The Minnesota Vikings spent all summer touting their running game, but three games into the season, their plans may be going out the window.
The Vikings already lost their top running back, Jordan Mason, to a thumb fracture after the season opener against the Green Bay Packers, and they got more bad news on Monday when ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that Josh Oliver suffered a torn biceps in their Week 3 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Vikings' top blocking tight end, Oliver, left Sunday’s game in the fourth quarter and did not return. As a result of the injury, Oliver will undergo surgery, with Fowler adding that he is “a long shot” to return this season.
Minnesota still has starter T.J. Hockenson, with reserve Gavin Bartholomew and Ben Yurosek expected to fill in after Oliver’s injury. But the news is another brutal blow to the Vikings running game that has dealt with adversity since the regular season began.
Injuries have already destroyed the Vikings’ running game plans
Getting more efficiency out of the running game was one of the top priorities for Kevin O’Connell and his staff this offseason.
The Vikings began by replacing offensive line coach Chris Kuper with Frank Carter and made another step in the right direction by hiring run-scheme guru Frank Smith, who previously was the offensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins, as their new assistant head coach.
The next phase came in the spring when they re-signed Aaron Jones and added Demond Claiborne in the sixth round of April’s draft.
With Jordan Mason also slimming down to take advantage of a new wide-zone scheme, the expectations were high coming into the year, but haven’t been fulfilled yet, in part due to injury.
Mason’s injury toward the end of the win over the Packers was a body shot to the running game.
While the Vikings relied on the 32-year-old Jones for 23 carries and 105 yards in a Week 2 win over the Chicago Bears, he suffered a knee injury toward the end of that contest and ran for just 58 yards on 17 carries while adding five catches for 34 yards in Sunday’s win in Tampa Bay.
Claiborne also hasn’t lived up to the offseason hype, where The Athletic’s Dane Brugler compared him to Miami Dolphins star De’Von Achane and Jones compared his “burst” to Jahmyr Gibbs of the Detroit Lions.
After being inactive for Week 1, Claiborne has just three carries for one yard and a two-yard reception over the past two weeks, and things could get tougher now that the Vikings are without their lead blocker.
Josh Oliver’s absence could force Vikings into difficult offensive trade-off
Oliver isn’t an impact player in the passing game, with 62 catches for 677 yards and nine touchdowns over his four seasons with the Vikings. But he spends plenty of time in the running game, posting a PFF run-blocking grade over 70 in his first two seasons with the Vikings and a respectable 63.9 grade last season.
Without Oliver leading the way, the Vikings may have to rely on Hockenson to block a little bit more. But that also takes away a key target for an offense that entered Monday ranking last in the NFL with 238.3 yards of total offense per game.
With Justin Jefferson also dealing with an ankle injury suffered in Sunday’s game and Kyler Murray struggling in his first full game with the Vikings, it creates plenty of questions for an offense that was supposed to have the infrastructure to elevate any quarterback’s performance.
Naturally, the running game would be a way to alleviate that pressure, but that wasn’t the case as O’Connell called nine pass plays to five run plays despite working with a lead in the fourth quarter.
The absence of Oliver could create a similar trend moving forward, and it could toss any plans the Vikings had for a revised running game in the trash as they look to keep winning after a 3-0 start.
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