By: Grant Schwieger

Monday, January 10^th, 2022, officially marks the end of the Mike Zimmer era in Minnesota. This does not come as a surprise, as reports had been surfacing all week about his tenure coming to a close, regardless of how the season’s finale against Chicago played out.

While the last few seasons have certainly been disappointing for the Vikings, Zimmer accomplished a lot during his eight-year run as the head coach of the Purple and Gold, ending with a record of 74-59-1. He inherited a squad in 2014 that ranked in the bottom half of the league in Expected Points Added per play on defense the previous few years under Leslie Frazier.

Under Zimmer, the Vikings immediately turned their defense around, ranking around league average in 2014-2015 before really excelling in 2016 and 2017. As a defensive-minded head coach, it was a relief to see Zimmer’s defenses perform well, as Frazier before him was also a defensive coach but was not finding similar results.

Everything peaked for Minnesota in that magical 2017 NFC Conference Championship game run, but Zimmer’s defenses still performed well through 2019 as well. Those defenses have fallen off sharply, though, the past two seasons, which is the biggest reason he finds himself departing Minnesota.

One thing most Vikings fans might not realize is how much stability Minnesota had at the QB position under Mike Zimmer. Although the Vikings often found themselves changing their QB every few years, the play at that position was never as bad as it was pre-Zimmer (looking at you, Christian Ponder, Matt Cassell, and Josh Freeman).

From Teddy Bridgewater to Sam Bradford, Case Keenum, and Kirk Cousins, Minnesota only had a QB rank in the bottom half of the NFL in PFF grade once under Zimmer (Bridgewater ranked 18^th in 2015). This is a big reason Zimmer never posted a record worse than 7-9 in his 8 seasons.

Mike Zimmer’s defenses in 2020 (which he called the worst defense he had ever coached) and in 2021 collapsed tragically compared to the standards he had set for himself in his first six seasons. However, one area he managed to almost always succeed in was third-down defense.

Although it ends up meaning nothing, Mike Zimmer got to go out with a victory yesterday against the Bears, with his defense putting forth a performance that hopefully left him with a bit of joy. A Patrick Peterson pick-six capped off a solid second-half defensive performance. Even with all the positives from yesterday, the thorn in the Vikings’ side all season still reared its ugly head.

Minnesota allowed a TD with roughly 30 seconds left to go in the first half, marking the umpteenth time the Vikings defense allowed a score inside of 2 minutes to go in the first half of games. Nearly 22% of the points this team gave up all season came inside of those two minutes of games. That is 22% of their total points allowed in roughly 3% of total game time this year. Truly incredible.

Minnesota will miss Zimmer’s no excuses, no BS attitude. That attitude often led to great quotes and soundbites out of him, which never failed to entertain. Zimmer went out on Sunday with a fantastic comeback to a reporter who asked him about his job status.

Mike Zimmer will be the first to tell you how these last few years have not gone according to plan. While you might be hard-pressed to find a Vikings fan who still wanted Zimmer to stick around, he gives Minnesota a lot of things to be thankful for. No more were the ugly seasons where the team was eliminated by December. His teams were always competitive, and he made sure they fought tooth and nail until the end.

Unfortunately, this sums up the history of the Minnesota Vikings franchise. They entered 2021 with the 7^th highest winning percentage all-time among NFL teams yet are the only team in the top 15 without a Super Bowl victory. Good, but never good enough. Will Mike Zimmer’s replacement finally get over the hump? Minnesota should start praying now.

The post Mike Zimmer is out: a tribute to the former Vikings coach appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

By: Grant Schwieger

The Minnesota Vikings’ 2021 season is essentially over. Barring a miraculous primetime victory at Lambeau Field, a Week 18 win over Chicago, as well as losses from other NFC Wildcard teams, it is officially time to turn our attention towards the 2022 offseason. It has been another disappointing football season in the state of Minnesota, which has uncomfortably begun to feel like an annual tradition.

After years of wondering whether or not big changes were coming to the Vikings, it appears they have finally reached their breaking point. Rick Spielman, Mike Zimmer, and Kirk Cousins all might be approaching their final days in Minnesota. With big changes on the horizon, that means it is officially mock draft season.

The Vikings will enter this critical offseason with a lot of holes to fill on the roster. There are obvious gaps in their cornerback room, as well as a pass-rusher opposite Danielle Hunter, that is if Hunter is even in purple next season. There is still at least one position along the offensive line that needs to be addressed at right guard. We could go on all day about these holes, though. Let’s get to the mock.

7-Round Minnesota Mock Draft

For the sake of this mock, I used The Draft Network’s mock draft machine, which you can find here. While there was some consideration given to how Minnesota has drafted in years past, there might be new brass running the show in April, so all of that might be moot.

Round 1 (Pick 19) ”“ David Ojabo, EDGE, Michigan

David Ojabo has spent 2021 in the shadows of his pass-rushing partner Aidan Hutchinson, who most certainly will hear his name called very early in round one in April. Ojabo has lept onto the scene after registering only 26 snaps in 2020.

Ojabo has a top-20 PFF pass-rush grade and pass-rush win rate among all edge defenders this season. He would fill a big need on this Vikings’ defense. While Everson Griffen performed better than most expected before battling some mental health issues, there is no reason to expect Griffen to be back and also perform at that level again next season.

Danielle Hunter’s contract is set up to make Minnesota make a big decision on his future by March, so come the 2022 NFL Draft we will know even more about how badly this team needs another edge defender. Either way, it is a huge need along this defensive front. The latest game against the Rams was the Vikings’ worst game rushing the passer all season, registering no sacks, and giving Matt Stafford all day to throw.

There will be pushback against this pick in the name of DJ Wonnum. Do not listen to it. Wonnum is on pace to play nearly double the snaps he did as a rookie and is grading worse by PFF in overall grade and run-defense grade this season. He struggles mightily setting the edge against the run and gets most of his sacks/pressures either unblocked or cleaning up 4+ seconds into the play.

There are no good edge defenders guaranteed to be on this roster next season. Minnesota would be wise to take advantage of a strong draft class in that regard.

Round 2 (42) — Carson Strong, QB, Nevada

You like that? The beginning of the post-Kirk Cousins era begins with the selection of Carson Strong.

If Strong truly lasts until pick 42 like what happened in this simulation, Minnesota just has to pounce. He may not have played against the strongest competition in college, but he has shown a lot of the traits you would like to see in an NFL QB.

He has the arm strength you want to see and has improved each year. After bursting onto the scene in 2020, he upped his overall PFF grade and passing grade in 2021, while maintaining his 6.1% Big Time Throw % and keeping his Turnover Worthy Play % fairly low around 2%.

The big wall to climb in this scenario of course is Kirk Cousins. Will the Vikings be able to move on from his monumental $45 mil cap hit for 2022? It is a possibility that whoever is tasked with running this team will want their own QB and do what they have to in order to move on from Cousins.

Kirk Cousins is who he is at this point. He is a very capable QB that can certainly benefit the next team he plays for, but the Vikings have been stuck in neutral with him leading the charge. As a wise man once said, “It’s time for a new beginning.”

Round 3 (76) ”“ Phidarian Mathis, iDL, Alabama

At this point of the draft, it would not be smart to pigeonhole one position to take as you open up the possibility of reaching for need instead of taking the best player available. An interior defender on the defensive line may not be the biggest need with Dalvin Tomlinson and Michael Pierce still under contract through 2022. Depth is very important, however, and either one of those could be shed for cap space (though the team would eat some dead cap in that case).

Mathis has been an all-around player this year, ranking above a 77 PFF grade in overall grade, run-defense, tackling, and pass-rushing, ranking in the top-22 among all college DIs. That gives this team great value at the end of day two, which this team needs to hit on to turn things around sooner rather than later.

Round 5 (159) ”“ Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson, CB, TCU

Yes, yes, I know. The last time the Vikings took a CB out of TCU, he was a huge bust and likely won’t play another snap in the league. That has nothing to do with Hodges-Tomlinson here, though. His coverage grade took a dip in 2021 after being elite in 2020, but coverage will always be volatile, and he has shown the ability to be a solid corner.

At 5’9” and 177 pounds, he likely will be limited to the slot in the NFL, but that works perfectly for Minnesota. Mackensie Alexander is on a one-year deal and has been the lowest-graded CB in the entire NFL for the Vikings while playing in the slot. If THT can perform well out of the slot he will provide great value to this team in round five.

Round 6 (183) ”“ Romeo Doubs, WR, Nevada

The Vikings make their new QB happy by pairing him with his college buddy here in Doubs. He has produced over 2,100 yards and 20 TDs with Strong the past two seasons while posting one of the highest average depths of target (aDOT) in the country.

A highlight reel for Doubs is a highlight reel for Strong, and vice versa. When selecting a WR in the sixth round, you are rarely ever getting a complete pass-catcher, but Doubs possesses the deep speed that could benefit the Vikings. Justin Jefferson can also be a deep-threat but allowing him and Adam Thielen to work the short/intermediate areas with Doubs over the top sounds fun to me.

Round 6 (193) ”“ Jarrett Patterson, iOL, Notre Dame

“Helmet scouting” might not be a great idea most of the time, but if you are drafting an offensive lineman, Notre Dame is not a bad place to look. Patterson was college’s highest-graded pass-blocking center this past season and has a solid run-blocking grade as well.

