3. Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings ended up with one of the top defenses last year. A lot of this was due to the emergence of Anthony Barr. Barr proved he can be a stud at the outside linebacker position with solid run support and stellar pass protection. With athletic tight ends basically taking over the league, a player with Barr’s traits work wonders at shutting them down.
It also helps your case when you play at a high level consistently. And I’m pretty sure playing 99% of the defensive snaps last season oozes consistency.
But Barr isn’t the only great young linebacker in the purple and gold. Eric Kendricks is the Vikings middle linebacker, and he has the same consistency as Barr. Though he’s missed three games over the course of his first two seasons, he still gets numbers and is a major threat to opposing offenses. Having Kendricks and Barr as the linebackers on a nickel set is a dangerous thing to be up against.
The Vikings third linebacker position is going to be different for the first time in years. Longtime Viking Chad Greenway finally retired after last season and the Vikings are holding a competition for who can fill that void.
Currently, it looks like last season’s backup Emmanuel Lamur is going to get the starting nod. However, as teams seem to be in nickel or three safety sets more and more, I don’t see him getting nearly the amount of snaps as Barr or Kendricks.
And that low amount of snaps may actually help rookie Ben Geoden get into games earlier. The rookie out of the University of Michigan may be an inside linebacker, but he should be able to work outside on three linebacker sets. I believe his ceiling is higher than Lamur’s so I think he should see the field pretty quickly.