With the injury to Phil Loadholt in the preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you’ve no doubt heard that Vikings fourth-round rookie T.J. Clemmings will fill in. Normally, hearing that a "fourth-round rookie" will be forced to start (instead of "earning" the job in a traditional way) would be cause for alarm.

Clemmings, of course, was "supposed" to be a first-rounder (and the consensus board I constructed ranked him 27th overall), but he fell in part or almost entirely due to long-term concerns about a fracture in his foot.

I don’t think that much matters in the short term—that is, I don’t think either the foot fracture or where he was "supposed" to go matters in terms of short-term security in the pocket because Clemmings wasn’t really billed as a first-year starter, and for good reason. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a combination of his foot injury and his raw technique that dropped him. After all, he’s only played offensive line for two years (going on three).

That should worry Vikings fans. I think regardless of what we see in the preseason, those things will show up. At a high level in the NFL, experience, technique and refinement matter much more than physical ability. Moreover, offensive tackle is a much more difficult position to master from a technical perspective than it is on the other side of the ball because of how unnatural it is to move one’s feet on the offensive line.

A phenomenal piece by Eric Stoner goes over the issues with respect to Clemmings (you should read it instead of this if you only have one choice), but I’ll quote a little bit of it here:

Where the Drive step is straight ahead, and the J-Step begins with a lateral movement, the 45 degree angle of the Trap Step is usually the most difficult step for offensive lineman to apply the concept of "gaining ground" to. It doesn’t feel natural, and the most common response for an offensive lineman who hasn’t repetitively practiced this step is to pick his foot up, place it right back down in the same spot it started, pivot the foot and lean with his upper body, and then not actually start moving until the second step. ... These take practice because they’re not natural movements, especially when moving full speed. However, they can be improved through repetition and by picking up little tricks – like curling the toes of the non-stepping foot, which creates a natural push-off or springing effect (seriously, try it). ... It will take thousands of repetitions for him to consistently gain ground with his first two steps – and he might even face setbacks with his feet as he adjusts to the speed of the NFL. The second thing that may prevent Clemmings from being a functional run blocker early in his career is that he hasn’t learned to involve his hips in his movement. Unlike footwork, which can usually be improved through repetition, a lack of hip range of motion usually is the result of a physical limitation (some players simply don’t have the flexibility to sink and/or roll their hips – their range of motion comes totally from their waist instead of their hips, knees, and ankles). What makes it tricky with Clemmings, however, is that he’s only played offensive tackle for two years. Again, we’re talking about very unnatural stances and movements, so it could simply be a matter of comfort and experience as opposed to inflexibility. ... Clemmings’ prospects as a pro largely come down to whether he starts trusting his own feet. So much of playing offensive line is having confidence in your technique. The temptation will be there for a team to play him early, especially because his length gives him the recovery ability to survive as a pass protector until his footwork catches up. If he plays early however, I think he’ll be a liability in the run game, and you also run the risk of him developing bad habits as he tries to survive against the speed of the NFL game.

Stoner goes into detail with images, GIFs and videos that demonstrate his points and makes an interesting argument: that Clemmings may learn more solid fundamentals in pass protection early on than in run blocking—typically seen by draft evaluators, analysts and fans as less technically refined than pass blocking (perhaps because of the overriding finesse v. physicality divide people view passing and running)—and it’s an interesting point to make.

Noted third-party scout, Lance Zierlein (son of Larry Zierlein, former offensive line coach for Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and current offensive line coach for the Arizona Cardinals) mentioned on Josh Norris' Process the Process podcast that T.J. Clemmings had big issues in the Senior Bowl directly related to his inexperience, in particular a "panic" he had against edge rushers.

Regardless, Clemmings’ role on the team has expanded sooner than many expected, including the team that drafted him. While that’s the role of backups (duh), especially along the offensive line, it’s still worrisome.

With what seemed to be solid play with the first team against Tampa Bay, it's worth evaluating everything we can about the former Pitt tackle, in part because the first-team snaps against Tampa Bay were so few and in part because that's just how I write.

Training Camp

:-|

Clemmings was not good in training camp, though like Kalil, he did noticeably improve over time. Still, when weighting for time, he still was one of the worst linemen in camp. Below is a fully updated table that includes every day the Vikings spent at camp, weighted so that recent results matter more than results on the first or second days (the final two days of camp count for half the grade, and there's a reduction in weight every two days until the first days of padded one-on-ones only count for a sixth of the grade).

