Tag: Vederian Lowe

Patriots’ top 10 offensive players in Week 5, per PFF grades

Here are the top-10 Patriots offensive players in Week 5, per PFF grades

Not even the hallowed halls of Gillette Stadium could breathe life into the New England Patriots offense in Sunday’s 34-0 loss to the New Orleans Saints.

The theme heading into Week 6 has been about change, but there might not be enough change possible to save the Patriots this season. They lack explosiveness at the skilled positions, and the offensive line gets beaten like a drum weekly in the trenches.

Fans are even desperately calling for rookie quarterback Malik Cunningham to be given the reins as the new starting signal-caller. By the end of the season, this might end up being the worst offensive team in the Bill Belichick coaching era.

The Patriots currently sit dead last in the NFL in scoring with an average of 11 points per game.

There’s a mountain to climb, but even with all of the offensive struggles, the Patriots won’t go down without a fight. They’ll go kicking and screaming if they have to.

Here’s the top-10 offensive players, per Pro Football Focus grades:

Studs and duds in Patriots’ shocking shutout loss vs Saints at Gillette Stadium

Who were the Patriots’ studs and duds in Week 5?

The hole got even deeper for the New England Patriots on Sunday, as they were served up an embarrassing 34-0 shutout loss on their home field by the New Orleans Saints.

There will be plenty of discussion on who deserves the most blame for the Patriots’ current predicament. They are sitting at 1-4 on the season with hardly a fighting chance left in the AFC East division.

When it comes to Sunday’s game specifically, every Patriots player and coach deserves some blame for what was one of the worst losses in the history of a Bill Belichick-coached team. So don’t be surprised if today’s list is a bit light in the stud department.

Here are the Patriots’ Week 5 studs and duds:

Vikings roster cuts: Tracking the path to 53 players

Keep track of every Vikings cut and trade here

The Minnesota Vikings are on the path to finalizing their 53-man roster.

By 3 pm central time on Tuesday, August 29th, every team in the National Football League will need to be down 53 players on the roster. Once that happens, anyone with less than four years of National Football League experience will be placed on waivers until 12 pm central time on Wednesday, August 30th. Those players who have 4+ years of vested experience are released and can sign with a team immediately

There were a lot of players for the Vikings that were firmly on the bubble and they had a chance to shine on Saturday afternoon against the Arizona Cardinals. Last season, the Vikings didn’t just do their roster cuts and form their practice squad, they also traded for Jalen Reagor and Ross Blacklock.

What will they do this year? Keep track of every roster move the Vikings make to get down to the magical number of 53.

Report: Patriots trade sixth-round draft pick for Vikings OT

The busy Patriots swing another trade for an offensive tackle.

The New England Patriots continued their scramble to fix their offensive line depth by reportedly trading a sixth-round draft pick to the Minnesota Vikings for offensive tackle Vederian Lowe on Sunday night.

A source confirmed the trade to MassLive’s Karen Guregian, and KPRC 2’s Aaron Wilson reported it was for a sixth-round draft pick.

The move comes right after the Patriots completed a separate trade with the Cleveland Browns for offensive tackle Tyrone Wheatley Jr. So the team is clearly making an effort to clean up their offensive line depth issues heading into the regular season.

But will it be enough?

Like Wheatley, Lowe is relatively inexperienced at the NFL level when it comes to on-field snaps during the regular season. The second-year offensive lineman appeared in four games for the Vikings for a total of 33 offensive snaps. He also appeared in 20 special teams snaps.

There are some serious questions surrounding the injury-riddled offensive line for the Patriots, and they obviously need all of the help they can get in trying to figure it out.

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Vikings trade OT Vederian Lowe to Patriots

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah makes another trade around cutdown day

General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah loves to make trades and has done so around cutdown day again. According to The Star Tribune’s Ben Goessling, the Minnesota Vikings traded offensive tackle Vederian Lowe to the New England Patriots for a 2024 sixth-round pick.

The Vikings 2022 sixth-round pick was slated to make the team as one of their swing tackles. He had played 140 snaps during the preseason, including 129 of them on the left side.

Lowe had played well in his time during the preseason, leaving some to believe that Oli Udoh was expendable due to his success.

Across his 140 snaps, Pro Football Focus graded Lowe really well. He achieved an overall grade of 72.0 with a pass-blocking grade of 73.8 and a run-blocking grade of 65.6.

The move helps the Patriots’ offensive tackle depth, as they had acquired Tyrone Wheatley Jr. from the Cleveland Browns in exchange for running back Pierre Strong Jr.

The Vikings currently have 85 players on the roster and need to get down to 53 by Tuesday, August 29th at 3 pm central.

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Oli Udoh and Vederian Lowe switch starting spots

The Vikings swapped their starting tackles in an interesting strategy

At the beginning of the Minnesota Vikings preseason finale against the Arizona Cardinals, the starting tackles switched spots, as Vederian Lowe started at right tackle and Oli Udoh started at left tackle.

This is an interesting development that can be taken multiple different ways. You want your backup tackles to be able to play on both sides, so giving them reps at both is a good idea.

The other angle here is trying to find a fix for Udoh’s inconsistencies on the right side. He has struggled quite a bit on the right and moving him back to his natural position on the left side could help eliminate that.

So far, it’s working, as the Vikings drove 75 yards in 10 plays for a touchdown.

10 players who need a great performance vs. Seahawks

Heading into Thursday’s preseason opener against the Seattle Seahawks, these 10 Minnesota Vikings need a great performance.

After two weeks of Minnesota Vikings training camp, we are starting to see a divide between players at each position. Preseason games set things apart as well, as live game reps matter more than practice.