We will know more after the combine and pro days, but Patterson looks to be a good athletic fit for this Minnesota team. He has played center the last three seasons and could be a potential Garrett Bradbury replacement. Vikings fans will not stop until they are satisfied with this Minnesota offensive line, and there might be a riot if the team waits this long to address the position in the draft. If they do, one will think free agency had already been used to bolster the unit.

Round 6 (208) ”“ Mike Jones Jr., LB, LSU

Mike Jones Jr. put forth an impressive display of versatility and coverage ability in 2020 at Clemson but transferred to LSU and had a bit of a disappointing season like many in Baton Rouge. Betting on Jones Jr. to rediscover some of his Clemson magic is a fairly low risk here after projecting to go much higher after the 2020 season.

Linebacker is a position that almost always goes through a lot of roster turnover, so throwing cheap resources at it will never be a bad idea. Besides, there are a few LSU Tigers on the Minnesota roster already so Jones Jr. should fit right in!

Round 7 (230) ”“ Peyton Hendershot, TE, Indiana

Hendershot has gotten run in Indiana’s offense each of the past 4 seasons, giving him some valuable experience at the tight end position.

Minnesota loves taking shots in the dark on late-round TEs, so why not take one on a guy who just put forth an elite receiving grade in 2021? He has never been a standout run-blocker, so counting on him to come in on 2 or 3 tight end sets might not be his role right off the bat.

Summary

That concludes the first mock draft for the 2022 NFL Draft for Minnesota. Change is on the horizon at TCO Performance Center, and mock drafts might be one of the few sources of hope for Vikings fans over the next few months. Stay warm, Minnesota.

The post 2022 Vikings 7-Round Mock Draft appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

By: Grant Schwieger

The Minnesota Vikings have been in a treacherous cycle of disappointment since being blown out by Philadelphia just one game from a Super Bowl in their own stadium in January of 2018. Kirk Cousins was brought in to lead a team that went 13-3 with a backup QB the year prior, so a Super Bowl was in the minds of everyone involved. The result? Missing the playoffs completely that year, and one playoff win in the three seasons since, soon to be four.

2021 was supposed to be a big bounce-back for the Vikings, and instead, it has been as disheartening as one could imagine. It all came to a head in Week 8, as Minnesota, fresh off a bye, lost at home, on primetime, to a Dallas Cowboys team led not by their MVP candidate QB Dak Prescott, but by Cooper Rush and all of his three career pass attempts. Rush spent most of the game being unable to hit a moving target, yet with his back to the wall, led a game-winning drive in front of the entire country. It was the perfect storm of embarrassment for Minnesota and appears to be the tipping point for many fans. Rick Spielman, Mike Zimmer, and Kirk Cousins are all in the crosshairs of fans’ anger, and rightfully so. But who really is to blame for the Vikings’ perpetual letdown year after year? The answer is everyone.

Kirk Cousins

We start with what is Kirk Cousins’ fault. In the eyes of many fans, everything is his fault. He is paid too much money, checks down too much, the whole nine yards. Many other fans do not fault Cousins at all. The reality is somewhere in the middle. Kirk Cousins did not pay himself $84 million to play in Minnesota. In fact, he has been a much better QB in Minnesota than in his time in Washington. That being said, he certainly is at fault for some of the Vikings’ woes. Let’s look at how that is the case.

The first issue with Cousins is his general obliviousness to many things around him. That goes for situations both on and off the field. His “If I die, I die.” quote about coronavirus is one example, as is his suggestion that he surrounds himself with plexiglass wherever he goes in the Vikings’ facility to prevent contracted COVID-19.

Cousins also appears to be oblivious of what is expected of him when he is paid like a franchise quarterback. He is only the 8^th-highest paid QB now per overthecap.com, but one would expect such a handsomely-paid QB to have control over timeouts during two-minute drills. And yet, he let the clock run out in the final seconds of the first half last Sunday because he thought it was best to leave that decision to Mike Zimmer.

Cousins was asked after the game about his performance and the offense overall not being very aggressive. This was his response:

Blaming a conservative offense on a “combination of coverage and pressure” might be one of the most tone-deaf quotes of all time. There is coverage and pressure on literally every snap where a pass is attempted. That is the point of defense in football. Any time a defense has a good pass-rush and coverage, to just throw your hands up and say “well shoot! They got us!” is frustrating for fans to hear, to say the least. Defenses play well sometimes. It is up to the special players at the QB position to overcome that.

Kirk Cousins has long been considered to lack that “it” factor that a lot of professional athletes possess, including most, if not all, franchise QBs. His impressive start to 2021 almost tricked a lot of football savants, including myself, into thinking he had turned the corner in that aspect. The scary excuse of an offense he led on Halloween was a reminder to all that he is the same old Kirk Cousins.

Ignoring the blatant cluelessness, there are other faults to Kirk Cousins’ game that hinder the Vikings. In his first year in Minnesota, Cousins was often criticized for checking the ball down far too often. His average depth of target (aDot) in 2018 was 7.9 yards downfield. After bumping his aDot above 8.0 yards in 2019 and 2020, Cousins is back down to 7.0 this year, ahead of only Jared Goff.

There can be many reasons for this. Play callers can call plays where there are no deep options, a lot of quick game, and screens to lower a QBs aDot. While it can be difficult to parse out who is truly at fault for a lack of passes downfield, the availability of All-22 film from the NFL allows many to rewatch games and see the whole field. Luke Braun of Zone Coverage and Locked on Vikings charted 11 times in the Dallas game alone where Cousins threw the ball short when he had a window to throw the ball farther downfield.

Cousins did not throw the ball past the first down marker ONCE on Minnesota’s 13 3^rd downs in that game. This is not some anomaly either, as time and time again Kirk Cousins has failed to make a big difference on 3^rd down.

Per Arjun Menon of PFF, Cousins has the 20^th best EPA/play on 3^rd downs in the NFL. Minnesota also on average has the farthest to go on both second and third downs this year. Cousins might not be to blame for that (more on that later), but he does not do much to help his case, either.

The chart above looks at the difficulty of NFL QBs’ throws and if their situations are harder or easier on average. Cousins is in the “hard situations, easy passes” group, which means he typically is faced with difficult situations, yet makes the easy pass, such as a check down. No matter how you draw it up, it is never good to be grouped with Davis Mills, Jared Goff, and Jacoby Brissett.

Now, earlier I mentioned that Cousins is not really to blame for Minnesota often being well behind the sticks on second and third downs. That leads us to the next culprit who is to blame for the Vikings’ struggles”¦

Mike Zimmer

Mike Zimmer took over a Minnesota Vikings team in 2014 that was fresh off 3.5 mostly uninspiring seasons under Leslie Frazier. Frazier was well-respected, a genuinely nice guy who took over for Brad Childress halfway through 2010 after being Minnesota’s defensive coordinator since 2007. His defenses while head coach were never good, however, leading to Mike Zimmer taking over as another defensive-minded coach.

The Zimmer tenure has generally been pretty successful. His teams have never had a record worse than 7-9, always at least fighting for playoff contention. The pre-Zimmer era had some hideous teams, so a constantly competitive team was a breath of fresh air for Minnesota fans. Unfortunately, Mike Zimmer appears to have reached the end of his leash in Minnesota.

The first issue many will point to when it comes to Zimmer’s shortcomings is his general lack of accepting that the NFL is a passing league now. The only thing worse than thinking a running game is the key to success in the modern-day NFL is having that belief while possessing one of the highest-paid QBs in the league. Zimmer is an old-school football head in the biggest way. He would prefer to win every game 16-10 by playing hard-nosed defense and running the ball down his opponent’s throats.

John DeFilippo was ran out of town as the team’s offensive coordinator in 2018 because he did not run the ball as much as Zimmer wanted. Every coordinator the team has had since has been Zimmer’s puppet, doing as he says and making sure that Dalvin Cook is run into the ground whenever possible. The one coordinator who managed to be extremely successful in the face of these guidelines, Kevin Stefanski, was the NFL Coach of the Year last year in Cleveland. Before the Vikings’ seemingly improbable playoff victory in New Orleans after the 2019 season, there was a lot of talk coming out of TCO Performance Center in Eagan about the team wanting to promote Stefanski to head coach and potentially even trade Mike Zimmer to Dallas. Instead, Minnesota shocked the world, won on the road in the playoffs, and earned Zimmer, Rick Spielman, and Kirk Cousins extensions, even though the team laid an egg in San Francisco the very next week.

Speaking of laying eggs when the season is on the line, that has been a common theme recently under Zimmer. Needing one victory over a backup QB to get to the Super Bowl in 2017, Zimmer’s team looked like they had not practiced all week and embarrassed Minnesota fans everywhere. Then in 2018, the Vikings needed a Week 17 victory at home over Chicago to make the playoffs and proceeded to once again not show up, culminating in a shouting match between Cousins and Adam Thielen on the sideline. Then the 2019 season ended in lackluster fashion in San Francisco. 2020 was a disappointing season no matter how you look at it, and yet a home victory over Mitch Trubisky and the Bears could have put Minnesota in good shape to make the playoffs. Instead, they gave Trubisky his second-to-last career win as a starter and shrunk into the shadows.