Player Rank Tom Johnson 1 Linval Joseph 2 Joe Berger 3 Brandon Fusco 4 Justin Trattou 5 Tom Farniok 6 Scott Crichton 7 Leon Mackey 8 Zac Kerin 9 Sharrif Floyd 10 Brian Robison 11 Danielle Hunter 12 Matt Kalil 13 John Sullivan 14 Shamar Stephen 15 Everson Griffen 16 David Yankey 17 Caesar Rayford 18 Phil Loadholt 19 B.J. Dubose 20 Chrishon Rose 21 Mike Harris 22 Chigbo Anunoby 23 Bobby Vardaro 24 Tyrus Thompson 25 Carter Bykowski 26 Austin Shepherd 27 T.J. Clemmings 28 Babatunde Aiyegbusi 29 Isame Faciane 30





Even with improvements late in camp improving his score, the fact that he ranks at the bottom is more concerning to me at the moment than an alright performance in 13 snaps of a preseason game.

Sidenote: once you add Kalil's final set of one-on-ones and weight them highly, he jumps to 13th! Loadholt drops to 19th, so I guess... actually he only took six snaps in one-on-ones in the final two days and two of them were losses to Robison with four wins. We're playing with fire when weighting such small data, and that may mean an artificial improvement for some, with artificial decline for others. This does not affect Clemmings too much as he ranks 28th either way. Here's the full data without weighting:

Player Rank Linval Joseph 1 Tom Johnson 2 Brandon Fusco 3 Joe Berger 4 John Sullivan 4 Scott Crichton 6 Phil Loadholt 7 Brian Robison 8 Shamar Stephen 9 Mike Harris 10 Sharrif Floyd 11 Justin Trattou 12 Zac Kerin 13 Tom Farniok 14 Everson Griffen 15 Tyrus Thompson 16 Leon Mackey 17 David Yankey 18 Chigbo Anunoby 19 Danielle Hunter 20 Austin Shepherd 21 Chrishon Rose 22 Matt Kalil 23 Isame Faciane 24 B.J. Dubose 25 Caesar Rayford 26 Babatunde Aiyegbusi 27 T.J. Clemmings 28 Bobby Vardaro 29 Carter Bykowski 30

Regardless, those rankings don't mean much so long as we have other kinds of data worth looking at. The next set of information we can draw upon are things like camp reports. I don't have anything in the notebook for him from my most recent set, but there's these tidbits from further back (days three and four):

Nope. He got burned by everybody, though it doesn't help that most of the time, he lined up against Brian Robison. Give him a year, though. While Thompson ran hot and cold from game to game at OU, Clemmings ran hot and cold from play to play at Pitt. His footwork was a mess coming out and that probably had a lot to do with his day yesterday.

The other notebooks both say he "didn't have an extraordinary outing," which both reveals his level of play and my inability to vary my wording from piece to piece.

When asked, I said the following the comments section of the most expansive notebook:

He wins against good players and loses against bad players, but he loses more than he wins, thus the chart. Looked great in the HOF game, as you've heard. But streaky in camp.

There are also these, from late in camp (arranged chronologically):

DL OL one on ones concluded. Good: Tyrus Thompson, Crichton, Hunter, Robison, Loadholt, Linval Joseph. Bad: Kalil, Harris, Clemmings — Arif Hasan (@ArifHasanNFL) July 29, 2015

Loadholt, Sully, Tyrus, Joseph and Hunter looked great. Farniok looked good. Yankey, Babs, Berger, Clemmings, Vardaro and Bykowski struggled — Arif Hasan (@ArifHasanNFL) July 31, 2015

Clemmings and Kalil looked better in one on ones, Tyrus not as much. Good looks for Linval and Tom Johnson, as well as Everson — Arif Hasan (@ArifHasanNFL) August 2, 2015

One on ones over. Loadholt continues to look dominant. Hunter flashes. Clemmings better but still bad. Kalil turnstyle. Good day for Mackey. — Arif Hasan (@ArifHasanNFL) August 3, 2015

Other folks at camp, like Daniel House, generally agreed with those assessments when they were tweeted out.

The most obvious data to look, however, at is the full spectrum of his film, not just a handful of snaps with the ones in one game (though in fairness, more snaps in two half-games is not that much more). To the extent we can isolate his play from the level of play of his opponent, I'll attempt to do.

#GameFilm

Film here is used sarcastically, because the broadcast view isn't always great (though better in the preseason at times than the regular season, and worse at times because of really terrible camera-work—they use wider angles, but cut to the action late and have fewer replays). Without end-zone view, we'll often miss some very good angles that help inform our evaluations.

