Captain Munnerlyn Has Not Been Good for the Vikings

The Vikings are still early in the process of remaking the defense in Mike Zimmer’s image, but a few things are already becoming glaringly apparent.

More from Minnesota Vikings News

• Former Vikings first-round pick could reportedly return to NFC North
• Bears analyst has extremely embarrassing Kirk Cousins take
• 6 Vikings who (maybe) won’t make the 53-man roster in 2023
• Predicting what the Vikings will do in the 2023 NFL Draft based on 2022
• Vikings have reportedly begun extension talks with T.J. Hockenson

One big thing that’s becoming more and more obvious with each passing week? Captain Munnerlyn is not a particularly good football player.

In fact, you could argue that Munnerlyn has been flat out dreadful through five games.

Going into last night’s contest against Green Bay, Munnerlyn as a slot corner was statistically as awful as it gets, having surrendered a 158.3 QB rating when covering the slot.

A 158.3 rating is a perfect rating. At least by that one statistical measure, it was impossible for Munnerlyn to be worse than he was through four games.

And that was before he surrendered a TD to Randall Cobb.

Captain actually improved slightly against the Packers, compared to the way he played against Atlanta.

Munnerlyn’s breakdowns against the Falcons on Sunday included a brutal coverage mix-up that allowed Roddy White to basically walk into the end zone for a TD, followed by a hideous tackling exhibition on Devin Hester’s TD.

Munnerlyn was brought to the Vikings for one main reason: to solidify the slot corner position. Not only has he not solidified that spot, he’s arguably made it even more of a problem than it was last year when Josh Robinson tried to play there.

It’s still early in the process as I said, probably too early to make any sweeping final determinations, but the evidence so far suggests that the Vikings screwed up big-time by investing in Captain Munnerlyn.

Xavier Rhodes and Josh Robinson were supposed to be the big question marks in the secondary but I have more confidence in either of them than I do Munnerlyn.

Let’s hope this stretch of games proves to just be a temporary hiccup for Munnerlyn. It’s true that the Vikings have faced some good QBs, but that hasn’t bothered the relatively inexperienced Rhodes and Robinson nearly as much as it has the guy who is supposed to be the solid veteran.

It’s time for Captain to play like the player fans thought they were getting when the Vikings acquired him. Maybe we were just wrong about this guy.

Maybe Rick Spielman was too.