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The Vikings are taking a break from training camp workouts on Sunday before reconvening with pads on Monday. As I took my leave from Mankato Saturday afternoon, I did so with an appreciation for the chicken fingers and fries at Boomtown. I also left town with some initial thoughts and impressions from the first two days of Vikings camp.

Percy Harvin is happy now.

1. Percy Harvin's first encounter with the media since telling the world in June that he was unhappy and wanted to be traded seemed a little too well-rehearsed. It was as if he had the "I'm happy" speech all queued up. That's fine, but Vikings fans better hope he actually means it and wasn't delivering lip-service. It's hard to shake the memory of how famously Harvin and Randy Moss got along before the Superfreak was run out of town two years ago. Indeed, Moss was said to have had quite an influence on young Mr. Harvin.

First-round draft pick Matt Kalil.

6. The Vikings offensive line projects to be much better this year. Moving Charlie Johnson inside to left guard is a better use of his talents. At the other guard spot, Brandon Fusco – you know, the second-year lineman out of Slippery Rock – has the inside track. The prevailing wisdom is that it's his job to lose. Fusco's main competition will come from free agent acquisition Geoff Schwartz, who can play guard or tackle and will provide valuable depth at several positions should Fusco nail down the right guard spot. Musgrave said Saturday that both Fusco and Schwartz would be given first-team reps until a starter is discerned. Center John Sullivan has become a steadying force in the middle and was their best lineman last year. Musgrave raved about right tackle Phil Loadholt on Saturday, calling him a physical presence and team leader. And of course the left tackle spot belongs to big Matt Kalil, the Vikings' first-round draft pick this year. On Friday Kalil looked sleepy, frequently yawning while on the practice field. Then I realized that's just kind of the way he looks. And then I remembered training camp practices are often boring so it's hard to blame anyone for yawning. Don't be fooled by the sleepy façade, Kalil's ferocious power was hard to miss during individual drills.

In Part 1 of this series, we identified five Vikings who will need to improve and/or deliver upon their potential for the team to have any shot at the playoffs in 2012. We continue now with the final five players on the list.

OL Phil Loadholt – Loadholt has had an up-and-down career thus far. He’s shown flashes of brilliance as a road-grading run blocker, but has been maddeningly inconsistent in pass protection. The same massive size that allowed him to rank as Pro Football Focus’s No. 1 run blocker in the NFL last year also causes problems against quick defensive ends and linebackers. PFF counts nine sacks allowed by Loadholt (only five tackles on either the left or right side allowed more) and a whopping 32 quarterback hurries (among the 15 worst tackles in the league). With Matt Kalil theoretically locking down the left side for the next decade, John Sullivan making big money in the middle, and a number of solid veterans vying for action at the two guard spots, the spotlight will be squarely on Loadholt in his contract year. If he can harness his obvious physical talent and improve his pass blocking, he could be in line for a big-money deal next offseason. It’s unclear if the Vikes would be interested in locking him up to a lucrative long-term deal, but they’d love for him to play well enough in 2012 to make it a tough decision.

RB Toby Gerhart – Loadholt’s ability to block for the Vikings running backs might be magnified in 2012 if Adrian Peterson is either forced to miss time or isn’t back to 100 percent this season. No matter what AP’s status is, Gerhart is going to play a big role in the Vikings backfield. Gerhart played very well in two different stints as the main Vikings ballcarrier last year; he scored once and went over 90 yards twice in a three-game span that Peterson missed because of injury in Weeks 12-14, then went over 100 yards on just 11 carries in the calamitous victory over the Redskins in Week 16. We can be sure Gerhart isn’t going to single-handedly win games like AP is (or was) capable of doing, but his ability to keep the chains moving will be pivotal to the development of Christian Ponder and the passing game. If Gerhart proves incapable of carrying the load in Peterson’s stead, the Vikings have virtually no depth behind him to turn to.

