Early look at the Detroit Lions 2017 opponents: Minnesota Vikings
By Ash Thompson
Quarterbacks
Teddy Bridgewater is out for a second year with a career-threatening knee injury. That leaves Sam Bradford piloting the ship for the Vikings again in 2017. Bradford is coming off his best season as a professional football player. in 2016 he completed an NFL record 71.6% of his passes. He also averaged 7.0 yards per attempt for the season. Whatever you want to say about how entertaining (or not) the Vikings offense was last season, those are good metrics.
Bradford also put up a career-high in passing yards with 3877 and had a 5:1 TD to INT ratio for the year. He did all that while the team was starting the ghost of Jake Long at Left Tackle and averaging 3.2 yards per carry on the ground. Bradford gets a lot of grief among the NFL’s Twitter community for being the check down king, but he really did not have a lot of options last year. When he held on to the ball for more than a single read he got creamed. The Vikings gave up 41 sacks in 2016, a number that could have been upwards of 70 if Bradford had not shown an ability to get the ball out quick.
Behind Bradford the Vikings have a name Lions fans will remember from last season. Case Keenum shredded the Lions for 321 yards and three touchdowns on behalf of the LA Rams in week six of the 2016 season. The difference between the two in the Vikings offense is likely not all that pronounced. Behind Keenum are 2015 undrafted free agent Taylor Heinicke and 2017 undrafted free agent Wes Lunt.
Running Backs
Adrian Peterson is gone but that may not be a good thing. The Vikings were using an incredible amount of cap space for their future hall of fame running back, and last year he gave them 1.9 yards per carry in return. To replace Peterson the Vikings will rely on the two-headed monster of Latavius Murray, and Dalvin Cook.
Both are players that many Lions fans were hoping to see in the Honolulu blue and silver at different points in the off-season and with good reason. Murray is a competent short yardage back. He scored 12 times on the ground in 2016 for the Oakland Raiders. Dalvin Cook was regarded by some as the best running back of the 2017 rookie class, with only a few shoulder injuries and some questionable associates between him and a top 15 pick. Both running backs are threats between and outside the tackles, and both contribute in the passing game.
Behind them is Jerrick McKinnon, last season’s sacrificial lamb in the Vikings backfield. McKinnon led the team in yards per carry last season among running backs, but his 3.4 was not an impressive number. He is purely an insurance policy at this point in his career. Behind McKinnon is 2014 Tennesee Titans draft bust Bishop Sankey. The Vikings, of course, picked up Michael Burton on waivers, when the Lions decided to move away from the fullback position entirely.