How Nick Easton Upended Alex Boone

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Sep 5, 2017

On Saturday, the Vikings stunned both local and national media at large when they released Alex Boone, saving $3.4M in cap space and incurring a $3.5M dead cap penalty. Presumably, this leaves former Center and Gerald Hodges pot sweetener Nick Easton as the starting left guard.

While some picked up on this during the preseason, in particular Easton’s chemistry next to center Pat Elflein, nobody saw it coming a month ago. Easton had a lot of ground to make up, and still the move is controversial, as Arif Hasan wrote for Zone Coverage. In that piece, Hasan admits the flaws that Boone showed over the preseason, but that there’s a lot of space between Boone’s performance and an unrosterable offensive lineman.

In charting the three preseason games where Boone and Easton played, Hasan’s assessment of the situation became clear. Boone made some mistakes, but the mistakes were often less detrimental than Easton’s. Easton had more flash plays than Boone, however, that’s less important for an offensive lineman. Ultimately, they seemed neck and neck. But when the starter plays the 1s and the backup plays the 2s, you need to see a greater gap between the two to pull that trigger.

Setting up the battle chronologically sheds more light on Easton’s victory. Both Boone and Easton were quiet at left guard in the first preseason game, and Easton only took 5 snaps at that position. It didn’t seem to be on the Vikings’ radar that they could shed Boone and move forward.

Boone suffered a small knee injury between the Bills and Seahawks games, giving the Vikings the opportunity to test out the combination that they’d ultimately stick with- Easton next to Elflein. Easton put together a fantastic performance with only a few mistakes, but many flash plays. He held up against some of the defining superstars of the Seahawks defense and leapt off the tape. I imagine this is when the Vikings started thinking about benching Boone, if not cutting him.

In the third game, Easton and Boone seemed to be relatively even once again. Boone was a bit more stable, while Easton had higher highs and lower lows. This was overshadowed by Easton’s abysmal performance at center, which loses a lot of relevance in the current context. After three games, it seemed apparent that Easton, if asked, could fill in for Boone with little to no dropoff in quality. Neither player played in the final preseason game- the Vikings had seen enough.

By my (extremely subjective) count, Boone made seven mistakes to Easton’s eight, with Easton taking over 20 more snaps at left guard. Stripping away contract and context, Easton was the better player. But not by much, and if one tore his ACL in practice, I’d have no issues with the other filling in. Starting Easton is bold, but the right choice. Cutting Boone entirely is a different discussion.

There’s some intrigue to the move that can’t be explained by on-field performance alone. After the cut, some details emerged. Boone wasn’t experienced in a zone scheme, a switch the Vikings have made for this season. The Vikings asked Boone to take a pay cut, and his refusal must have certainly played into the decision. Fans posit that Boone’s brash, loud attitude contributed to the decision, but I find it hard to prove that the Vikings even care about Boone’s annoying pressers. Saving a few million dollars is helpful, but after three years of detrimental offensive line play, that’s not the biggest pill to swallow in exchange for sorely needed depth. An expensive backup might look silly, but that’s no reason to take unnecessary risk.

Perhaps the oddest unsolved mystery is the Vikings’ refusal to try Alex Boone at left tackle, his position in college and a talking point throughout all of 2016’s left tackle woes. While Riley Reiff is the owner of the job, versatility in the line is something the Vikings have valued almost to a fault with Elflein, Easton, Danny Isidora, Joe Berger and Jeremiah Sirles. What’s different?

To speculate, Boone may have taken issue with the idea of taking a backup job. In addition to refusing a pay cut, he may have preferred a cut to a benching. While there’s no reason the Vikings have to honor that request, it may be better to purge the locker room of a disgruntled, loud, former locker room leader than let him inject toxicity into an otherwise enjoyable dynamic. It would be unfortunate to let the ego of a player sabotage your competitive insurance, but here we are.

As for Easton, his acquisition casts a completely different light on Vikings management. After trading Gerald Hodges, who has since been cut twice, the Vikings acquired a player who appears developed enough for starting NFL value at a position of sore need. While Boone’s $3.4M savings are a bit suspect for this year, savings over the next two years will have a massive impact. If Nick Easton continues his level of play at the preseason, which isn’t so transcendent as to be unsustainable, that trade registers as a much-needed win in among a sea of draft busts, failed experiments and ligament tears.

Thanks for reading!

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