DL/LB Everson Griffen – The former fourth-round pick was viewed as a second-round talent coming out of USC in 2010, and the Vikings thus far have seen both the good (four sacks and frequent quarterback pressure as a part-timer last year) and the bad (a public intoxication arrest in 2011) from Griffen early in his career. The hope is that the off-the-field issues are behind Griffen as he attempts to transition from defensive line to linebacker in 2012. As an undersized edge rusher, Griffen is a bit of a square peg in the round hole of the Vikings’ 4-3 defensive alignment, but the ability to rush the passer will play in any scheme. Griffen has obvious physical talents (he was ranked as the No. 3 "prospect" in the NFL in a recent article by Football Outsiders), and if he continues where he left off in 2011 he could become a deadly counterpart to Jared Allen. Harrassing the likes of Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford, and Jay Cutler is obviously of paramount importance in the NFC North, so getting a productive Griffen on the field will be a key challenge for the Vikings defensive coaching staff. Griffen has the makings of a star, but there are still a lot of questions to answer.

TE John Carlson – For distinctly different reason from Chris Cook, Carlson has a lot to prove in 2012 as well. The oft-injured tight end’s pressure to perform comes solely as a result of the jaw-dropping five-year, $25 million free agent contract he landed from the Purple at the start of free agency. The addition of Carlson was surprising not only because of the size of the contract, but because of the presence of second-year tight end Kyle Rudolph, who was expected to be one of Christian Ponder’s top targets after it became clear the Vikings wouldn’t re-sign free agent Visanthe Shiancoe. Carlson, who missed all of 2011 with a shoulder injury, must prove that he still possesses the pass-catching acumen he did while racking up 12 touchdowns in 2008 and 2009 in Seattle. His arrival means the team will roll out plenty of two-tight end sets, and they likely have grand visions of a New England-type offense that features two elite pass-catching tight ends, a dominant slot receiver, and just enough outside receivers to keep a team honest. It’s ludicrous to suggest that Ponder, Carlson, Rudolph, and Percy Harvin can even approximate the well-oiled machine run by Tom Brady in New England, but it certainly appears that’s the model. If Carlson gets hurt or if offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave proves incapable of using his assets efficiently and effectively, the natives are going to get extremely restless.

QB Christian Ponder – Ponder may be the most obvious name on this list, but he’s worth discussing. Even if it turns out the front office nailed every draft pick and every offseason acquisition (and, frankly, even if the other nine names on this list all go boom in 2012), none of it will matter if Ponder can’t take significant strides forward in 2012. While he brought some excitement and displayed moments of brilliance in 2011, there were plenty of rookie mistakes and, of course, plenty of nagging injuries. Assuming Ponder stays healthy, Vikings fans need to hope he learned from his mistakes last year, that his grasp of the offense will improve after a full offseason program, and that the efforts to upgrade the offensive talent around him will bear fruit. The Vikings will undoubtedly be happy if Ponder simply shows modest improvement over 2011 and at least limits his mistakes, but will that be enough for an impatient fan base that’s been rejuvenated by the new stadium? Will it be Ponder under center when the new stadium opens in 2016? If he treads water or regresses in 2012, will the team have to move on to Plan B already next year? Will Leslie Frazier be around to find out? Will Rick Spielman? Failure to develop a first-round investment in a quarterback can set a franchise back for years. No pressure, though, Christian!

How will we look back on the Vikings' 2012 draft? The Purple could reap a harvest of multiple Pro Bowlers, consistent starters and quality reserves, as they did in 2007 and 2003. They could bring aboard a heap of busts that would make the 2005 draft look decent by comparison. Or they could land somewhere in the middle.

Let's take a look at their last 10 drafts to see how each group of rookies stack up. For the purposes of our discussion, we've sorted the picks into the following categories: 

Pro Bowlers: Actually selected to the Pro Bowl roster, not named as a replacement for an injured player or a Super Bowl participant

Starters: Have started at least eight games in a season, either for the Vikings or another team

Reserves: Made the Vikings' roster but did not start at least half of a season

Never made the roster: They might have played for somebody else, but they never made the Vikings' 53-man team.