The excuse of a football game that Zimmer’s team put forth against Dallas in Week 8 was the final straw of fiascos under Zimmer. As Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic noted, Zimmer is responsible for how the team played even if he was not the one telling Klint Kubiak what to call. Cousins blamed his head coach when it came to why the team did not call a timeout on their final first-half possession. Even if it is comical that a team’s QB does not have authority to call timeout if it really is up to Zimmer, then why did he let his team run out the entire clock?

Not only was that a malicious form of clock mismanagement, even worse was the delay of game penalty he received from calling back-to-back timeouts on Dallas’s game-winning drive. That gave the Cowboys 5 extra yards that led to them winning the game as opposed to kicking a field goal and going into overtime. Almost weekly, Mike Zimmer botches a two-minute drill in some capacity. Whether it is putting his below-average CBs on an island against elite WRs, or not even trying to score when given 30+ seconds and multiple timeouts.

Mike Zimmer is incredulously afraid of letting Kirk Cousins loose. Whether right or wrong, his team is paying Cousins enough money where he should be expected to be a difference-maker on the team. Instead, he coaches games against backup QBs where HIS QB looks like the one who is a backup and cannot be trusted. Let’s face it, Stefon Diggs was right. He was always right. Zimmer would make a great defensive coordinator, but at this point in time, he is unfit to lead an NFL locker room. He is too stubborn to accept the hand he has been dealt, instead wishing every night before he goes to sleep that Teddy Bridgewater was still his QB. Besides, did Zimmer even want Kirk Cousins in the first place”¦?

Rick Spielman

General Manager Rick Spielman is the hardest one to assign a level of blame to when it comes to Minnesota’s woes. Mike Zimmer clearly has a lot of power over the Vikings, and no one outside the building will ever know who was really more in charge. However, Spielman has made his fair share of mistakes in his time in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

His biggest mistake will have to be the signing of Kirk Cousins. The Vikings were at a very important crossroads in March of 2018, fresh off an NFC Championship Game with a backup QB. The decision of who should be the QB in 2018 was a difficult one. The team made the right decision in letting Case Keenum go, as incredible as his 2017 was. However, bringing in Kirk Cousins obviously divided many inside the team’s front office. In Everson Griffen’s string of tweets last year, he called Cousins “booty” for lack of a better term and said, “ask ZIMMER if he ever wanted Kirk?” This infers that Zimmer was never a Cousins fan, meaning Spielman must have been the one lobbying hard for him.

Now, Kirk Cousins was the best available QB in free agency, so based on talent alone he was the right choice. That signing aside, Spielman has lost his magic touch as of late. After a solid stretch of drafting starting in 2012 and ending with the all-time draft class that was 2015, the Vikings’ drafts since 2016 are a sore sight. I will save my readers the pain of listing off their choices, but if Justin Jefferson had not been selected in 2020, Spielman might already be gone.

The NFL Draft is largely a crapshoot, though, and no team has shown that they are better at drafting than their peers over an extended period. This recent stretch might just be Spielman and Minnesota’s luck evening out. Spielman has not made up for that in other areas, though. While showing loyalty to your players is not a bad thing, sometimes a GM needs to know when to take a stand. Minnesota seemingly always pays their players, often too much. The latest being an unnecessary extension of Harrison Smith for three additional years. When guaranteeing your QB as much money as Minnesota is, you need to be smart with how you manage the cap surrounding him.

There is also the issue with Spielman’s panic trades he has made these last few years. First, there was the trade of a second-round pick for Yannick Ngakoue, only to turn around and trade him away after six games. Sure, Minnesota had a hole to fill with Danielle Hunter’s absence in 2020, but Spielman and Zimmer should have been wise enough to notice they were not one player away from being competitive. This year brought the trade for Chris Herndon and a sixth-round pick for a fourth-round pick in the wake of Irv Smith Jr’s injury. At least Ngakoue was a good player. Herndon has been a net negative for the team thus far.

Spielman’s toxic trait of panicking in the wake of an injury of a player and overpaying via trade will only harm the Vikings in the long run. Does Spielman largely manage draft-day trades well? Yes, but those will only take the team so far. In fact, the team’s two biggest weaknesses, the offensive line and the secondary, are two of the most heavily invested in positions in the draft lately.

No one is absolved of blame when it comes to how Minnesota got to this point. All three of these men are somewhat responsible and likely need to be employed elsewhere in 2022 if the Vikings are going to get the state of their franchise turned around.

Bonus: The Wilf’s

The Wilf family, led by Zygi and his brother Mark and cousin Leonard, have been in ownership of the team since 2005. They inherited the team at a tough time after Minnesota had made nothing out of Randy Moss’s tenure. It has mostly been an upward trajectory since, but the team has gotten complacent in their ownership. Brad Childress was fired mid-season but only once he had a power surge and thought he could dismiss players from the team on his own. Besides that, the only coaches that have been let go came after the season ended.

The Minnesota Vikings are the only NFL team in the top-15 in all-time win percentage that does not own a Super Bowl trophy. While that dates back well before the Wilf’s tenure, it is a perfect summary of their time as owners. They are happy that the team is competitive each season and are content even though the team is rarely true Super Bowl contenders. They lack the true desire to bring a championship to Minnesota. Here is to hoping the latest Minnesota Meltdown changes their mindset on that.

The post Who is to Blame for the Minnesota Vikings? appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

By: Grant Schwieger

While a Week 7 bye is relatively early for an NFL team, it seems to have come at a good time for the 2021 Minnesota Vikings. Five of the first six games of the Vikings’ season have come down to the final play, with their Week 3 victory over the Seattle Seahawks being the lone exception.

Gabe Henderson, on-air talent for the Vikings, summarized this season’s experience thus far quite well. As one would imagine, a Sunday with no elevated heart rates and spiked blood pressure due to the Vikings was well-needed.

Vikings fans spent the first week of the bye week discussing how lucky the team was to escape their games with Detroit and Carolina victorious, truly fortunate to be even 3-3 at this juncture. Then, as time wore on, and the football world saw Cincinnati and Arizona come out of Week 7 as the top teams in each respective conference (which has already changed with Arizona’s loss to Green Bay), many Minnesotans changed their mindset. Abruptly gone was the memory of near-embarrassment against Jared Goff and Sam Darnold and replaced was the memory of should-have-been victories over those Bengals and Cardinals in the opening weeks. Pair that with the Vikings currently holding the 7^th and final playoff spot, and optimism had returned in full swing. No longer was there much mention of how close the team was to being 1-5, but instead how close they were to being 5-1! While both are true statements, the reality is the Vikings are right where they should be at 3-3.

Luck has been both against Minnesota and for them early on, which is why a .500 record this early feels about as right as Baby bear’s porridge tasted to Goldilocks. While the Vikings do not own an overly impressive record, they have not had very many players that are performing as poorly as many did a season ago. What they have had, however, is a lot of players performing well. Here is my ranking of the 10 best Vikings players so far this year, and where they ranked for me before the season began.

10. Patrick Peterson (honorable mention preseason)

Let me begin this by saying at the time, I was not a fan of the Patrick Peterson signing. It appeared as if Minnesota overpaid for an aging corner when they could have gotten a younger, better CB for a lesser price. Peterson has responded by playing well as the Vikings’ CB1.

Peterson has shown he can still be a starting-caliber NFL cornerback under Mike Zimmer. The hamstring injury that landed him on IR is a big blow to a Vikings secondary that feels as if the dam could explode at any moment without him. Peterson’s PFF grades are nothing spectacular, but among CBs with 50% of snaps played, his 64.3 overall grade ranks 30^th, 61.9 coverage grade ranks 32^nd, and 59.4% of targets allowed to be caught ranks 25^th. He has been an above-average CB, which is something Minnesota needly badly after 2020. He will be missed and can hopefully return for the end of the season.

9. Harrison Smith (4^th preseason)

The initial reaction to seeing Harrison Smith this low on this list might be harsh considering how tremendous the Hitman has been his entire career, but it is more a testament to his teammates than about his own play. Smith has still been his usual, consistently dependable self so far in 2021.

With his overall PFF grade of 74.6 currently ranking sixth among safeties, he is on pace to yet again be one of the best safeties in the NFL in 2021. This should be encouraging to Vikings fans as Smith was extended this offseason, and while he will forever be a Minnesota legend, there was some pause about extending a 32-year-old safety through his age 36 season. For some reference, the oldest safeties in the NFL currently are the McCourty’s at age 34.

Zimmer has used Smith and his safety partner Xavier Woods in two-high safety looks more often this year, disguising Minnesota’s coverage pre-snap less often than usual per PFF. This is part of the reason Smith has not been heard of as much in 2021, but he is still playing at a high level. He has the lowest missed tackle percentage of his career at 2%, missing just one tackle so far and resulting in an elite 90.4 tackling grade. His coverage grade of 75.0 is fourth among safeties and has allowed the 11^th fewest yards with just 74. The Hitman has yet to register an interception but expect one to come soon. He is a huge Halloween fan, so maybe Sunday Night on Halloween will be the time he makes his biggest play of the year.

8. Everson Griffen (unranked preseason)

Everson Griffen making this list is unquestionably the biggest surprise based on the outlook of Minnesota before the season began. Griffen did not join the Vikings until a few weeks before Week 1 and was expected to just be a pass-rushing specialist rotating in on obvious passing downs. After a slower start to the season, Griffen has outperformed DJ Wonnum and Stephen Weatherly, with the latter having since been traded, and played 40+ snaps and registering 5+ pressures each of his last three games.

