COACH’S CORNER
Looking at the Vikings’ offensive line with assistant defensive line coach
The Vikings return all five starters from an offensive line that cleared the paths and opened the holes for running back Adrian Peterson to surpass 2,000 rushing yards last year.
Beating left tackle Matt Kalil, left guard Charlie Johnson, center John Sullivan, right guard Brandon Fusco and right tackle Phil Loadholt and getting to Peterson will be a challenge for the Bears on Sunday.
‘‘First of all, they’re big and they open holes,’’ Sinclair said. ‘‘They get Adrian Peterson to the second level. I mean, the guy almost broke Eric Dickerson’s record last year. You have to worry about stopping the run against those guys. You’ve got to get your pads down. You’ve got to play with technique.
‘‘It’s basically a fight, and you have to stay in the fight. You have to at least get those guys into a third-and-7, third-and-8 to get after them. Because if you’re sitting there at thirdand-4, you know they’re going to hand the ball off and they’ve got that monster they have in the backfield. He can get you four yards. So you’ve got to jump on them fast.”
The Vikings primarily use a man-blocking scheme up front to let Peterson get downhill.
‘‘We call it big-on-big, and whichever guy has the oneon-one, that guy has to win,’’ Sinclair said. ‘‘Whoever those guys are that are singled, they have to win one-on-ones.
‘‘We’ve got to be who we are, and that’s relentless. We’ve got to have determination.’’