And away we go …

2011
Pro Bowlers: None
Starters: Christian Ponder (1), Kyle Rudolph (2)
Reserves: Christian Ballard (4), Brandon Burton (5), DeMarcus Love (6), Mistral Raymond (6), Brandon Fusco (6), D'Aundre Reed (7), Stephen Burton (7)
Never made the roster: Ross Homan (6)

2010
Pro Bowlers: None
Starters: None
Reserves: Chris Cook (2), Toby Gerhart (2), Everson Griffen (4), Chris DeGeare (5), Joe Webb (6), Mickey Shuler (7), Ryan D'Imperio (7)
Never made the roster: Nate Triplett (5)

2009
Pro Bowlers: Percy Harvin (1)
Starters: Phil Loadholt (2), Asher Allen (3), Jamarca Sanford (7)
Reserves: Jasper Brinkley (5)
Never made the roster: None

2008
Pro Bowlers: None
Starters: Tyrell Johnson (2), John Sullivan (6)
Reserves: J.D. Booty (5), Letroy Guion (5), Jaymar Johnson (6)
Never made the roster: None

2007
Pro Bowlers: Adrian Peterson (1), Sidney Rice (2)
Starters: Marcus McCauley (3), Brian Robison (4)
Reserves: Aundrae Allison (5), Rufus Alexander (6)
Never made the roster: Tyler Thigpen (7), Chandler Williams (7)

2006
Pro Bowlers: None
Starters: Chad Greenway (1), Cedric Griffin (2), Ryan Cook (2), Tarvaris Jackson (2), Ray Edwards (4)
Reserves: Greg Blue (5)
Never made the roster: Tyrone Culver (6)

2005
Pro Bowlers: None
Starters: Troy Williamson (1), Erasmus James (1), Marcus Johnson (2)
Reserves: Ciatrick Fason (4), C.J. Mosley (6)
Never made the roster: Dustin Fox (3), Adrian Ward (7)

2004
Pro Bowlers: None
Starters: Kenechi Udeze (1), Darrion Scott (3), Mewelde Moore (4)
Reserves: Dontarrious Thomas (2), Nat Dorsey (4), Rod Davis (5), Jeff Dugan (7)
Never made the roster: Deandre' Eiland (6)

2003
Pro Bowlers: Kevin Williams (1), E.J. Henderson (2)
Starters: Nate Burleson (3), Eddie Johnson (6)
Reserves: Onterrio Smith (4), Mike Nattiel (6), Keenan Howry (7)
Never made the roster: None

2002
Pro Bowlers: Bryant McKinnie (1)
Starters: Brian Williams (4), Nick Rogers (6)
Reserves: Raonall Smith (2), Willie Offord (3)
Never made the roster: Edward Ta'amu (4), Chad Beasley (7)

 It’s a sad commentary that the Vikings will head into the offseason with so many glaring areas of need that it’s necessary to determine which of them is the greatest, but that’s the situation for this team. In no particular order, it’s not difficult to ascertain that the Vikes need serious help all over the secondary, on the offensive line, and at wide receiver. In my estimation, those are the three areas of greatest need. With what’s shaping up to be a top-5 (if not top-3) pick in next year’s draft, the Purple will be in a great spot to immediately address one of those three areas; let’s take an early peek at each and start to map out a plan for the offseason, which can’t come soon enough at this point.

Football doesn’t lend itself to “sophisticated” statistical analysis quite like baseball does. The entire game of baseball essentially boils down to a series of one-on-one confrontations (between pitcher and batter, for example, or fielder vs. ball), the outcome of which is easily measurable (a batter either gets a hit or he doesn’t, a hit is a single, a double, a triple, or a homer, etc.). In the NFL, there are 11 moving parts on both of sides of the ball that largely have to work in unison to make anything happen. There are no traditional statistics to measure the play of an offensive lineman, for example, or anything but the most rudimentary stats to measure the effectiveness of, say, a cornerback (interceptions and passes defensed don't tell the whole story).

There are, however, a couple of websites that have made inroads into the world of in-depth statistical analysis for the NFL. The two most prominent of these are Football Outsiders (FO) and Pro Football Focus (PFF). Others include KC Joyner’s work at ESPN and ESPN’s recently unveiled and shamelessly over-promoted Total QBR statistic. From time-to-time, I plan to use these sources (primarily FO and PFF) to enlighten you, trusty VikesCentric reader, on... well, anything that strikes my fancy as being more than passably interesting to Vikings fans.