After being traded from Dallas to Detroit last year and there apparently not being much interest around the league in teams bringing him in this offseason, seeing Griffen succeed at a high level when he is nearly 34 is an incredible feel-good story.

Griffen has looked just as good as he was in his first stint in Minnesota, currently owning the 10^th highest PFF pass-rush win-rate in the NFL including the 6^th highest among edge defenders. His 77.9 overall grade ranks 14^th and 81.1 pass-rush grade ranks 11^th among edge defenders as well. This is not just a feel-good story, this is Griffen being one of the best pass-rushers in the NFL for a team that desperately needed one opposite Danielle Hunter.

Minnesota has missed Griffen’s elite spin move and it has been awesome seeing it in action in purple once again. Here’s to Griffen staying healthy both mentally and physically throughout the year.

7. Brian O’Neill (7^th preseason)

It is incredibly fitting for Brian O’Neill to slot in exactly where I ranked him before the season, as he is nothing if not consistent in his performance at right tackle. He did not allow a single QB pressure until Week 4 against Cleveland, and he has only allowed two pressures outside of that game this season. While his overall PFF grade of 66.3 ranks in the 30s among NFL tackles, that is due to his run-blocking coming in lower than his previous two seasons. If he can get that on track he will continue to rise up the ranks among the NFL’s OTs.

O’Neill has gotten a lot of praise over his career for rarely allowing Kirk Cousins to get hit, and he has turned that up a notch in 2021. His six pressures allowed are the fewest among all RTs, resulting in a pass-blocking grade that ranks 13^th and “True Pass Set” pass-blocking grade that ranks 12^th among all tackles. O’Neill has the Minnesota RT spot locked down for years to come, and hopefully, Christian Darrisaw can do the same for the Vikings’ blindside.

6. Adam Thielen (6^th preseason)

Adam Thielen casually caught 14 TDs in 2020, good for third among NFL WRs, and once again has 5 TDs in 6 games in 2021. He had a little slump in production against Cleveland and Detroit, but in his four other games, he has 32 catches on 36 targets for 307 yards and his 5 TDs. After those two down games in Week 4 and 5, Thielen responded with his best game yet against Carolina in Week 6. He is 31 years old and is still able to produce at a high level as Minnesota’s WR2.

Plays like the one above against Seattle are reasons why Thielen continues to perform well. He is a lethal weapon in the red zone with his combination of route running and contested catch ability. He has caught 82.2% of passes his way this year, the highest among all WRs with 40+ targets. It always feels that much more special when a player is playing well and is a homegrown kid. Minnesota fans will continue to hope Adam Thielen can keep that hometown magic going for years to come.

5. Dalvin Tomlinson (10^th preseason)

Dalvin Tomlinson was arguably Minnesota’s biggest free-agent signing and he has lived up to the hype to this point, providing a tremendous boost to the Vikings’ interior defensive line. He was primarily known as a run-stuffing DT, but he has provided both run support and pass-rushing chops for Minnesota.

Plays such as the one above show why Tomlinson has made his name as a solid run-defender, single-handedly ruining Carolina’s rushing attempt. His PFF pass-rushing grade is actually higher than his run defense grade, will both of them ranking in the top 15 among DTs playing 50% of snaps. His overall grade ranks 11^th, meaning Tomlinson has been one of the best interior defenders in the NFL for a defense that was in the need of a warm body to play after the atrocious 2020 season at the position.

A bonus point to Tomlinson: if you search his name on Twitter, most of the results are Giants fans wishing the team had not let him go. Good for Minnesota in nailing a free agent signing.

4. Justin Jefferson (5^th preseason)

Justin Jefferson had such a historic rookie season that it almost felt inevitable to experience some sort of regression on his part this year. The reality is that he is only confirming that he is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. Here are the metrics Jefferson ranks in the top 10 of among WRs: overall PFF grade, receiving grade, targets, catches, and yards, while just barely missing the top 10 in yards after catch and yards per route run. He trails only Davante Adams in receiving grade out of the slot as well.

There are many other things when it comes to WRs that are harder to quantify. Route running ability is one of them, and Jefferson is becoming regarded as one of the best in the league in that aspect as well. He is also seeing more safeties shading to his side of the field this year, which is to be expected after he exploded onto the scene last year. Justin Jefferson does have as many drops this year as he had all of 2020 with four, but drops are not stable year-to-year so that is not much cause for concern. Expect JJ to continue flying up all sorts of rankings and lists.

3. Eric Kendricks (1^st preseason)

Eric Kendricks falling from 1^st to 3^rd on this list has nothing to do with him. He has continued adding to his argument as the best linebacker in football, making impactful play after impactful play. None better than his one-handed interception of Jared Goff.

The PFF grades back up Kendricks’ solid play, with the 5^th highest overall grade and comfortably the best coverage grade among LBs. The way that NFL offenses operate, they are designed to put stress on LBs, and Eric Kendricks is one of the best in the business in combatting NFL offenses. He can excel in multiple ways, whether it be against RBs out of the backfield, TEs, or even WRs in the slot at times. He owns the 3^rd best coverage grade in man coverage among LBs and the highest grade in zone coverage, proving that he can do whatever is asked of him by Mike Zimmer.

While Kendricks has never been the best run-defending LB, he is still capable of making big plays in the run game, too. The play in the tweet above shows Kendricks’ quick diagnosis of the play and closing speed to not let the ball carrier get to the corner. Having him back healthy this season is one of the big reasons the Vikings’ defense has bounced back from the humiliation it was to end 2020.

2. Danielle Hunter (3^rd preseason)

Had it been known Danielle Hunter would be back 100% healthy with no issues, he likely would have been #1 on this list entering the season. He is a special type of player that defensive coordinators and defensive line coaches dream about having on their squads. After a slower start to the season in Week 1, he bounced back against Arizona and has been lights out ever since.

While his game against Kyler Murray and company was impressive, he has yet to slow down, registering 29 of his 31 pressures since Week 2. He is the Vikings’ highest-graded defender thus far and ranks 11^th among NFL edge defenders. His 31 pressures rank 8^th, with every other defender higher than him having played more games.

The combination of Hunter’s pass-rushing repertoire and Griffen’s bounce-back has been impeccable for this Minnesota defense. They are part of the reason Minnesota owns the 5^th highest team pass-rushing grade in the league. He just turned 27 on Friday and had the fourth-most sacks among players in NFL history before they turned 27. Hunter is back to adding to his historic career and should find himself being paid handsomely come next offseason.

1. Kirk Cousins (8^th preseason)

Kirk Cousins is an incredibly polarizing player, but no one can question how well he has played to start 2021. He has put together the best 6 game stretch of his career and has put to rest the narrative of him not being clutch, leading the team on potential game-winning drives time and time again. He has the fourth-best PFF passing grade along with the second-best overall grade among QBs. He has always been incredibly accurate, and his league-leading 83.5% adjusted completion percentage backs that up, too.

It seems as if Kirk Cousins’ career has been a constantly swinging pendulum, where he plays well, is deemed underrated, and then he falls back down to earth, plays poorly, and is called out as a waste of money and overrated. Just like the 2021 Vikings, Cousins overall falls somewhere in the middle. As of right now, though, Cousins has simply played like one of the best QBs in the NFL, barely missing any throws while rarely putting the ball in harm’s way.

Plays like the one above are perfect examples of what Cousins has brought to the table in 2021 that we have not seen previously. In years past, Cousins gets sacked there, or even worse, fumbles. Instead, he avoids Brian Burns and scrambles for 16 yards and a first down on what should have been a game-winning drive.

Cousins is also getting rid of the ball on average in 2.46 seconds, good for third-best in the NFL. This leads to him taking fewer sacks and fewer negative plays. He is responsible for only 3.3% of the pressures he has faced because of that, one of the top marks in the league.

Pairing all of that with dimes that he regularly drops such as the play above, and we are left with what has been the Minnesota Vikings’ best player so far this year. Quarterbacks are the most important player on the field, and it is vital for Minnesota’s success for Cousins to keep this going. The problem is, when will that pendulum swing back? When will Vikings fans be left saying “what was that?!” like they have in years past? Hopefully not any time soon.

Honorable mentions:

While you can debate the order of the Vikings’ 10 best players so far this year, the top group as a whole seems pretty clear. However, there are a few players who receive honorable mention status and were at least considered, the first being Dalvin Cook.

Cook was ranked 2^nd on my list preseason but obviously slipped a bit. Part of that is he has only played in 4 games, and in those games he owns career-low overall and rushing grades. He also owns the second-lowest yards after contact per attempt of his career. Once Cook gets back healthy, which it sounds like he is, he will find himself again on this list.

The others receiving honorable mention are Xavier Woods and KJ Osborn. Woods has been solid on the back end next to Harrison Smith, and Osborn has emerged as the best WR3 the Vikings have had in Zimmer’s tenure in Minnesota. Shoutout to these two guys!

The post Top 10 Vikings Through Week 7 appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

by: Grant Schwieger

In the NFL, and really across all sports, the term “moral victory” is often thrown around. Teams with low expectations who surpass those expectations while still suffering defeat frequently call those performances moral victories. The Minnesota Vikings managed to do the complete opposite in Week 5 against Detroit. In no capacity was a loss against the Lions going to be acceptable, and yet, after leading almost the entire game, it took a 54-yard Greg Joseph field goal as time expired to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against the Motor City Kitties. In a world of moral victories, this was about as close to a moral loss as you can get.