The first hurdle we have to overcome (other than the quality of footage for the purpose of offensive line evaluation) is assignment. A number of people, me included, often make fun of the phrase "you don't know the call" when coaches dismiss third-hand analyses (usually critical), but we have to be honest when it is unclear and impacts our evaluation. Here's an example:

If Clemmings wasn't supposed to take on the strong inside linebacker and target the weak inside linebacker, he did his job excellently. I'm not sure who had Sean Spence on the play, but given that this looks like a zone play and Clemmings is either uncovered (depending on the rules and the exact stance of the EMLOS—end man on the line of scrimmage) it is probable that Clemmings either had Spence or Arthur Moats. If he had Moats, MyCole Pruitt did an excellent job adapting and picking him up. I think it's more likely that Clemmings had Spence and just screwed up his assignment. But the key is that this play involves more guesswork than most..

By the way, if Clemmings was right... holy hell, what a play. That's what the Vikings paid for and that's just impressive. Goodness.

I will say that there are aspects of Clemmings' play that impressed me, so I'll start with that. In pass protection, he consistently keeps his arms relaxed and brings up his hands at the appropriate time and punches well. In the past, I've lauded the 2012 version of Matt Kalil for using his inside hand and lamented the inconsistency of 2014 Kalil in the same respect. So far, Clemmings seems to have mastered the use of the inside hand to control the rusher.

I've slowed down the following GIF, which is an awesome example of exactly what I'm talking about, here:

And it's really good against the spin move.

Clemmings has the patience to wait for the defensive end to declare, punches with his left hand on the inside shoulder of the end at the right time, and controls the interaction. A lot of offensive line coaches want this, because it prevents counter moves against outside rushes because it allows the tackle to catch those counters easily (there are other, often extremely good, coaches that don't preach this as often—Howard Mudd is a good example).

Some people don't like it because it means the hands aren't on the inside of the defender, when they can do the most damage, but the pass protection technique needs to be integrated; a tackle that eschews patience and space should get inside a defender's pads early in pass protection, while those who use space and a vertical set in pass protection should be much more concerned about using leverage to power.

In this case, it's a good thing, and the above GIF is an example why: Clemmings "caught" George Johnson when he was moving inside, and Clemmings was able to push Johnson through the pocket and Johnson (despite having his hands up haphazardly) did not materially affect the play.

This is a consistent feature I've seen in Clemmings' snaps in the two preseason games that makes me pretty comfortable with this trait of his. I suspect it's a particular emphasis for Clemmings and this coaching staff because the issue that Zierlein mentioned for Clemmings at the Senior Bowl was oversetting—the "panic" was a fear of edge rushers beating him around the corner.

Something else that impressed me, and was mentioned by Mike Wobschall at Vikings.com, was Clemmings' communication in picking up his pass protection assignment. Wobby is almost always going to isolate positive plays over negative, but in this case his observation for the two plays he looked at were spot on with the rest of the observations I had about Clemmings' ability to handle stunts and twists.

The inside hand, to some degree, provides some leverage against that habit from a coaching perspective. For the moment, however, it's creating some other problems. Though lauded for his play in both games (including by this idiot), technical flaws that point to future problems cropped up in second and third viewing.

Despite that problem in the Senior Bowl, he has an extraordinary issue dealing with explosive edge rushers who have flexibility. Initially, I was able to dismiss this observation because the first instance may have had some degree of design as the chip by Jerick McKinnon here may imply:

He looks lost here and is late off the snap, but I didn't mind it because it had no impact: Jerick reset the edge rusher and if he was always supposed to do that, all Clemmings really has to do is stay in range and prevent inside moves, which he does. But it became a pretty frequent problem for him. Against the Steelers, the rookie could have counted his blessings that Bud Dupree has all the flexibility of wooden plank (or Roger Goodell).

Or, with two stills:

Dupree, raw himself, doesn't go underneath Clemmings or really bend at all to take advantage of the position he has. Given that Mike Kafka took two or so hitch steps, a player as fast as Dupree should at least get a hit, but he doesn't even have pressure.