An important caveat here is that there is a huge element of humanity involved in how both FO and PFF compile their advanced statistics. By that, I mean that they aren’t able to simply take “traditional” stats that are easy to measure, twist them up in impressively mathtastic ways, and spit out a new stat that more accurately describes an individual player’s performance (like a baseball sabermagician might do when referring to a pitcher’s FIP, for example). Instead, they have an army of presumably intelligent people that analyze every play of every game in extremely minute detail. This is referred to, generally, as game charting. And it’s not for the faint of heart. According to PFF, charting a single game takes roughly 16 hours. These people are intimately familiar with their televisions and the pause/rewind/slo-mo functions of their DVR remotes. And, as with any human endeavoer, it involves a certain amount of subjectivity on the part of the game charters. A play deemed successful by one charter may not necessarily be graded the same way by another, etc. In any case, after the charting is complete, FO and PFF have their own systems of grading the performance of, say, a cornerback or an offensive lineman.

Which brings me to a nice starting point; the Vikings offensive line, which by most accounts was expected to be a serious cause for concern coming into the season. While the results have been mixed – particularly in terms of pass protection – the game charters and math wizards would have us believe there are several notable trends emerging along the Purple’s offensive line:

1) Phil Loadholt is quietly becoming a very good right tackle.

2) John Sullivan isn’t as bad as you may have been lead to believe.

Let’s begin with Loadholt. According to PFF, Loadholt registered the highest single-game run-blocking score of his career during last week’s win over the Cardinals. Loadholt, matched up primarily with Pro Bowler Darnell Dockett, paved the way for the Vikings to average 7.0 yards per carry on runs to either side of Loadholt a week ago, and according to the ICSIWMOTE Index that I just made up (I Can See It With My Own Two Eyes Index), he threw key blocks on two of Peterson’s three touchdown runs. Loadholt was given a +3.8 rating for run blocking last week, bringing his yearly total to +9.4. Generally, a grade of 0 means a blocker did essentially what you’d expect the average NFL offensive lineman to do on any given play. A grade of +0.5 or +1 (up to a max of +2) is an indication that the player made “a positive intervention on the game” of varying degree, a negative grade means the opposite (a “negative intervention,” I suppose... soon to undoubtedly be coined a "T-Jack"). In the Loadholt example, you add up all the zeroes, positives, and negatives for every single play of last week’s game to eventually arrive at a total of +3.8. It’s science.

Putting it in a little more perspective, Loadholt’s cumulative +9.4 run blocking grade ranks first in the NFL through five weeks, well ahead of the Packers’ Bryan Bulaga and the Patriots’ Matt Light. If that hasn’t yet sunk in, according to smart people who watch every play of every game over and over and over (and over) again for up to 16 hours at a time, Phil Loadholt is the best run-blocking tackle in all of football. Even if you include guards and centers, Loadholt is still the No. 2 run-blocker in the NFL, according to PFF. Side note:  For the purposes of this analysis, I’ll conveniently overlook the fact that Loadholt has graded out at -9.7 in terms of pass blocking, due primarily to the fact that he allowed six quarterback pressures, a hit, and a sack in the come-from-ahead loss to the Lions three weeks ago. We’re talking about run blocking here, folks, not pass blocking.

The Football Outsiders tend to agree with this assessment. According to FO’s “adjusted line yards” stat (for a detailed description and to see the full rankings, click here, and consider yourself warned that it includes terms like “regression analysis,” “normalize,” and “move out of your mom’s basement already.”), the Vikings’ offensive line ranks third in the NFL on runs over right tackle, and eight in overall run blocking.

As for Sullivan, he’s also been noticeably better this year than he was during an injury-plagued 2010 campaign. Sullivan has graded out positively in the running game in all but one game thus far, and at a cumulative +4.4 for the season, he ranks as the No. 5 run-blocking center in the NFL. Last year, Sullivan earned a cumulative -7.9 grade, and only garnered positive rankings in five of the 14 games in which he played significant snaps. For the record, Loadholt came in at a whopping -14.3 in run blocking last season.

The idea of Sullivan and Loadholt creating running room can also be shown through an analysis of Adrian Peterson’s yardage gained by “rush direction.” PFF’s analysis shows that Peterson has gained 8.4 yards per carry on rushes between Sullivan and right guard Anthony Herrera, 4.7 per carry to the right of Herrera (and left of Loadholt), and 4.3 per carry over right tackle. As previously noted, FO ranks the Vikings as the third-best team in terms of runs over right tackle. And finally, if you’re looking for any additional corroboration from a more "traditional" source, Peterson's situational stat page on Yahoo indicates that he averages 5.9 yards per carry when running “right” and 5.7 when running “wide right”.