Kirk Cousins and Mike Zimmer had quite possibly the most awkward post-victory celebration of all time, and while they were both fired up, neither were too happy about how the game went. Fans have rightfully felt the same way this week. Now the 2-3 Vikings head to the 3-2 Carolina Panthers before they head into their bye. Do not let the Panthers winning record or 3-0 start fool you, this is not a good football team. That is reflected by Minnesota, who has had a very unimpressive past 2 weeks, being 2.5 point road favorites. 

After giving up a very generous package in a trade for Sam Darnold this offseason, the Panthers started hot, but Darnold has shown he is still the QB he was in New York. As anyone in Minnesota knows, though, being expected to win and taking care of business is a very big difference. With the Vikings’ post-bye schedule featuring some of the best teams in football, a win in Carolina is essential to not only keep their season alive but for some people in Minnesota to keep their jobs. There are three big matchups in this game that will be key in how this game plays out, for better or for worse.

Minnesota D-line vs Carolina O-line

While the 2021 Minnesota Vikings season has felt eerily similar to the 2020 season thus far, one big difference between the two has been Minnesota’s revitalized pass-rush. This was to be expected with the return of Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen on the outside and the trio of Michael Pierce, Dalvin Tomlinson, and Sheldon Richardson on the inside. Hunter and Griffen both rank in the top-12 among edge defenders in Pro Football Focus’s Pass Rushing Productivity metric, and Pierce is 7^th in the same metric for interior defenders. While Pierce will not play against Carolina, Tomlinson has the 10^th highest pass-rushing grade among DTs in the NFL thus far. 

Brandon Thorn, well-known for his fantastic work focused mostly on offensive and defensive line play, created a “High-Quality sack” metric, which Griffen leads the NFL in thus far with Hunter not far behind in 4^th. All of these stats showing the Vikings’ improved pass-rush is a very welcome sight to what Minnesota fans witnessed in 2020.

Expect this trend of stellar pass-rushing to continue in Week 6, as Carolina’s pass-blocking ranks at the bottom of the league in PFF’s pass-blocking grade and ESPN’s pass-block win rate. In a way, the Panthers’ offensive line mimics the Vikings’ situation. Their right tackle Taylor Moton is a very good player similar to Brian O’Neill, and he is the only player on their line who has a pass-blocking grade above 51.9. That is”¦ not good. 

To make that better for Vikings fans, Sam Darnold struggles under pressure as well. This all adds up to a hopeful recipe for success for Mike Zimmer’s defense. With the Minnesota offense struggling lately, leaning on the defense to make big plays will be important. Six of Darnold’s eight Turnover Worthy Plays this season have come while under pressure, per PFF. Former Viking Pat Elflein is eligible to return off of the IR but likely will not. If he is indeed activated, that would make for a fun storyline within this matchup as well. 

Minnesota passing game vs Carolina coverage

After looking quite potent through three games, Minnesota’s offense, specifically the passing game, has not looked the same lately. A team with Kirk Cousins playing well throwing the ball to Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen should score more than 26 points over a two-game span. Full stop, no excuses. That does not get any easier when they visit a resilient defense in Carolina.

The Panthers defense has allowed the second-lowest EPA per play on passing plays so far this year. They own the fifth-best team coverage grade in the NFL, the only PFF team metric where they rank in the top ten. While Carolina does not boast any elite players in their secondary, they are a good example of how important it is to have a defense where no one is a big liability. They are a young and talented defense and got younger with the acquisition of CJ Henderson, who is questionable for Sunday’s game. The Panthers also got a bit older trading for Stephon Gilmore, but he is on the Physically Unable to Perform list and will not be active vs Minnesota.

The football “nerds” will often say defensive success is a product of the offenses you face, and this could be the case with Carolina so far this year. Through five weeks, they have gotten the benefit of playing against the Jets, Saints, Texans, and Eagles, none of which are impressive passing teams. The one talented passing team they did play, Dallas, lit them up to the tune of 36 points in Week 4. Minnesota’s play over the last few weeks does not give them the benefit of the doubt in this regard, though. Will Kirk Cousins and the Vikings’ offense regain their mojo, or will they join the list of unimpressive offenses Carolina has faced?

There are going to be a lot of factors that play into that question. The first being whether or not the Vikings continue to beat themselves before the opposing defense even does anything. 

This self-scouting for Minnesota’s offensive coaches should start with their play-calling on second and long. According to Vikings reporter Courtney Cronin on Matthew Coller’s Purple Insider podcast, Minnesota has run the ball 29 times this year on second and long. They have converted 4 of those plays into first downs. While a play can be successful without resulting in a first down, a rate shy of 14% on converting such plays into first downs is abysmal no matter how you dress it up. If the Vikings want to set themselves up for success, putting themselves in desirable down and distances would be a good place to start. 

Offensive Coordinator Klint Kubiak says Kirk Cousins’ freedom to change the offense at the line of scrimmage has “evolved.” Cousins taking the reins at the line and changing plays could result in calling his own number on more pass plays. At least many Vikings fans will hope that to be the case. Kirk also needs to trust his elite playmakers more often. Against a solid coverage team like Carolina, Jefferson and Thielen might not have a lot of separation at times. Cousins needs to remember he has two receivers who are fantastic at contested catches.

In plays such as the one above against Detroit, Jefferson may have tight coverage on him but that does not mean Cousins can’t throw it. On that play he does, and Jefferson rewards him with one of the biggest plays the offense had all game. Cousins will always let it rip accurately when he has time, and his receiver has separation. It is those times where there is not much separation and Cousins panics and either checks it down or pulls the ball down for a sack where he needs to flip the switch. This matchup between Cousins, Jefferson, Thielen, and company against Donte Jackson, AJ Bouye, Jeremy Chinn, and company will likely decide whether the Vikings season still has hope or not. Also, after having a sizeable impact in the first two games, KJ Osborn has been quiet lately. If he once again balls out in Carolina, when do we discuss the narrative of Osborn performing much better on the road than at home? People are asking.

Vikings tackles vs Brian Burns and Haason Reddick

The Carolina Panthers boast what might be the most under-the-radar pair of pass-rushers in the NFL in Brian Burns and Haason Reddick. Burns is in his third season as a former first-round pick and was a popular choice as a dark horse Defensive Player of the Year candidate coming into the season after putting up 57 pressures and an 86.7 pass-rushing grade last season. Reddick posted similar numbers, 56 pressures and an 82.6 pass-rushing grade, last year for Arizona. Reddick is tied for the league lead in sacks so far with eight.

Neither finds themselves in the top-30 in terms of pressures thus far in 2021, but when they do get to the QB, they get there fast. Burns has pressured the QB 17 times to Reddick’s 15. Getting 8 sacks on 15 pressures means Reddick’s current sack rate is unbelievably unsustainable, but that does not mean he will not keep it up against Minnesota. Carolina flips what side Burns and Reddick line up on at will, with both of them splitting almost half of their snaps on the left and ride side of the defensive line. That means that the Vikings’ combination of Brian O’Neill on the right side and Rashod Hill/Christian Darrisaw on the left will all have to be ready to face both pass-rushers.

Brian O’Neill received his lucrative contract extension in September and has continued being worth every penny, posting the lowest pressure percentage allowed among all offensive tackles on plays without RPOs, screens, and play-action. The Minnesota left side, however, is a much larger question mark. First-round rookie Christian Darrisaw made his debut against Detroit, rotating in for a few drives for Rashod Hill. Darrisaw is clearly the better option moving forward, but all signs point to them both seeing time against the Panthers. Mike Zimmer and the Vikings have long been stubborn when it comes to replacing struggling offensive linemen, so the fact that Darrisaw saw the field is a big first step. 

Rashod Hill has spent a lot of time getting comfortable with how it feels to lay on the turf at US Bank Stadium the last two weeks, with the above clip being a prime example of that. While Darrisaw will surely have his “welcome to the NFL” moments, Hill has simply gotten ran over far too many times for him to fend off the rookie for much longer. 

Darrisaw got beat a few times against Detroit as well, but none of his mistakes were of the “wreck the play before it even has a chance” variety that Hill’s have been. His performance against Haason Reddick and Brian Burns could catapult him to the full-time starter if he fends them off well enough. O’Neill will hold up on the right side, it will be up to the combination of Hill and Darrisaw to keep Cousins’ blindside clean on Sunday. While Carolina moves both their rushers from side to side, will they move their strongest pass-rusher to the right side of the defense to face Minnesota’s weaker tackle? And if so, that leads to the question, who does Carolina consider to be their premier pass-rusher? While Reddick leads in sacks, I would say Burns is still the more talented of the two. These little games within the game play a vital role in the final outcome, and this specific one will be of utmost importance as it pertains to keeping Kirk Cousins upright and able to whip the ball around to his playmakers. If they are unable to do that, prepare for another dreadful performance out of the Minnesota offense.

The post Vikings vs Panthers: 3 Key Matchups appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

By: Grant Schwieger

When Minnesota Vikings’ fans hear the term “Achilles heel” regarding the team, regrettably there are a plethora of options that come to mind. The offensive line, Kirk Cousins’ contract, cornerbacks, even just bad luck are all viable Achilles heels for this team. That bad luck might stem from being “cursed,” which many fans have claimed the team has been over the years. That might have some juice to it now that the Zodiac Killer has supposedly been identified and that he was a Vikings fan.

