Viktor
Well-known member
- Mar 19, 2019
- 2,552
- 0
For each team, designations were made for Biggest Strength, Biggest Weakness and X Factor for 2020.
Minnesota's safety duo of Harris and Harrison Smith (88.4) was tabbed as the team's biggest strength, saying the pair is "comfortably one of the best tandems in the NFL."
As far as weakness, it was pointed out that questions still face the Vikings offensive line and that there are "a lot of things to work out" heading into the 2020 season.
Rookie cornerback Jeff Gladney, whom the Vikings drafted 31st overall, was spotlighted as Minnesota's X Factor for this season.
Minnesota underwent a wholesale change at cornerback this offseason, saying goodbye to starters Trae Waynes, Xavier Rhodes and Mackensie Alexander while selecting Jeff Gladney and Cameron Dantzler in the 2020 draft. Last season's starters struggled overall, but that is still a lot of turnover in one offseason. Gladney is the rookie to watch when it comes to making an impact early. He was tested heavily downfield in the Big 12, but he stood up to that test. Gladney's 47 percent completion percentage allowed ranked first among FBS cornerbacks with at least 1,000 coverage snaps from 2016 through 2019.
Former Vikings FB Zach Line coaching at alma mater
Former Vikings fullback Zach Line, who played 35 games for Minnesota from 2013-16 before spending three seasons with the Saints, is trying his hand at coaching.
Line retired following the 2019 season and took over at the helm of his alma mater, Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan. He will follow his former coach Bud Rowley, who won 264 games in more than four decades as the Wildcats' head coach.
Line, who played collegiately for SMU, recently spoke with PonyFans.com about this next step in his career.
"Following [Rowley], I obviously have some huge shoes to fill," Line told the site. "Of course it's a huge challenge to follow someone like that, but he left me with players who are disciplined, who work hard and are hard-nosed. Oxford always has had players with a lot of physicality and toughness, and the guys I have now are like that."
Like every other team in the country, Oxford's offseason was affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which cost the Wildcats several spring practices, the strength and conditioning work that is put in during the month of May and some seven-on-seven work. The team just recently resumed outdoor offseason conditioning workouts within the restrictions set by the Michigan High School Athletic Association, sometimes with his wife and daughters — "my cheerleaders," he calls them — there to watch.
Raising three daughters who are under the age of five is not the same, obviously, as leading a team of high school football players. But Line said that there are definite overlaps between the two roles.
"I think I have to have even more patience at home than I do as a coach," Line said. "If the 4-year-old does something wrong, the 3-year-old will follow suit, because she looks up to her sister. It's the same thing with players: the seniors need to be the leaders. If they do something wrong, the younger guys will follow suit. When your leaders establish the way to do things, the others follow suit. They learn by example."