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Welcome to Around the Horns, our daily look at what’s happening on the Vikings beat:

Now that the regular season is upon us, we’re bringing back Around the Horns, which will kick off each day on this blog as we look at Vikings coverage of note, both from ESPN and other outlets.

Speaking of coverage from other outlets, offensive tackle Matt Kalil got quite a bit of attention during the preseason, especially after Pro Football Focus highlighted his struggles following the Vikings’ third preseason game in Kansas City. Coach Mike Zimmer gave an unprompted critique of the analytics website the following Monday, saying fans and writers needed to treat the site’s postgame grades with a grain of salt, since no one outside the team knew exactly what a player’s responsibilities were on a given play. Zimmer didn’t mention Kalil specifically, but when offensive coordinator Norv Turner was asked about Kalil last week, he said “people who are trying to evaluate our tape and not knowing what we’re doing, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

Turner said last week the Vikings intentionally were leaving Kalil one-on-one against speed rushers like Kansas City’s Tamba Hali to see how he fared, and for his part, Kalil said on Monday he’d been experimenting with new pass sets, which wouldn’t necessarily carry over into the regular season. “If you get beat, you get beat; that one doesn’t work, and you work with something else,” Kalil said. “That’s what the preseason was for me. Even right now, I’m figuring some more stuff out. Come Sunday, I’ll know exactly what I need to do.”

Kalil’s disappointing second season can be blamed partially on a knee injury that hampered his ability to deal with speed rushers, but he’ll have plenty of incentive to get back to his Pro Bowl performance from his rookie season. Tyron Smith, Kalil’s former teammate at USC who went to the Dallas Cowboys with the ninth pick in the draft the year before the Vikings took Kalil No. 4 overall, got an eight-year, $97 million extension from the Cowboys during the offseason. If Kalil can get himself back on track in Year 3, there’s a lucrative payday waiting for him down the road.

In case you missed it on ESPN.com:

Former University of Minnesota quarterback/wide receiver MarQueis Gray is the Vikings’ newest addition, in a move that will reunite him with Turner and put him back in his old college stadium.
The Vikings’ safety situation next to Harrison Smith still seems a bit unclear.
Linval Joseph is back at practice, and appears on track to start the regular-season opener.
The Vikings’ roster is the NFL’s fifth-youngest to start the season.

Best of the rest:

Judd Zulgad of 1500ESPN.com wonders about the stability of the Vikings’ secondary.
Anthony Barr credits his work with UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell for helping prepare him for his rookie season, writes Tim Yotter of Viking Update.
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Vikings Safety Situation In Flux

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — After nearly four months of evaluation, a handful of injuries and the release of two veterans over the weekend, the Minnesota Vikings still apparently haven’t settled on a starting safety opposite Harrison Smith — at least not one coach Mike Zimmer was comfortable sharing on Monday.

“I don’t know yet,” Zimmer said when asked who will start next to Smith in the Vikings’ regular-season opener against St. Louis on Sunday. “We’ll see.”

Robert Blanton has been atop the depth chart since the Vikings released their first one during training camp, and seems like the logical pick to start next to his former Notre Dame teammate. Blanton missed part of training camp with a hamstring injury, but came back before the Vikings’ third preseason game against Kansas City and seems healthy now.

“He’s a smart guy,” Zimmer said. “Sometimes when you make the transition from corner to safety (as Blanton did), it takes those guys a while, but he’s a smart guy. You have a little bit more athletic ability, usually.”

Smith said he won’t be affected in any major way by who starts next to him on Sunday, and was coy when asked if he knew who the starter would be. It seemed like Smith’s partner might be 34-year-old Chris Crocker, who came out of retirement for a third consecutive year to play for Zimmer and started a pair of games next to Smith in training camp.

The Vikings, however, released Crocker on Saturday, along with Kurt Coleman, when they concluded they “had a lot of the same guys,” as Zimmer put it.

However short his time was with the Vikings, though, Crocker helped Smith’s development in the team’s defense.

“He was like having a coach in the locker room, in the meeting room, on the field,” Smith said. “In between plays, he’d say, ‘Hey, Harry, watch out for this coming up here,’ and he was right most of the time. Even though he was only here for a little bit, I learned a ton from that guy.

“Just having that time with Crocker was good. I kind of had Antoine (Winfield) to look to when I was a rookie, just to see how a pro prepares. I never really had a safety to look at who was an old, old guy — I called him the ‘old man’ every day. He kind of showed me again what it was like to be a professional and to really understand the game.”

Should the Vikings start Blanton on Sunday, his experience in coverage will likely be a big part of the reason he’s got the job. The Vikings will put their safeties in man coverage much more often than they did in their old regime, and Blanton seemed to separate himself from competition during the team’s OTAs and minicamp because of his coverage skills.

“It’s going to be fun for us (safeties),” Smith said. “We get to do pretty much everything, all levels of the defense: down near the line, dropping down like linebackers, playing deep, covering man-to-man. We get to do pretty much everything.”
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• This topic was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by wv.