Maybe the Vikings know something
Tight end Josh Oliver recently got a pretty impressive contract extension from the Minnesota Vikings, and it may have struck a lot of people as unusual given that he wasn’t particularly productive based on the numbers that we can see. However, there’s a reason that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and company opened the checkbook for him for a second time.
Bill Barnwell of ESPN has a list of players who are the best at particularly specialized roles around the NFL, and he has Oliver listed as the best blocking tight end in the NFL, which is something that we really don’t have any quantifiable numbers for.
Here is Barnwell’s commentary about Oliver’s abilities:
It’s clear that the Vikings see their second tight end as a critical part of the offense. As I was working on this piece, they signed Oliver to a three-year, $23.3 million extension, which would seem to be a lofty figure for a player with 701 career receiving yards across six NFL seasons with three different teams. It’s the second time the Vikings have paid Oliver, who joined the team on a three-year, $21 million deal two years ago.
The numbers back up the idea that Oliver is an elite blocker. He ranked fourth among eligible tight ends in ESPN’s run block win rate a year ago, finishing just behind a former teammate in now-Jaguars tight end Johnny Mundt. NFL Next Gen Stats credited Oliver with only two pressures allowed across 55 pass-blocking snaps, producing a pressure rate that was just about half the league average among tight ends.
With the commitments they’ve made this offseason in both free agency and the Draft, it’s pretty clear that the Vikings want to make a greater commitment to improving the run game and balancing the offense out a bit. They’ve upgraded the interior of the offensive line and brought in young Jordan Mason to work in tandem with Aaron Jones in the backfield, and having a player like Oliver on the field will allow them to lean more into that. As Barnwell points out, he’s just dangerous enough in the passing game where teams have to pay attention to him, meaning his presence on the field shouldn’t really give anything away to the opposing defense.
Did the Vikings give Oliver too much money for the role he plays? That remains to be seen. However, given his ability to attract and retain talented free agents, I’m willing to give Adofo-Mensah the benefit of the doubt on this one until a reason emerges for me not to do so.