It was certainly one of the reasons they lost that game. Seattle's defense dominated the Vikings offensive front. The Vikings gained just 58 yards on 29 rushing plays. That's indicative of poor OL play and it was obvious during the game the OL couldn't create room for the backs.Pondering Her Percy wrote:Another thing regarding this OL and the posts I'm seeing saying "it wasnt good to begin with so the injuries are just an excuse". Another reason I completely disagree with this (not saying original OL was great or anything before guys jump down my throat) is that our original OL was NOT season altering. This current offensive line is. With this offensive line, we've gotten our QB absolutely killed, ended up losing our OC mainly due to the OL issues and in turn had to modify our entire offense around quick drops and quick passes, no less we have no running game with AP out. Sit there and say what you will about AP but if I remember correctly, everyone on this board was saying he was washed up last year when he ran for 31 yards against SF, yet he ended up leading the league in rushing yards. The only game he really got a legitimate amount of carries was the Tennessee game which wasnt good just like SF last year.
But bottom line is, our starting OL we had all year last year wasn't the reason we lost in the playoffs.
Bridgewater was sacked 3 times too and pressured more than that.
Last year's OL was obviously detrimental to the team. That's why Davidson was fired and why upgrading it was supposed to be a priority this offseason.
It sure looked season-altering when the season began. Articles about the negative impact the OL was having were appearing before both tackles were lost for the year. In fact, they were appearing after week 1. Vikings backs were barely able to gain a yard before contact against the Titans. Bradford was hammered by the Packers in week 2 and the running game couldn't even muster an average of 1.5 yards per rush.So it wasnt a season altering type OL that we had to modify our offense around like this current one is. And going into this year, we had a better LG than last year in Boone and a better RT than last year in Smith. Even with our original OL playing at their worst, it wouldn't have been season altering. If anything there were better players on it than last year (minus Fusco).
I don't care how the line looked on paper in May. They looked bad on the field from the start. Injuries exacerbated a problem that was already glaringly obvious.