Throughout practice, there have been plenty of standouts, but the players who have been struggling are the ones that need a great performance. If you play well in a live game setting, that can change everything for your potential chances to earn a roster spot.

Here are 10 players that need to have a great game against the Seattle Seahawks to improve their chances to make the roster.

Zulgad: Vikings’ 2022 draft class will get an opportunity to prove critics wrong

The Minnesota Vikings 2022 NFL draft class didn’t live up to expectations in year one. @jzulgad writes about their opportunity in 2023.

Vikings rookies will report to training camp on Sunday, July 23rd bringing with them the anticipation that the six-player class will make contributions as rookies.

It’s more likely that coach Kevin O’Connell’s focus will be on the 2022 class, which was criticized by many who said general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s first draft fell flat.

In a one-year sample size that assessment is correct.

Safety Lewis Cine only played in three games, and was on the field for two defensive snaps, before suffering a gruesome season-ending leg injury against the Saints. Second-round right guard Ed Ingram was the only of the Vikings’ 10 picks to play and start all 17 games. Ingram’s struggles were well documented but at least he saw significant time.

Second-round cornerback Andrew Booth Jr., and fourth-round corner Akayleb Evans were limited to six and 10 games, respectively, in large part because of injuries, and third-round linebacker Brian Asamoah II made no starts in 16 games and played only 119 defensive snaps.

The rest of the class included defensive tackle Esezi Otomewo and running back Ty Chandler (fifth round); offensive lineman Vederian Lowe and wide receiver Jalen Nailor (sixth round); and tight end Nick Muse (seventh round). Otomewo got 89 defensive snaps, while Nailor led the final four picks on offense with 57.

The lack of playing time and production caused many to question Adofo-Mensah, but all 10 picks remain on the roster and all will have an opportunity to change the opinion about the 2022 draft in the coming weeks.

Ingram will be expected to have taken a significant step, while Booth and Evans are both going to get a chance to see significant playing time in a secondary that has only one sure starting cornerback (free agent addition Byron Murphy Jr.). Evans suffered multiple concussions last season and Booth has battled injury issues since college — the reason he dropped in the draft.

Asamoah spent last season behind veterans Eric Kendricks and Jordan Hicks, and didn’t see anything close to significant playing time on defense until near the end of the season. That also could have had to do with the presence of former defensive coordinator Ed Donatell, but he has been replaced by Brian Flores and Kendricks’ departure opens a starting job for Asamoah.

Chandler suffered a broken thumb in Week 5 and finished the season with 20 yards on six rushing attempts in only three games. But Dalvin Cook’s departure should open up playing time behind veteran Alexander Mattison.

Nailor, who played college football at Michigan State, showed flashes last season, catching nine passes for 179 yards and a touchdown. The assumption has been that Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and K.J. Osborn will be the Vikings’ top three receivers, but injuries and other issues could open the door for Nailor.

Addison, the Vikings’ first-round pick in April, missed almost all of the offseason workouts because of an undisclosed injury and didn’t do himself any favors last week by being pulled over by police for driving 140 miles per hour on I-94 in St. Paul, MN.

Would the Vikings have liked to have gotten more first-year production from the 2022 draft? Certainly, and it’s easy to point to the production the Super Bowl champion Chiefs received from seventh-round running back Isiah Pacheco (830 yards rushing, 130 receiving).

Adofo-Mensah made a draft-night trade with Detroit that included the Vikings moving back from 12th to 32nd and decided to go with Cine. Cine arrived at training camp behind Harrison Smith and Cam Bynum on the depth chart at safety last summer and it won’t be surprising if he’s there again when practice opens.

That will result in a discussion about whether Adofo-Mensah’s first-ever pick simply isn’t starting material. But we still don’t know the answer to that question, just as we don’t know how much a draft class that did little last season can do in its second year.

One thing we do know is that the Vikings have plenty of incentive to give this group a long look and hope for better results this time.

Judd Zulgad is co-host of the Purple Daily Podcast and Mackey & Judd podcast at www.skornorth.com

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Judd Zulgad is co-host of the Purple Daily Podcast and Mackey & Judd podcast at www.skornorth.com

State of the offensive tackle room: The Real Forno Show

The Minnesota Vikings have one of the best offensive tackle rooms in the National Football League and we discuss on The Real Forno Show.

The Minnesota Vikings have struggled on the offensive line for the last decade. Going into the 2023 season, the offensive tackle group is one of the best in the National Football League.

Even with the top end talent, there are still some question marks with this group.

  • Can Christian Darrisaw improve on his excellent 2022 season?
  • How will Brian O’Neill rebound from his partially torn Achilles tendon suffered in week 17?
  • Will Blake Brandel and Oli Udoh improve on their 2022 performance?
  • Can Vederian Lowe show enough improvement to make the roster?
  • Jacky Chen and Sam Schlueter are trying to make the roster. Can they make the roster?

All of that and more on the latest episode of The Real Forno Show, airing Monday and Wednesday nights at 6 pm central on the Vikings 1st & SKOL YouTube channel.

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Vikings state of the roster: Offensive tackle

Christian Darrisaw and Brian O’Neill have elevated the Minnesota Vikings offensive tackle group to one of the best in the NFL.

The 2023 season is inching closer and closer by the day and we here at Vikings Wire are previewing the season from every angle.

We are currently writing player profiles on each Minnesota Viking on the roster with projections for what their 2023 season could look like. How things look projecting forward is where the real intrigue lies.

Leading up to training camp, we will be looking at each position from a more in-depth perspective. Today, we will be looking at the offensive tackle position.