MINNEAPOLIS -- Two weeks from today, Minnesota Vikings players return to the team's facility for the start of the offseason workout program. The Vikings' new-look offensive staff will be waiting for them, after a three-month period where coaches have bandied about ideas for improving the league's 29th-ranked offense.
In offensive line coach Tony Sparano and tight ends coach Pat Shurmur, coach Mike Zimmer hired two former offensive coordinators and head coaches who came to Minnesota with different backgrounds than Norv Turner's Air Coryell scheme. Turner has modified his traditional system over the years, as Zimmer said last month at the NFL owners meetings, and by the last month of the 2015 season, the Vikings were managing their offensive line issues with a short passing game that bore only occasional resemblance to Turner's time-honored scheme.