There were moments last week when Vikings left guard Blake Brandel thought he was going to have to step over and replace Christian Darrisaw at left tackle.
“There was definitely discussion there and it was a possibility,” Brandel said after the Vikings’ 21-13 win over the Colts on Sunday night. “We were going through all the possibilities and on Tuesday we get Cam [Robinson] and it’s like, ‘Well, we’ll see if he can pick up the offense.’ And he did. Now we’re rolling. It’s a crazy turnaround.”
Robinson started for the Vikings at left tackle just five days after being traded by the Jacksonville Jaguars and only three days after his first practice with his new team. Getting Robinson ready required a group effort by coaches and players who left encouraged by their new left tackle’s debut, even if the offensive live has areas to improve after quarterback Sam Darnold was sacked four times by the Colts.
“It was an experience,” said Robinson, who started his 95th NFL game on Sunday night but his first not in a Jaguars uniform. “Definitely new, something I’ve never experienced before, but all the credit in the world to the people in the building: my teammates, my coaches, they made it an easy transition for me. … A lot of studying. … Just trying to pick up a lot in a short amount of time.”
Right tackle Brian O’Neill, a team captain, said the coaching staff simplified the offensive line’s communication plan as much as possible to accommodate Robinson on short notice. He also said Brandel, who lines up to Robinson’s right, directed him through play calls when needed before the snap.
“So much credit to [Robinson], the work he put in over the last 72 hours,” O’Neill said. “Obviously, he’s a veteran football player who’s played a lot of games. I thought our two O-line coaches, [Chris Kuper] and Shaun Sarrett, did a great job staying with him after meetings, after practice, late into the night the past couple days kind of teaching him on the fly. Then I don’t think it can be stated enough how much Blake Brandel was able to help him out over there.”
Tackle isn’t the most complex position, O’Neill said, but that doesn’t mean it easy to transition so quickly.
“There’s the hundreds of little made-up calls we have on the line at the line of scrimmage that aren’t necessarily in a playbook,” O’Neill said. “Stuff we say to each other and we know what’s going on and that we’ve been doing together for a couple years now. He was able to pick it up.”