If that all is true, and the FBI claims the Zodiac Killer case is still open and unsolved, then at least Vikings’ fans know the reason that they are cursed. When it comes to the play on the field, though, Minnesota has its own weakness that was not listed above. That would be the team’s ineptitude, on both offense and defense, in two-minute drill situations. This is not a new issue to the Vikings, and it is time for it to be addressed.

Offense

The Vikings’ offense has been better than the defense this year, but they are not without their problems. When it comes to 2-minute drill situations, both in the second and fourth quarters, they begin to get exposed. Let’s just face it. This offense is not designed to be a drop-back passing team for an entire drive. Klint Kubiak and Mike Zimmer want to be an outside zone, run-first team. While so far in 2021 the Vikings rank 13^th in first-down passing percentage according to teamrankings.com, that has mostly to do with the team spending a lot of time in their four games trailing. They were in the bottom ten in the league in that metric last year, despite regularly having success in the passing game.

This Minnesota offense is designed to thrive when opposing defenses are unsure of whether a run or a pass is coming. That was a big part of the Vikings’ success against Seattle in Week 3. That element of surprise goes out the window when it comes to 2-minute drills, as teams would love for them to run in those situations and are expecting the pass. Minnesota’s regular offense does not include a high amount of drop-back passing, either, as a lot of their passes come from screens, play-action (not as much this year as last, 20.4% to 28.7%), or quick game, which has been a bigger part of the offense this year. These elements just are not as effective in these hurry-up situations.

A big reason for this is because Zimmer and Kubiak want to protect a vulnerable offensive line. Life is much more difficult for offensive linemen when the defense and the pass-rush know a pass is coming and can pin their ears back and get after the QB. The result of those situations for Minnesota often look like this:

The lack of trust in the offensive line also has a direct impact on Kirk Cousins. He is a much better QB when free from pressure, as most are, but the difference for him has always been substantial. Two-minute drills result in more opportunities for Cousins to be under pressure, which means more chances for him to panic and bail on a play even if he has wide-open receivers downfield.

Zimmer has been afraid of Cousins making silly interceptions and getting strip-sacked ever since his first year in 2018, which is how we got to this offensive scheme in Minnesota. This inability to put full trust in his offense leaves Zimmer coaching scared when it comes to end-of-half cases. Look no further for an example of this than last week’s game against Cleveland. Minnesota got the ball back with 3:45 left, down by 7 on their own 12-yard line. The Vikings’ first three plays were all runs, totaling 17 yards while taking a minute and a half off the clock. All of a sudden there was only 2:15 left, and Minnesota still had to go 71 yards to score. In no scenario should a team needing to drive 88 yards for a touchdown be running the football, and simultaneously the clock. After a 31 yard pass to Justin Jefferson on third down, the Vikings followed it up with yet another run for an incredible 2 yards, bringing it to the 2-minute warning.

Sadly, the Cleveland game was not the first example of this, either. Looking back to the end of the first half of the Arizona game, Minnesota did this not once, but twice. Getting the ball with 3:15 to go in the second quarter, the Vikings ran the ball on 2^nd and 13 and 3^rd and 1, went 3 and out, and Dalvin Cook got hurt to top it all off. After a quick 77-yard TD to Rondale Moore, Minnesota got the ball back with 1:33 to go at their own 25 and still managed to sneak 2 runs in for 10 total yards on their way to stalling out for a 52-yard Greg Joseph field goal.

There may be another reason Minnesota tends to be inefficient at times when operating their offense during end-of-half opportunities. Not only is Zimmer scared of putting full trust in his drop-back passing offense, but he is also uneasy about giving the ball back to the opposing offense with too much time on the clock. That was obvious against Arizona, as their explosive offense had just scored in one play and Zimmer wanted nothing to do with giving Kyler Murray another opportunity to score before the half. The problem with that being, even with the Vikings mixing in a couple of runs on their drive, Arizona still got the ball back with 21 seconds left and got two plays off before a 62-yard FG to end the half.

The problem with that mindset is that if you are too worried about how much time the other offense will have, you are not operating your offense fully focused on scoring and being at your best. If you end a drive with a touchdown, however much time is left is much less important. The perfect world scenario for Mike Zimmer at the end of a half happened in the first half of the Seattle game. Minnesota got the ball on their 34 with 3:14 to go in the second quarter, and ran a 12 play, 66-yard drive, scoring a TD with only 20 seconds to go in the half. Unfortunately for the Vikings, it is incredibly rare for the team to successfully manufacture drives like that. It has been much more common to see the team go 3 and out and give the opposing team the ball back with time to score, which it did in both the Bengals and the Browns games. This issue goes both ways, and the defense shares a fair amount of blame with these concerns as well.

Defense

While the offense has managed to only score 10 points inside of two minutes in the second quarter through four games, the defense has given up 35 points during that same timeframe. Getting outscored by 25 points in 8 total minutes in 4 games is unforgivable.

While 14 of those points allowed came from when the opposing team was on the goal line when the two-minute warning hit (Cincinnati and Cleveland), that still leaves a sizeable negative point differential. With how the defense has performed when under the pressure of hurry-up situations, it is not hard to understand why Zimmer is so worried about giving the ball back to opposing offenses.

This has been a mess since Week 1 when the Bengals went 75 yards for a TD in only 36 seconds after the Vikings went 3 and out before that. It peaked when the Browns were backed up with a 3^rd and 20 with 35 seconds left in the second quarter on their own 26 and broke off a 33-yard run. That run, when Cleveland had all but given up on scoring to end the half, allowed the Browns to sneak in a last-second field goal to go up 11-7.

These types of embarrassments from the Minnesota defense just suck the life out of the team. In situations where opposing defenses know Minnesota will be throwing it on offense, the Vikings struggle to move the ball. When the roles are reversed and Minnesota is on defense and knows their opponent is passing, they cannot seem to get out of their own way. In just four games, Bashaud Breeland got burnt for a 50-yard TD against Ja’Marr Chase, Rondale Moore was left wide open with no one within 10 yards of him and scored 77 yards later, and the aforementioned 3^rd and 20 conversion. Heck, even in the Seattle game, which is the only game the Vikings have outscored their opponent inside of two minutes to go in the first half, Seattle managed to get in Hail Mary territory in only 16 seconds.

The Vikings’ defense has allowed 92 total points this year. That means that in those final two minutes before halftime, Minnesota has allowed 38% of their total points on the season. 38% in only 3% of their total minutes played. Who would want to put their defense on the field when they are getting torn apart time and time again?

The biggest reason for concern and why these struggles are Minnesota’s Achilles heel is because there is not a clear solution. Don’t want your defense to give up a lot of points so you try and run the clock out? Then your offense will struggle to score. If you try and be aggressive on offense and score, you run the risk of stalling out and giving the ball right back. The Vikings’ best way to avoid this conundrum is for the offense to be much more efficient so that there is not as much pressure on the defense to prevent any scores. If it were that easy, though, they would have done that already. Minnesota has an Achilles heel that has crippled them through four games and shows no signs of fixing itself soon.

The post The Minnesota Vikings’ Achilles Heel appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

By: Grant Schwieger

The outlook surrounding the 2021 Minnesota Vikings has changed drastically in the last two weeks. A mere two weeks ago, the Vikings were fresh off an embarrassing opening day loss to Cincinnati and facing a much more difficult opponent in Arizona for Week 2. Minnesota put forth a much better performance, albeit in another loss, and returned home at a record of 0-2 to face a Seahawks team led by Russell Wilson, who had never lost to the purple and gold. In a surprisingly normal Seattle-Minnesota game, Kirk Cousins continued his hot start and led the Vikings to a W and suddenly the season did not look so bleak.

This Week 4 matchup against Cleveland truly is a fulcrum in the Vikings’ season, as a loss would bring them to 1-3. According to playoffstatus.com, Minnesota currently has a 67% chance to miss the playoffs. A loss would bring that to 71%, and a win down to 64%. A win over a potential Super Bowl contender would be huge moving forward, and there are 5 (or so) players who will be vital in pulling that off.

Rashod Hill

If there were an article about Vikings players that need to perform for each game, Rashod Hill would likely find his way onto it every time. Through three weeks, he has been the weak link for this Minnesota offensive line. His 42.7 overall PFF grade is last on the Vikings offense, he has the lowest run-blocking grade among Minnesota OL, and his pass-blocking grade is only higher than the perennial bottom of the league in pass-blocking Garrett Bradbury. His 8 pressures allowed lead the team and his overall grade is 3^rd lowest among NFL tackles. Pile all this together with the fact that first-round rookie Christian Darrisaw is beginning to do more and more in practice and will be active for the first time, and Hill is facing a lot of pressure to keep his job.

Taking a step back from the situation, it is unfair to judge Hill too cruelly. He has been a career backup swing tackle and not been a terrible liability when asked to spot start previously. At the time he was drafted, Darrisaw was meant to be the starting left tackle anyways. Hill is just doing the job he has always had, filling in when need be. The tough part of this week, though, is his job entails lining up across Myles Garrett, arguably the best edge defender in the NFL. I mean, who is to argue, when the below clip looks like Garrett is teleporting he is so quick. Not many NFL players can move like that.

