Former Vikings lineman blames Rick Spielman for inexcusable mistakes

Former Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Alex Boone recently shared why he believes general manager Rick Spielman deserves blame for the team’s struggles this season.

As if losing to the winless Detroit Lions wasn’t bad enough, some of the decisions made by the Minnesota Vikings heading into the matchup were just as embarrassing. Especially what the Vikings decided to do to their offensive line after left tackle Christian Darrisaw was ruled out.

Instead of just replacing Darrisaw with Rashod Hill or someone else, Minnesota came up with a mind-boggling idea to move right guard Oli Udoh over to left tackle, move center Mason Cole over to right guard, and move Garrett Bradbury off of the bench to play center.

Unsurprisingly, the plan didn’t work out for the Vikings it just became the lastest terrible offensive line-related decision made by the franchise during the Mike Zimmer era.

Former Minnesota Vikings guard blames Rick Spielman and others for current offensive line woes

On a recent episode of SKOR North’s “Purple Daily” podcast, former Minnesota blocker Alex Boone was asked about why the Vikings have consistently had an offensive line that has struggled during the last few years.

"“You look at these offensive lines [around the NFL] and the best ones have veterans all over them. Why? Because the veterans understand it. When you look at [Minnesota], they’re not in a rebuild mode. I get when teams are in rebuild modes, they go for young players.[The Vikings] are in a win-now mode and [they] went after young offensive linemen when [they] should’ve went out in free agency and been like, ‘listen, Joe Thuney, what do you want? God, that’s a lot of money. There is no offensive lineman worth that much, but if you say so, I guess so.’ These are things you have to do.You have to get really mad at [Rick Spielman] because this is the same thing for years and years.”"

Boone also placed blame on Minnesota’s coaching staff and the players themselves, but his main argument seemed to be targeted at Vikings general manager Rick Spielman.

He’s not wrong though. Minnesota has really never been able to put just an average offensive line out on the field during Spielman’s tenure as the team’s general manager. One could argue that the unit was decent in 2017, but how of much of their success was actually a product of former Vikings quarterback Case Keenum being able to escape the oncoming pressure?

On the bright side, Darrisaw seems like he’s on his way to becoming a solid left tackle for Minnesota. But his development still isn’t enough to hide the struggles of Udoh, Bradbury, and others that continue to keep the Vikings ranking near the bottom of the league when it comes to offensive line performance.