The Teddy Bridgewater Era is underway in Minnesota and the Vikings would like to see it run for many years.
One thing that could get in the way of that is a big hit from a pass rusher who comes from Bridgewater’s blind side, a possibility that seems all too plausible based on how much pressure left tackle Matt Kalil has given up through the first three weeks of the season. Kalil has been beaten for three sacks in the last two weeks, which tells just part of the story of how often he’s been beaten.
That’s led to plenty of criticism for the former fourth overall pick, but head coach Mike Zimmer isn’t one of those piling on.
“For 93 percent of the game, he plays pretty good. But unfortunately, the three or four bad plays he has show up and [fans and media] get on him,” Zimmer said, via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “So I’m not that discouraged as everybody else is. We’ll just try to get those four bad plays out of there and keep going.”
It’s true that people notice the bad plays, but that’s just the nature of the beast. If Calvin Johnson catches 10 passes but drops two passes in the end zone in a losing effort, which gets the headline? For left tackles, there’s even more focus on mistakes because their good plays rarely get highlighted over the course of a game and because their errors often lead to disaster for the offense. Fair or not, that’s the way it goes and Kalil hasn’t been good enough so far this season.
The Vikings need that to change. On an offense that’s already without Adrian Peterson and Kyle Rudolph, the last thing Bridgewater needs as starts adapting to the NFL game is a leak at left tackle that makes life in the pocket perilous.