The majority of Garrett’s snaps this year have come across the opposing LT, so Hill will have to bring it big time this Sunday.

There is a reason for optimism about this matchup, however. Fresh off of 7 pressures and 5 sacks against Tennessee in Week 1, Chandler Jones was held to only 3 pressures and no sacks in Week 2, lining up mostly against Hill. Klint Kubiak has done a fantastic job through three games protecting his offensive line and Kirk Cousins, calling a lot of quick game and screens, and getting the ball out of Cousins’ hands immediately. This way, even if any offensive linemen get beat quickly, it still does not affect the play much, if at all. Pro Football Focus has a data point called “True Pass Sets,” which are pass plays where the OL has to take a regular pass set, taking out any screens, rollouts, and things of that nature to best capture the OL’s pass-blocking performance. Minnesota’s OL has one of the lowest TPS rates in the league. Hill has allowed 7 of his 8 pressures in his 43 True Pass Sets, and 1 pressure in his remaining 83 pass-blocking snaps. Kubiak will continue to protect his LT as he has to this point, but there will still be plays where Hill is on an island vs Garrett. If Hill can keep him in check on those plays, Minnesota might be in for another offensive display of fireworks.

Bashaud Breeland

When Bashaud Breeland signed with Minnesota in the early parts of summer, it was widely considered a smart move by the organization to further bolster a new secondary. Breeland has followed that up by being the lowest graded CB in the entire NFL. It has not been a matter of scheme for him, either. He has the third-lowest coverage grade in man coverage and the lowest in zone coverage. I wrote last week about how coverage is volatile, and a bounce-back game for Breeland could very well be on its way. As the games go by, the chances of that seem to be slimming.

Patrick Peterson seems to agree that a slow start to Breeland’s season does not mean he will struggle all year. Breeland needs that type of encouragement if he is going to have any chance to regain his confidence. Secondaries are a weak-link system, meaning you are only as good as your weakest player. When your weakest player is among the league’s worst to this point, opposing teams will target them over and over. The Vikings desperately need Breeland to creep back towards average, something their previous CB2 Trae Waynes was in his time in Minnesota.

Minnesota’s CBs have not followed WRs so far this season, with Peterson staying on the right side of the defense and Breeland on the left. Cleveland moves their WRs around, so Breeland will get his fair share of matchups against Odell Beckham Jr. With Jarvis Landry out, the other Cleveland wideouts that Breeland will likely line up against are Donovan Peoples-Jones and rookie speedster Anthony Schwartz. Rashard Higgins will likely be in the slot on his snaps. This means Breeland will be in coverage against fairly inexperienced WRs for a decent portion of Sunday’s game. He has to win his reps against the young guys and hold his own against OBJ for Minnesota’s defense to have a chance. The Vikings cannot afford to have such a liability on defense much longer. Otherwise, Mike Zimmer might have no choice but to play disgruntled second-year corner, Cam Dantzler.

Michael Pierce/Dalvin Tomlinson

Michael Pierce and Dalvin Tomlinson get included together in this for a multitude of reasons. The first and most important one being that Pierce got hurt during practice this week and is questionable. If he is unable to suit up, this will all apply to only Tomlinson, and it will be even more important he play well this Sunday.

Cleveland has one of the best offensive lines in the game, along with what might be the best one-two punch at running back as well in Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. The Browns overall have the fourth-highest run-blocking and pass-blocking team grades in the NFL along with the third-highest rushing grade. That all amounts to the highest Expected Points Added per rushing play in the NFL. Piecing that all together and it is quite obvious why run-stuffing DTs like Pierce and Tomlinson are vital to Minnesota slowing Cleveland down.

The Browns run the ball at the second-highest rate in the league, meaning the Vikings can expect them to come out rushing early and often. Getting stops in the run game will put Cleveland in second and long and third and long situations, allowing Vikings pass-rushers to tee-off on Baker Mayfield. Mayfield ranks near the bottom of the league in PFF grade under pressure, so it would be huge for Minnesota to get in the position to pressure Mayfield as much as possible. If Pierce and Tomlinson are unable to do their jobs, Cleveland will be able to move the ball at will and keep the Vikings on their heels, similar to what Minnesota did to Seattle last week.

While Pierce and Tomlinson are both known for their run-stuffing abilities, they can rush the passer when necessary as well. Pierce is second on the team in pressures with 6 and Tomlinson also has 4 on his 58 pass-rushing snaps.

Tomlinson’s best game as a Viking came last week as he received a game ball after the game for his performance and was the team’s highest-graded defender. Minnesota’s interior duo will have their hands full, as Cleveland guard Joel Bitonio is playing like one of the best guards in football, currently owning PFF’s top pass-blocking grade among guards and is top-10 in the run as well. Wyatt Teller, the Browns’ other guard, was one of the best guards in football last year. It does not stop there, as Cleveland center JC Tretter owns the top pass-blocking grade among centers and is a solid run-blocker too. However, there is good news for Vikings fans. Tretter is questionable for Sunday’s contest. If he were to miss the game, that could potentially give Pierce and Tomlinson the advantage they need to have a huge impact. (For what its worth, Cleveland tackle Jedrick Wills is also questionable, and their backup tackle Chris Hubbard is out, but that will not play much of a part for Tomlinson and Pierce’s games)

Nick Vigil/Anthony Barr

Once again, I am grouping two players under one umbrella, for similar reasons to Pierce and Tomlinson. Anthony Barr is questionable, with a chance to play for the first time since Week 2 of the 2020 season. If he can play, that would slide Nick Vigil down to the Vikings’ third linebacker. With Cleveland’s heavy use of tight ends, though, Vigil likely will see the field a lot no matter what. The Browns have 3 TEs that have all registered 83+ snaps through three games, meaning Minnesota will see a lot of 2 TE sets, bringing Minnesota’s base defense onto the field. This heavy personnel usage plays another part in Cleveland’s impressive rushing game, and their TEs, Austin Hooper, David Njoku, and Harrison Bryant, are 3 of their top-5 targeted pass catchers, too.

Barr has often been described as a leader of the Vikings’ defense when he is on the field. He will handle their defensive play-calling duties and brings an added element to the defense with his athleticism and versatility that Cleveland will have to be on the lookout for.

Plays like the one above are plays the Vikings just have not seen much of out of any linebacker not named Eric Kendricks lately. If Barr plays, that means he should finally be healthy enough to cause offenses headaches once more.

Vigil has received a lot of praise for his play this year, making splash plays like his pick-six off Kyler Murray as well as a big sack against the Bengals. His down-to-down consistency has not been the greatest, however, struggling in the run game at times.

He owns the 8^th lowest run-defense grade in the NFL among LBs to this point (former Viking Eric Wilson is last, for what it’s worth). Vigil has never been a huge plus in the run game in his career, so this should not come as a big surprise. He is capable of stringing together multiple good games in a row, though, and that is what Minnesota needs out of him right now. Between Vigil and Barr, the Vikings’ LB play in addition to Eric Kendricks will need to be big time on Sunday.

Kirk Cousins

Quarterback is the most important position in all of sports, so of course, Kirk Cousins finds himself on this list. Simply put, if Cousins does not show up, Minnesota does not stand a chance. The good news is that Captain Kirk has been playing like one of the best QBs in the league through September. He is Minnesota’s highest-graded player, and trails only Tom Brady and Ryan Tannehill in overall grade among QBs.

Much has been made about Cousins’ ability to succeed when kept clean in the pocket, and his NFL-leading grade when kept clean backs that up. What many fans are not used to seeing, however, is Cousins delivering strikes with pressure in his face as he did on this clutch third-down conversion in the 4^th quarter of the Seattle game.

It feels like we have seen that type of play happen many times with Cousins, but it usually concludes with him pulling the ball down and going into the fetal position for a sack before taking a big hit. Is this a sign of Cousins being a changed QB? That sure would be ideal for the Vikings’ chances, both this week and throughout the remainder of the season. His start to the season marks just the third time in his career in Minnesota where he has strung together 3 or more straight games with 80+ PFF grades. His weeks 10-12 in 2020 and weeks 5-8 in 2019 are the other two, with the latter resulting in Cousins earning NFC Offensive Player of the Month for Kirk-, I mean October.

This means that while Kirk has largely played well during his time in Minnesota, after a few good games in a row, he is usually due for a letdown game. Cleveland owns the 15^th highest team pass-rushing grade, and they rank 12^th in coverage grade. However, rookie CB Greg Newsome has been their highest-graded secondary player to this point and will miss this game with a calf injury. Minnesota cannot afford to have Cousins cool off from his hot start if they want to keep their season alive. What should we expect? Who knows, it is Kirktober now, after all.

The post 5 Vikings Players That Need to Perform vs Cleveland appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

By: Grant Schwieger

The 2021 Minnesota Vikings were a team many said needed to get off to a hot start as their schedule got more difficult as the season went on. Naturally, the team responded by starting the season 0-2. Of course, many Vikings fans will point out that the team is a Dalvin Cook fumble and Greg Joseph 37-yard field goal away from being 2-0.

