Post Draft: Biggest Question Mark Heading Into the 2022 Season

 

Now that the 2022 NFL Draft is over it's a time to reflect on what areas were improved the most, as well as what is still the biggest question mark heading into the 2022 NFL season.

It should come to no surprise that the two largest areas of need for the Minnesota Vikings in this years draft was secondary and offensive line. Although I was all in on Kyle Hamilton with the 12th overall pick, it's hard not to like Lewis Cine the hard hitting safety out of Georgia with the 32nd overall pick as well as Andrew Booth Jr. the cornerback out of Clemson with our next pick at 42nd overall, who some had as a late 1st round grade. I feel those two can come in and contribute right away to this veteran defense and revamp this secondary that according to Pro Football Focus graded out 25th last year in the NFL.

Now shifting gears to the offensive line, I feel this will still be the biggest question mark heading into the 2022 season. As a unit the Vikings finished 23rd in the NFL in 2021 with our interior line needing the biggest improvement. All 3 interior lineman ( Cleveland, Bradbury, Udoh ) graded out in the bottom half of the league and I don't think we've done enough to this point to say we'll be significantly better in that area heading into this season. Our main offseason acquisition was Jesse Davis who has played his last 5 seasons with the Miami Dolphins (72 starts in 80 games) but was also part of the worst graded offensive line last year in Miami that let up a league high of 235 QB pressures. In the draft we used a 2nd round pick on LSU's Ed Ingram who although talented, comes with a controversial past, and in the meantime there's still Wyatt Davis a 3rd round selection last year out of Ohio State who hasn't seemed to find his footing in the NFL to this point.

When you look at the offensive talent that the 2022 Minnesota Vikings possess it's hard not to imagine what an improved offensive line can do for the totality of this offense. With minimal offseason acquisitions and improvements it still remains a huge question mark for me heading into this 2022 season. There's still a few highly coveted free agents, JC Tretter to name one that I would love to see the Vikings make a deal for to improve this struggling offensive line heading into the 2022 season.