Clemmings so far hasn't had a ton of reps against both speed and flexibility, but those are not in short supply once the NFL season starts, even at the left end positions where it's supposed to be a bit more uncommon. Here's what happens when a player flashes both:

Imagine what will happen when it's someone better (either slightly more explosive or slightly more flexible) than Da'Quan Bowers. That makes the compliment Brandon Fusco gave of Clemmings so interesting:

Fusco on RT Clemmings: "Not a big fat guy. He’s big, but athletic looking. He has pretty good feet. Really been impressed with his feet." — Andrew Krammer (@Andrew_Krammer) August 18, 2015

That's not really what I see, but Fusco could be talking about a different aspect of footwork than I am. The biggest concern (or one of the biggest concerns) for Clemmings in the context of learning NFL-level offensive line play are the first three steps, and as far as my untrained eyes can see, those first two or three steps are actually pretty good.

The Vikings will be using more vertical sets this year than in years previous (I think, I don't know) and that should make things simpler for both Matt Kalil and T.J. Clemmings in part because it's a relatively universal way to set up passes and adjusts easily to different drop depths for quarterbacks. His first steps in those sets will be important, but they are probably good.

With time, Clemmings' sets on longer pass plays should be smoother (an issue, seemingly, with that GIF above).

My issue is more that Clemmings can't seem to unify his feet and hands, where he tends to stop or stutter his feet once he initiates (or receives) contact.

The second example is a better representation than the first one because of the chip help, but both (along with the reps against Bowers) get the point across. Dead feet equals dead Teddy.

Luckily for evaluation, but perhaps unluckily for the integrity of the quarterback, there's a good chance that Clemmings will get a test of that kind against the Raiders. Khalil Mack has a relatively classic set of traits where that is concerned:

Whereas Justin Tuck can (and much less often at this age) simply turn the edge when he has position (like wide receiver getting position on cornerbacks, edge-rushers almost always win against tackles when they are hip-to-hip):

Given that the Raiders have played both of them on the left side (the offense's right) at various times throughout the year and a little bit during the preseason, it is likely Clemmings will see both of them. The real worry may come against the Lions or the Chiefs in Weeks 2 or 5. I don't need to tell you that Justin Houston is good, but:

That's not possible.

It's a specific skill set that, at the moment, seems to be causing some big problems for Clemmings. It's not the only issue he has, but to me it's a glaring one.

He also is not performing as well as a run blocker as I would like. Though yes, his performance in the play Wobby highlighted at the end of his (very well-done) video was good on the second level. But I had serious issues with both his balance and his finishing. Normally, finishing blocks is not something I focus on because I think it gets a tad overrated by those who want more visible signs of attitude than it does affect the play. In the case of Clemmings, his inability to finish impacted a number of plays in both games.

Those issues often combine. In the first GIF, I've both paused the first frame and slowed it down because the broadcast cuts back in from an interview mid-play:

I did identify an instance in pass protection where Clemmings did not finish, but a lot of you took exception to that. I really do think that Clemmings' performance on the play is a big reason that the broken two-point conversion attempt failed. To be clear—the breakdown in pass protection on that play from Sullivan and Kalil are not what I am talking about—I am talking about the free defender who tackled Bridgewater on the scramble.

As an aside, there is another instance of an unfinished block in that piece; Clemmings' unfinished block on the run from the three-yard line was something at the time I did not mind. I still do not, because he still forced a very inefficient path from the defender. That's not the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Just keep mirroring until the defender stops trying, man.

There are other instances in run blocking that are unrelated to his balance where he doesn't finish, but I think balance is the priority. I don't think it has anything to do with his attitude, which Stephen White (former Bucs defensive end) pointed out was just nasty in college. I think it's all about his adjustment to the NFL game and the new techniques he's learning—without muscle memory to rely on.

He had a lot of issues staying stout against power "late" in the Bucs game (late for him, but in actuality in the second quarter). Though he didn't give up a hit against bull rushes, he got walked into the quarterback's lap at least twice. He has to get rid of those hops:

He was not phenomenal at the second level, either:

To both of those GIFs above, those were significantly less common or significant as problems throughout his snaps as his issues with balance or against speed, but they are nits to pick. He did execute some second-level blocks well, including a very difficult block at the goal line of a linebacker, which Wobby outlined (as mentioned above). He also had some excellent plays against power, but happened to struggle a little bit at times.

One thing worth mentioning as a positive is his recovery. When he loses initial position or doesn't get his set right at the snap, he has the athletic movement ability and flexibility to get into position and turn a loss into a win. In particular he seems to learn from losses and recover. Almost immediately after losing to George Johnson in the speed and flexibility example a few GIFs above, he did this:

Still, I don't think the Vikings are banking on him learning after the fact—there's a ton of ways to lose in the NFL, and if Clemmings checks the list off before fixing problems, that will be an issue. Recovery is important and every tackle at every level of play needs it, but it won't be enough for him to fix consistent issues in his game.

