Vikings

Should the Vikings Pursue A Kevin O'Connell/Robert Woods Reunion?

Photo Credit: George Walker IV via USA TODAY Sports

On Wednesday morning, the Tennessee Titans released veteran wide receiver Robert Woods. The move created $12 million in cap space for first-year general manager Ran Carthon, while incurring a $2.6 million dead cap for their 2023 books. Before the Titans traded Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Brown to the Philadelphia Eagles last offseason in exchange for the 18th and 101st picks in the 2022 NFL Draft, Tennessee acquired Woods from the Los Angeles Rams by trading a sixth-round pick. The late Day 3 draft-pick compensation was largely due to the Titans taking on Woods’ contract coming off a 2021 season when he tore his ACL in early November.

Now that Woods is — as he put it on Twitter yesterday — “free,” suitors are lining up for his services. Despite posting career lows with 527 receiving yards and 5.8 yards per target this past season with the Titans, his former teammates with the Rams, Cooper Kupp and Austin Corbett, have put their recruiting caps on with hopes of luring him either back to the Rams or to the Carolina Panthers, where Corbett currently plays.

Even though Woods is on the wrong side of 30 (he’ll be 31 in April) with a recent ACL tear from ’21, he should command a healthy market value as this year’s class of free-agent wide receivers leaves a lot to be desired. At this stage of his career, returning to Cooper Kupp, Matthew Stafford, Sean McVay, and the Rams makes a lot of sense. Although the Rams replaced Woods by signing Allen Robinson to a three-year contract last offseason, let’s not forget that Los Angeles added Odell Beckham Jr. midway through the ’21 season with plans for a three-headed receiver room. Unfortunately, Woods tore his ACL in practice less than 24 hours after Beckham signed with the Rams.

With the Minnesota Vikings’ receiver room up in the air largely thanks to Adam Thielen‘s status, Woods makes for an intriguing option as their potential WR2 for 2023. Kevin O’Connell spent two years as Woods’ offensive coordinator with the Rams from 2020 to 2021, and Woods was his usual, productive self. Woods amassed nearly 1,100 scrimmage yards to go with eight touchdowns in ’20 and was on pace for over 1,100 yards and 10 touchdowns before his ’21 season was cut short due to the ACL.

No one player has defined McVay’s offense with the Rams more than Woods. With his unique skillset in the horizontal run game, Woods totaled 70 carries across his five years with the Rams. And the former second-round pick out of USC was consistently creating separation from opposing defensive backs on LA’s patented dagger concepts that required Woods to win on intermediate dig routes.

The Vikings filled their obvious need for a consistent No. 2 in the passing game on the fly last season with the mid-season trade for T.J. Hockenson — and the offense unapologetically peppered him with 97 targets over the final 11 games of the season. If you extrapolate those targets over a 17-game pace, that’s 150 targets. Which would’ve equated to a 23.4% target share in Minnesota’s offense this past season. For context, Justin Jefferson commanded a 28.7% target share en route to leading the NFL in receiving in 2022.

Woods has familiarity with O’Connell and the 11-personell scheme that KOC brought over from the Rams. And the free-agent receiver could activate the Vikings’ jet game seemingly from the jump, where this offense lacked juice last year. In 2022, Minnesota’s receivers generated only 59 rushing yards on 14 carries, for a less-than-stellar 4.2 yards per carry. From 2018 to 2021, Woods rushed for 473 yards on 68 carries, which was good for 7.0 yards per pop. Despite his success with the Rams on jet sweeps, the Titans didn’t give Woods a single carry last season. Which begs the question of whether or not Woods can still be used in that horizontal fashion anymore following the ACL tear.

But considering O’Connell’s reliance on giving opposing defenses a consistent threat of defending sideline-to-sideline with jet motions, Woods strikes considerably more fear in the jet game than Jefferson, Thielen, and/or K.J. Osborn — as long as that surgically repaired knee cooperates. Inserting a player like Woods who forces defenses to honor the jet game creates more frequent (and easier) opportunities to dial up Jefferson and Hockenson against advantageous coverages.

It’s no secret that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and the Vikings have to make many tough decisions over the next few weeks as it pertains to the expensive veterans currently on the roster. According to Spotrac, the Vikings need to shed $21.3 million in cap space by March 15 to be cap compliant. Minnesota can put a dent into that number after restructuring someone like Brian O’Neill by converting his base salary into a bonus. They can also create $9.5 million in cap space by outright releasing Eric Kendricks, while incurring a minimal $1.9 dead cap. A Hockenson extension this offseason would also help create cap space in 2023.

If the Vikings are interested in entering the Bobby Trees sweepstakes, it will assuredly come with having to part ways with a player or two who occupies a sizeable cap hit in 2023. And if the front office believes that reuniting O’Connell with his former WR2 with the Rams can help the offense make a jump in Year 2, Minnesota could try to replace Thielen with a player in Woods who will be two years younger than the Detroit Lakes native in 2023, while likely coming at a fraction of the cost.

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Photo Credit: George Walker IV via USA TODAY Sports

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