Viktor
Well-known member
- Mar 19, 2019
- 2,552
- 0
The Vikings secondary is short on experience, but that hasn't stopped the group from making plenty of plays through the first week of Verizon Vikings Training Camp.
The collection of Mike Hughes, Holton Hill, Kris Boyd, Jeff Gladney and Cameron Dantzler have all been impressive at different points throughout camp, as those players have primarily lined up with the first and second-team defenses.
Michael Rand of the Star Tribune recently wrote that although the group features just nine career starts at cornerback, the talent is there.
Rand wrote:
We label the secondary a question mark because these players lack experience, but that doesn't mean they won't succeed. They're just unproven at this level.
And those corners will have the benefit of playing with veteran safeties Harrison Smith and Anthony Harris, perhaps the best tandem in the NFL and a duo that can cover for a lot of on-the-job mistakes.
Rand added that Minnesota's cornerbacks will need to get ready to go for Week 1, as the Vikings will face a tough slate of quarterbacks during the 2020 season.
Rand used The Athletic's tiered-quarterback rankings by Mike Sando for his analysis and wrote Minnesota will face a top-two tiered quarterback on an almost weekly basis.
Rand wrote:
Sando rates five QBs in the top tier; the Vikings face four of them — Russell Wilson, Drew Brees, Deshaun Watson and Aaron Rodgers (twice) — while also going against second-tier QBs Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford (twice), Matt Ryan, Dak Prescott and Philip Rivers.
That's 11 of 16 games against some pretty good QBs (and it should be noted that Kirk Cousins is considered a third-tier QB in these rankings).
This is all on paper, and we should account for the potential for injuries, the decline of older quarterbacks and Zimmer's ability to scheme his way into favorable matchups as counterweights.
Still, the fact that the Vikings are employing a set of very raw corners against a group of very good quarterbacks this season is something to watch. How well those young corners hold up could very well determine their fate in 2020.
Zimmer is 11-10-1 in his career against the pair of NFC North quarterbacks on the list. He is 4-6-1 against Rodgers, and 6-5 against Stafford, since joining the Vikings in 2014.