel started two games at right guard late last season and allowed a combined seven pressures and one sack. He was also flagged twice.
To say there are unknowns about what the Vikings are getting into with Brandel would be an understatement.
Garrett Bradbury enters his sixth campaign as Minnesota’s starting center. Still, he carries a bit of an underachiever designation from the fanbase. However, PFF ranked him 11th out of 27 centers throughout the league last year, playing 500-plus pass-blocking snaps with 22 pressures allowed.
The Vikings will need Bradbury to maintain his above-average pass-blocking chops while anchoring their run game, which has left much to be desired since Kevin O’Connell took over in 2022. Over the past two seasons combined, Minnesota ranks 31st in rushing yards and 30th in yards per carry at four yards.
The 2022 second-round pick Ed Ingram showed little to no improvement in Year 2 last season. As a rookie, he allowed the most pressure by an NFL guard with 58. Last year he allowed the third-most pressures by an NFL guard with 42, despite missing two games. It’s fair to ask if Ingram is even worthy of being a starting guard in the NFL after what he’s put on tape his first two seasons.
Which makes Sunday’s Week 1 matchup against Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux, and the rest of the New York Giants’ defensive front all the more interesting. The Vikings will have nowhere to hide against Lawrence, a 2022 and 2023 second-team All-Pro defensive tackle.
In the two games against the Vikings two years ago, Lawrence dominated Minnesota’s inferior interior with a combined 14 pressures and an 18.2% pressure rate. For context, 2023 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett recorded a 17.2% pressure rate last season. Can Brandel, Bradbury, and Ingram prevent Lawrence from moonlighting as one of the NFL’s biggest game-wreckers two years later when they meet at MetLife Stadium?
How Minnesota’s interior holds up (if at all) on Sunday will be the biggest barometer of where this offense lies in 2024. Should Lawrence and his co-stars in Burns and Thibodeaux out on the edge expose the Vikings, it could spell doom for this unit over the first month of the season.
The game wreckers up front don’t slow down with the San Francisco 49ers, Javon Hargrave, and 2022 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa visiting US Bank Stadium in Week 2. Then comes DeMeco Ryans‘ Houston Texans defensive front with Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter in Week 3. Green Bay’s loaded defensive front of Kenny Clark, Rashan Gary, Devonte Wyatt, and Preston Smith is next in Week 4. And then the Vikings go across to the pond to square off against 2022 first-team All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and the New York Jets in Week 5.
There’s an argument to be made that Williams was the biggest All-Pro snub from last season after he ranked third among all NFL defensive tackles with 70 pressures — behind only Aaron Donald and Chris Jones.
Even though they didn’t get it last season, the Vikings’ offense desperately needs a noticeable jump from Ingram at right guard in Year 3. Brandel must prove Minnesota’s decision-makers right by entrusting him at left guard, despite his limited experience with five career starts to his name as he embarks on his fifth season as a pro.
Should the Vikings answer the bell and limit Lawrence and Co.’s disruption on Sunday, it will be an encouraging step forward as they continue down their treacherous row of imposing defensive fronts. However, if Minnesota’s interior remains a glaring weak spot in Week 1, it could signal the start of an extremely difficult stretch for this offense out of the gate.
