As the regular season nears, the Vikings are closer to announcing their starters for the center position, a battle that throughout camp has been surprisingly fluid and could provide some surprise. If the Vikings choose undrafted Nick Easton — traded to Minnesota along with a sixth-round pick for Gerald Hodges — over third-round pick Pat Elflein, it’ll blunt a lot of the enthusiasm fans had for the otherwise impressive-looking 2017 draft class.

Thus far in the preseason, we’ve seen some pretty adequate play from both centers with highlight moments worthy of praise but we may have gotten to the point where we’ve glossed over big issues that will have to be addressed as the center position goes through growing pains this season.

Those issues may define which player will start the regular season, and what kind of center the Vikings exactly want. Because the difference in quality the two centers have put out in the preseason thus far hasn’t been dramatic, stylistic or developmental concerns may come before talent concerns; if the margin is razor-thin, the Vikings may want a center better at getting to the second-level or one who is more likely to develop over the course of the season.

I logged the snaps each player took at center in the Buffalo game, as well as every snap they took in the Seattle game. While I think there have been highlight moments for both, there’s still significant room for improvement for both centers.

Pat Elflein

Elflein is more likely to start the season if only because the Vikings may inherently trust their own judgment during the draft and giving the larger investment more leeway. He certainly has movement ability and run-blocking upside but at the moment suffers from fairly significant problems.

The most obvious problem is his ability to snap the ball. While it’s become significantly better, it’s undeniable that this problem plagues his chances of earning the starting job. Those problems initially showed up early in the offseason, reappeared in rookie training camp and occasionally vexed him while practicing with the vets late in June and in early August. We saw at least two poor snaps in the preseason as well, both in the Buffalo game.

They both kind of worked out but bad snaps generally do not. More than an individual blocking failure, bad snaps result in lost drives and turnovers.

Two bad snaps in 73 plays is a higher rate than any other center in the league would put together. They’re typically rare enough that an individual center wouldn’t put together more than one over the course of several games.

That’s not to say Elflein wasn’t without his individual blocking failures, either.

He’s had some issues sustaining blocks — he can often win position, but doesn’t maintain grip through the block and prevent tackles. While noted for a few reps where he pancaked the opposing defensive lineman, he’s had more issues keeping defenders blocked than positive plays where he blocks through the whistle.

Even on plays that some find positive, he likely caused more problems than he solved. For example, he’s been lauded for his push on the play below, but really he created an opportunity for a tackle at the line of scrimmage.

It really does look like Elflein pushed Ahtyba Rubin downfield, but Rubin intentionally disengaged to pursue Cook, which looks a lot like the push. It just so happens that Cook breaks the tackle, but it still goes down as a negative play for Elflein.

He also occasionally misses at the second level. It’s created problems in the backfield in both games, but the most obvious example was in the Bills game where C.J. Ham narrowly avoided a big tackle-for-loss as a result of a whiff from Elflein.

This isn’t meant to argue that Elflein played poorly over the course of the two preseason games; instead, it’s a pushback on the overall impression that the media has given that he’s played spectacularly. Really, the truth is between — he definitely had good moments, but it can’t gloss over the bad moments; especially because offensive linemen cause more damage with their poor moments than the help they provide in their highlights.

Still, it’s worth noting that Elflein had a number of spectacular moments worth noting. In the 73 snaps I logged, he earned noteworthy positive grades on six of those snaps — a decent rate for a center, who often do not get a good chance to put highlight blocks together.

Nick Easton

Though Easton had some issues with the snap last year, he did well in the offseason and hasn’t had anything pop up in the preseason in that regard. Instead, his issue has been creating movement at the point of attack and preventing defenders from squeezing the running lane through him.

His negative plays haven’t always been a result of defenders releasing from their blocks to end up making the tackle, but instead closing running gaps and forcing backs to redirect into traffic; though sometimes Easton has suffered from both losing ground and losing the block, like he did here against Buffalo.

He can create push on some plays and one of the best examples of that is below, but in some of those plays he doesn’t entirely win through contact and he ends up giving up the tackle — a phenomenal play that was close to being a positive and instead resulted in a running failure.

Easton has suffered from his fair share of whiffs at the second level and it’s worth worrying about, but it’s not as severe as Elflein’s current second-level problems.

Despite being listed at the same height and weight, Elflein has shown much more functional strength but significantly less refinement. That gives Easton a likely short-term advantage — though it may not be that simple. Contrary to what that description implies, it’s Easton who has been a more boom-bust player, not Elflein.

Easton is more likely to put together a highlight play but he’s actually been more likely to give up a negative play. Here’s a cross-section of their noteworthy positive plays:

Positive Plays Player Pass Snaps Run Snaps Total Pat Elflein 10.2% 4.2% 8.2% Nick Easton 6.3% 23.1% 11.1%

Easton’s positive plays tend to come when peeling off of double teams and operating on the move, while Elflein did it more often off of the initial snap.

On the other hand, here’s a cross-section of their negative plays:

Negative Plays Player Pass Snaps Run Snaps Total Pat Elflein 8.2% 25.0% 13.7% Nick Easton 9.4% 38.5% 17.8%

The negative plays include plays where they didn’t necessarily give up pressure but made significant enough errors where it could have impacted the play — plays where a running back may have made up for losing a block in pass protection or a holding call, for example.

I think despite those results that Easton still provides less of a liability at center, especially because a good chunk of Easton’s 45 plays come at guard and Elflein’s negative plays are more impactful — not just fumbled snaps but missed blocks that result in larger tackles for loss and so forth.

At the moment, the Vikings may be better served by playing Easton to start the season, but the best long-term solution could be Elflein. As it stands, the race is certainly close enough for the answer to only appear in the final two preseason games with someone separating themselves with more consistent play.