I'm worried. I think Clemmings has a lot of exploitable tendencies, ones that will become apparent in the regular season and can cause serious problems for the Vikings and Teddy Bridgewater in particular. I think he's not ready as a run blocker or pass protector.

None of this is to say that Clemmings is not an astounding player. He is, but that isn't the same as saying he's an NFL-ready player. His growth has been nothing short of astounding and he's well ahead of where his development curve should be. He learns quickly and I think it's as clear as it can be this early in a career that the Vikings really did get a steal in the fourth. That's not the same as being ready to play early, but it's a lot closer to it than one would expect.

But let's not end the "film" work on a down note. Take a look at Clemmings against what Bud Dupree does best: power.

And it's not bad to pop in a pass protection highlight every so often, even if everybody else was bad:

#STATS

There's more to evaluation than film, and one of the biggest risks with film work is losing the forest for the trees. In that context, statistics (when available) provide a lot of great context that allow you to take a step back and reconsider those conclusions. I'm not sure they are that helpful in this case.

Pro Football Focus is probably the best (or at least the easiest) place to go to in terms of compiling offensive linemen stats. Worth noting, they were fans of his coming out of college.

He made their All-America team, and they called Clemmings a "value pick" for the Vikings. They believed this so much, that they put him in their "top ten draft steals" column. Phrases that pop out from those columns: "No tackle was better last season at finding linebackers in space and engaging," "The Pittsburgh tackle finished with the highest run blocking grade among all tackles last season," and "There isn't a tackle who destroys defenders like him, and he could immediately latch on as a sixth lineman in jumbo packages while he becomes a more comfortable pass protector."

But they also had some caution. The Senior Bowl wasn't revelatory for them, they always knew he had pass protection issues, but it was stark. He made their "buyer beware" column because of his pass protection, when he gave up five pressures in 28 pass-blocking snaps. In there, they included this gem: "Was beaten in pass pro four separate times against Virginia. Not by Max Valles or Eli Harold, but by Mike Moore."

Also something they didn't note about his run blocking, his consistency didn't match his grade—implying that he had mistakes or failures counteracted by highlight-level blocks. He doesn't have his efficiency listed in the article, but a #1 grade and a #11 efficiency rate (at best) still implies a high degree of variability. For what it's worth, it feels like his failure rate is higher.

Overall, he's ranked 57th of 78 offensive tackles to have taken at least 25% of their team's snaps at OT in the preseason, a combination of a +0.1 grade in pass protection and -2.2 grade in run blocking. That positive grade in pass protection is reflective of results, not process, and the difference can be important in the context of evaluation with limited sample size.

Further, his pass protection statistics are not great. With two hits and a hurry allowed, his 93.2 efficiency rating in pass protection in the preseason, which would rank 48th of 54 OTs during the regular season last year. Running backs averaged 0.0 yards per carry running off of him in the Tampa Bay game and 2.0 yards per carry in the Hall of Fame game (on the other hand, the sample size for both games is "one run each").

I catalogued the success rate, from my perspective (not results-oriented but process-oriented—"would this type of play result in a loss in typical play?") for both pass plays and run plays and compared them to the success rates of the played lined up at left tackle at the same time. I removed all plays with a chip in pass protection, but kept the plays that might have been difficult to diagnose and gave the benefit of the doubt to the player in terms of engaging his assignment.

The results weren't good. Though his pass-protection success rate (68.9%) was very close to his opposite (69.0%), but Carter Bykowski was awful (-2.3 pass block grade for what it's worth) and tanked Kalil's otherwise excellent 88.9% success rate.

More surprised was T.J. Clemmings in the run game. The LT opposite him had a score of 90.5% overall, which is very good. But Clemmings had a success rate of 71.4%, not too different from his pass blocking efficiency (Kalil was closer to average at 80%).

Again, these are small samples of data, and they don't involve processes that are known to repeat in the data (and certainly less than contextual film analysis does), but there aren't a ton of glimmers of hope that indicate that Clemmings can be an effective tackle, at least early in the season. The combination of his training camp player, a closer look at the processes involved in his play during the preseason and what little we have available to us in terms of statistics reify the worry I had when I first learned that Loadholt went down.

We'll see more soon to see if my pessimism holds up throughout the preseason. Even if not, I expect to see a lot of tight end and running back chips to keep Teddy safe. I hope they'll work.