Alexander Mattison’s release by the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday night came as a surprise to a lot of people, but the message was quite obvious.
The Vikings want to increase the effectiveness of their running game, and they may need to make some changes in order to do so after struggling to run the ball under Kevin O’Connell for the previous two seasons.
“As you go through the cut-up evaluation process after the season, you can really kind of gauge things that worked well, things you need to improve on and things that I could do better as a coach,” O’Connell said during the NFL Scouting Combine. However, you also witness some of the individual performances, which may not necessarily stand out on the stat sheet but were nonetheless quite important.
O’Connell’s remarks offer a number of ways to strengthen a running game that finished the previous season ranked 29th overall (1,553 yards) and 23rd in yards per carry (4.0). The Vikings may resurrect the ground attack by doing some things schematically in addition to bringing a new back to the room.
Here are a few choices and their potential effects on the Vikings in 2024.
Chandler had a lot going for him, but he still needs to improve in a few areas.
When a rushing back gains at least 40% of the yards needed on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% on third or fourth down, Pro Football Reference tracks their success rate. Chandler’s 45.1 percent success percentage over 102 carries last season was not much better than Mattison’s 45 percent, which placed him 38th out of 48 qualifiers.