Another side note Jared Allen and Brian Robison migh find interestig heading into Week 6: The Bears' starting tackles from 2010 (and for most of 2011 after first-rounder Gabe Carimi got injured), D'Marcus Webb and Frank Omiyale ranked as the 77th- and 75th-worst tackles in the NFL last year (out of 78 that qualified for the ranking), according to PFF. In other words, with only one exception (Cardinals' revolving door Levi Brown, who finished 78th overall), neither of the two starting tackles for the Bears would have been good enough to start on any other team in the NFL.
 

Christian Peterson is the Operations Manager at LeagueSafe.com and is a contributor to Vikings.com, the 2011 Maple Street Press Vikings Annual, and the Fantasy Football Weekly radio show on Saturday Mornings on KFAN 100.3 FM.

After watching five-plus months of dismal defense across town at Target Field, Minnesota sports fans have probably had their fill of errors from the hometown team. But the second half of the Vikings loss to Tampa Bay on Sunday played out like a Twins infield of Brian Buscher, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Todd Walker and Craig Kusick.

(Pardon the blatant cross-promotion but we're trying to create some synergy with our big brothers in the TwinsCentric crew. If VikesCentric can capture a even a fraction of their loyal audience in Upper Blogistan, we'll feast like kings on those crumbs.)

To wit: Beginning at 15:00 of the third quarter, here's a list of plays that left the purple-helmeted warriors a bit red in the face: 

• 14:18 – OT Phil Loadholt jumps the snap, turning a 3^rd-and-3 into 3^rd-and-8
• 13:10 – RB Adrian Peterson commits a holding penalty in pass protection (sure, it was kind of a shaky call, but we're not here to complain about the officials … today)
• 12:02 – P Chris Kluwe hits a line-drive punt just 38 yards, allowing Preston Parker to return it 11 yards to the Vikings 44
• 10:59 – After a two-play touchdown drive, Tampa Bay surprises the Vikings with an onside kick. LB Kenny Onatolu can't recover it. The Bucs can, and do.
• 3:41 – DE Brian Robison jumps offside, negating a Vikings fumble recovery at the Tampa Bay 11
• Fourth quarter, 7:07 – DE Jared Allen is flagged for roughing the passer
• 6:39 – KR Lorenzo Booker decides to return a kickoff from six yards deep in his end zone and is stuffed at the Vikings 9
• 4:19 – DE Everson Griffen jumps the snap on a Vikings punt, pushing them back 5 yards
• 0:31 – KR Percy Harvin botches an eminently returnable kickoff, leaving the Vikings to start their last-gasp drive at their own 10

That's nine brain cramps in the span of two quarters. And we're not even talking about physical errors – incomplete passes, blown coverages, missed tackles – or Leslie Frazier's curious decision to hang onto three timeouts while the Bucs drove for the winning touchdown (as my colleague Christian Peterson so ably chronicled yesterday).

For instance, we've left out Tyrell Johnson's dropped interception that would have thwarted Tampa Bay's game-winning drive – tough play, maybe, but an NFL safety has to hang onto that ball. We're leaving out Donovan McNabb's many miscues – passes thrown at the feet of his targets, wide open receivers inexplicably ignored, another pass batted down at the line even though he's FOUR WHOLE INCHES taller than Doug Flutie!

We're leaving out those physical errors because every team commits physical errors – some more than others, sadly. But every team has to overcome physical errors. The difference between championship teams and teams that find themselves updating their draft boards two games into the season is the elimination of mental errors

Well, that and talent, I suppose. But when you're a talent-challenged team, you can ill afford to dig the hole even deeper by giving your opponents free yards and extra possessions.

Maybe we're overreacting a bit here – that's par for the course in the NFL, where you spend three hours playing a game and the next 165 hours (over-)analyzing it. But it sure looks like Leslie Frazier has more on his plate than a budding quarterback controversy in his first full season as head coach.

He'll need to exorcise the ghosts of Todd Walker at the Metrodome.

Patrick Donnelly is a Senior Editor at SportsData, contributor to the Maple Street Press Vikings 2011 Annual (on newsstands now!), and has covered the Vikings for FOXSportsNorth.com, Viking Update and the Associated Press.

You can follow Patrick on Twitter at @donnelly612.