Minnesota Vikings: Kyle Rudolph and our trap of high expectations
Raise your hand if you ever drafted Minnesota Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph high in fantasy, hoping that he would be the next breakout player at that position. Keep your hand up if he met your return on investment. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
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In five NFL seasons, Kyle Rudolph has played in all 16 games twice, and he’s never hit 500 receiving yards in a single season for the Minnesota Vikings. For reference, even Owen Daniels, Richard Rodgers, Brian Hartline, and Andre Johnson met that mark last season.
Being five yards off the pace of 500 is splitting hairs if we’re comparing his yardage total to, say Daniels’s, and it’s true that Rudolph was stuck in a notoriously low-volume passing attack. I should give him praise for catching five touchdown passes from a quarterback who threw just 14 of them in 2015, but he’s already given himself enough credit.
St. Paul Pioneer Press beat writer Chris Tomasson’s article on Rudolph is aptly titled “Vikings’ Kyle Rudolph: Top tight ends do more than catch passes”.
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It’s hard to criticize that, and I’m sure the likes of Rob Gronkowski, Delanie Walker, and Jason Witten would nod their heads in synchronized agreement. Of course, someone like Jimmy Graham would disagree, but he’s a wide receiver, right?
Anyway, more interesting than the title is the fact that Rudolph is holding steady with his 2014 proclamation that he is the NFL’s best tight end. At the time, he also touted his blocking ability in the running game as a reason for his belief that he’s up there with the Gronks and Wittens of the world.
This offseason, he had this to say:
"“The world revolves around fantasy football. That’s just the nature of sports right now, and that’s just the way it is. But I know that when I come to work every Monday, and I (watch) the film, I may have only caught two balls, but if I did my job in the run game and pass protection, (Vikings coach Mike Zimmer) is going to be happy.”"
Aside from the fact that it is awfully convenient to point to something unquantifiable and entirely subjective as your primary source of evidence, who am I to rain on Rudolph’s parade? Who am I to cite Pro Football Focus’s blocking grades or a random collection of tweets out there? Rudolph deserves to think he’s the best, and he doesn’t owe us a reason why.
What’s more interesting is our perception of Rudolph, because it goes back to how he’s been hyped up by the national, local, and fantasy-related media in the past.
When Norv Turner first took the Vikings offensive coordinator gig in 2014, the hype train left the station, perhaps with more passengers than it could handle. Here are three examples of the buzz around Rudolph at the time. There are, of course, many more, and I would not recommend taking the time to search through them, simply because they all convincingly make the same points.
Connecting the dots and betting on a breakout year from Rudolph under Turner was not foolish by any means, because the former Notre Dame standout was a Pro Bowler in 2012 with an impressive nine touchdown receptions. At 6’6″, 259 pounds with long arms and well-praised hands, Rudolph seemed like a safe bet, and he wasn’t left wanting in the athleticism department either.
Rudolph’s expectations in 2014 went unfulfilled, but they didn’t die. Prior to the 2015 season, one fantasy expert opined that it was “completely crazy” to project Rudolph behind Tyler Eifert and Jordan Reed in fantasy.
It’s easy to look at the numbers Eifert and Reed put up, compare that to Rudolph’s ho-hum 49/495/5 and conclude that his season was a failure, but his status as a 2015 flop only exists if you compare him to false expectations.
Why do I say Rudolph has fallen into trap? Because when he talks about how he’s the best tight end in the NFL, it seems like he’s feeding into those previous narratives a little bit too much. At 26, Rudolph still has time to become a top tight end, but it is just irresponsible to project that. We’ve seen him play for five years, and he’s never looked like a transcendent pass-catcher a la Reed, Greg Olsen, or whichever fantasy star you want to name.
And that’s OK, because not all of us are solely focused on fantasy production. As Rudolph notes, there’s more to playing the tight end position than the numbers.
When the Rudolph breakout projections began, the narrative was that he would be the next Antonio Gates or Jordan Cameron. Not only is he an entirely different player from either of those two, but that’s not exactly a brilliantly constructed sample size.
The assumption that Turner would use Rudolph exactly like past tight ends was flawed at best, and at the time, who could have foreseen him bulking up into more of an in-line blocker?
With a backfield of Adrian Peterson and Jerick McKinnon entrenched and the drafting of both Laquon Treadwell and Moritz Böhringer, Rudolph’s role in the offense from 2015 seems to be solidified. Instead of being the next Gates or Cameron, he’s more of a poor man’s Witten or Heath Miller, if you’ll allow me to make a familiar comparison that most fans can relate to.
When the Vikings hired Turner, Rudolph signed a six-year contract worth $37.46 million, and that included $18.5 million in guaranteed money. So the expectations don’t solely stem from the media, nor were they unfounded to begin with. If they were willing to spend that kind of dough on Rudolph, it was only reasonable to predict a huge role. Even today, Coby Fleener, Walker, and Cameron make less money per year than Rudolph on their current contracts.
What do writers think about Rudolph today? It’s a mixed bag, but it’s mostly a positive one. Viking Territory’s Carl Knowles believes he is “primed for prominence”, citing the hiring of Pat Shurmur as one argument, and Viking Update’s John Holler’s piece strikes a cautiously optimistic tone.
As for me, I hate the term “breakout”. I love that Rudolph and Teddy Bridgewater are developing a rapport, but a team-low catch rate in the red zone, steadily low yards per reception totals, and a 28.6% catch rate on 20+ yard passes scare me off.
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Yet, because Rudolph is safe on third downs, showed flashes with a team-high three red zone scores and two 20+ yard TDs, and plays a key role blocking, I’m willing to say that he’s a fine starting tight end in this league. Not the best, probably (notice that I am leaving the possibility open) not a breakout star, but still solid.
Let’s forget the past expectations, and reset what we think of Rudolph as a player, keeping our fantasy football thoughts on him out of the picture.