Minnesota writer Will Ragatz found this statistic that given Minnesota’s win probability before those two events, there was just a 1.3% chance the Vikings started the season 0-2. There is nothing that defines the Vikings more than their love to lose in the worst way possible, so not many fans are astonished by those outcomes. Now Minnesota gets the ironic title of “Best 0-2 Team in the NFL,” a crown too many Vikings fans are proud to don. With a winless two weeks, there are plenty of negatives to go around TCO Performance Center. However, given that the team was so close to victory in both contests, there are still positives as well. Let’s take a look at some of the good and some of the bad for Minnesota through two weeks.

Good: KJ Osborn!

A WR3! The Vikings did it! KJ Osborn’s emergence is easily the best story so far this season. Osborn has caught all 12 of his targets so far, for 167 yards and his first career TD.

He is the only WR in the NFL with 10+ targets to catch every pass thrown his way. The leap Osborn has taken is simply incredible, given he was on the roster all of last year and did not register a single offensive snap. In fact, before training camp, Osborn was left off of many Minnesota roster projections. That begs the question, why was he not on the field over Chad Beebe last season? The Vikings’ staff does not deserve the benefit of the doubt, as Justin Jefferson was not unleashed until Week 3 last season. However, Sam Ekstrom of Purple Insider detailed Osborn’s offseason training, and KJ spent a lot of time training with Jefferson, Jarvis Landry, and Stefon Diggs. That is some solid company, and he appears to have learned quite a bit from those wideouts.

Justin Jefferson said this week he has noticed more safeties on his side of the field this year and defenses are scared to press him. This leaves more opportunities for Osborn, and Adam Thielen who is off to a hot start, to take advantage of. Here’s to Osborn keeping up this pace for 15 more games and solving the ever-revolving door that has been Minnesota’s WR3 for years.

Bad: The Cornerbacks

2020 saw the Vikings put forth one of the weakest secondaries in Mike Zimmer’s tenure in Minnesota, held together by duct tape and Elmer’s glue by Harrison Smith and Anthony Harris. Minnesota swapped out almost the entire cornerback room this offseason, yet through two games, Smith and now Xavier Woods are the ones keeping this secondary from embarrassment. Patrick Peterson was the crown jewel of the secondary additions, and while he has not been awful, he has not been worth the $8 million guaranteed Minnesota gave him to wear purple and gold again. One thing that almost an entirely new secondary leads to is miscommunications.

Breakdowns like this should never happen, and Zimmer was probably blowing steam out of his ears afterward.

Then there is the mess that has been Bashaud Breeland so far. He is not only the lowest-graded Viking per PFF but also the lowest-graded CB in the entire National Football League. The good news is that coverage is volatile. The best CBs will have bad games, and the bad ones will find ways to bounce back here and there. All is not lost with Breeland, and he should not be written off yet.

However, there are plays like this against AJ Green that should not be happening. Green was a liability when on the field last season and Breeland should be expected to handle WRs like him. He has been the definition of volatile when it comes to PFF grades in his career, so do not be surprised if he comes back with a lockdown game sometime this season.

Mackensie Alexander was brought back to be the Vikings’ slot CB this season and has allowed 9 catches on 10 targets for 119 yards so far. Those 9 catches allowed are tied with Breeland for the most on the team. Kris Boyd has been on the field for 4 coverage snaps and allowed 2 catches for 19 yards on 3 targets, with the third target being a play where he got absolutely toasted but luckily the pass fell incomplete. Cameron Dantzler was inactive Week 1 and played well in 16 snaps Week 2, so at least there is that. But as a collective group, the Minnesota CBs share a large responsibility in the team being 0-2.

Good: Danielle Hunter is BACK!

The Vikings’ star pass-rusher has returned to the field and looks oh so good. Hunter just brings an element to the defense no one else on this team can come close to touching. He started a little slow in Cincinnati but was making his presence known all day against Arizona.

He is currently tied with Michael Pierce as Minnesota’s second highest-graded defender, tied for 11^th in the NFL in pressures with 9, and third in the NFL with 4 sacks (all among edge defenders). Last season this Minnesota squad lacked someone who could single-handedly wreck an opposing play from the defensive line. Hunter has already done that on multiple occasions in his 113 snaps thus far, including this one narrated beautifully by the GOAT Gus Johnson.

As Hunter gets back into his groove, he will likely get better and better and make even more of an impact on a play-by-play basis. There should be plenty of excitement surrounding Hunter as the season goes on.

Bad: Tackling

The Minnesota Vikings have had a top-4 PFF tackling grade in 5 of 7 years under Mike Zimmer, in 2014 (1^st), 2015 (4^th), 2017 (3^rd), 2018 (1^st), and 2019 (1^st). Having consistency in a metric like that is an incredibly impressive feat. However, they were 26^th in 2020 and are 30^th so far in 2021. They have missed 24 tackles in 2 games, tied for the most in the NFL.

As a disclaimer, the weapons the Cardinals have on offense are missed tackle machines, starting with Kyler Murray and now sweet-footed rookie Rondale Moore. However, the Vikings missed more tackles against the Bengals (14) than the Cardinals (10). Eric Kendricks and Bashaud Breeland both have 6 missed tackles apiece. Breeland has missed 33% of his tackle opportunities, a big contributor to his previously discussed atrocious PFF grade. Kendricks is much more of a surprise, currently owning the worst missed tackle percentage of his career through two games (17.6%). No one else on the Vikings’ defense has more than 3 missed tackles.

Missed tackles can change in a hurry, so this does not mean this trend will continue throughout the season. The quad injury Kendricks has been dealing with could be a factor, but his play has still been impressive outside of that. The more concerning statistic here is Zimmer’s defenses have largely been one of the best in the league in terms of tackling, and this downward trend does not reflect positively for him. Plays like allowing Rondale Moore to keep running along the sideline to get Arizona into field goal range at the end of the first half in Week 2 are unacceptable and need to be fixed for Minnesota’s season to turn around.

Good: Kirk Cousins

Kirk Cousins’ first two weeks in 2021 have marked the first time since he has been in Minnesota that he has been consistently good in both games. His 2018 Week 2 performance in Green Bay, the infamous Daniel Carlson Tie Game, takes the cake in terms of the best game in the first two weeks, however. He is currently a top-4 graded QB in the NFL and the Vikings’ highest-graded player.

He has always been a good QB when his offensive line can keep him clean, and 2021 has been no different, as he owns the highest PFF grade in the NFL when kept clean. The main qualm most have with Cousins has always been the intangibles, however. A lot of criticism he faces involves a lack of leadership, lack of mobility, and lack of a clutch gene, the inability to come through when his team needs him most. Cousins has delivered on the latter so far in 2021. The “wins are a QB stat” crowd will quickly point to the Vikings’ 0-2 record to disprove that, but frankly, Kirk has not been to blame for most of Minnesota’s issues.

Plays such as the one above are ones that Vikings fans have clamored for over and over again during Cousins’ time in Minnesota. He also had a 29-yard scramble that was another example of plays he rarely makes.

Not only does he own the longest streak in the NFL of attempts without an INT, but he has also just one Turnover Worthy Play through 2 games. Given Cousins’ knack for starting seasons off on the slower side, this start has been encouraging. He still owns a cap hit of $45 million for 2022, so Minnesota needs to see a full season before deciding on that front. The best-case scenario might just be Kirk performs well enough to entice a team to trade for him next offseason. If that is the case, he is off to the perfect start.

Bad: Luck

Sometimes things happen when there is no one to blame, you just have to shrug your shoulders and say to yourself “what do ya do?” That is exactly how Minnesota fans felt after former Gophers TE Maxx Williams caught a pass deflected THREE times by Minnesota defenders, in stride, for 34 yards against Arizona.

Somehow, someway, plays like that happen to the Vikings seemingly every week. Plays like that can be huge swings in a game, and there is nothing anyone could have done about it!

Dalvin Cook’s fumble in overtime against Cincinnati is another form of this. Minnesota gets unlucky that there are no camera angles available that clearly show Cook is down before the ball comes out, so the refs are forced to go with the original call on the field. Had the officials called Cook down originally, they surely would have decided to keep that call as well. The same goes for what looked to be a Justin Jefferson TD against the Bengals. This play had no impact on the game because Cook ran it in after they marked Jefferson down at the one anyways, but Jefferson (and his fantasy owners) wants that one to count for his stats.

Even Greg Joseph’s missed 37-yard kick at the end of the Arizona game is just plain unlucky. It’s not like he shanked it, he just ever so slightly pushed it wide-right. Vikings fans have been conditioned to expect it at this point.

Since 2017, kickers facing the Vikings have the best EPA/play in the NFL and the Vikings own the 4^th worst EPA/play when kicking themselves. That results in Minnesota proudly representing the worst net EPA/play in the kicking game over that period. Kicking year-to-year is so unstable that it is truly incredible how consistently poor Minnesota has been in that department. Will the luck ever turn around? Maybe. Will we be alive to see it? Probably not. Will Matt Prater still be nailing 60+ yard kicks against the Vikings in 2050 at age 66? Most definitely.

The post 3 good and 3 bad things for the Vikings team in 2021 appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

By: Grant Schwieger

Is it crazy to say a game in Week 2 of the NFL season, before Minnesota has even played at home, feels like a must-win already? The Vikings entered Cincinnati last week as road favorites and quickly alerted their fans and the league why being confident or optimistic about them is a terrible idea. There were more than 8 months between Minnesota’s last two games, yet Week 1 seemed as if the team picked up right where they left off at the end of the 2020 season. This team is too good to be blown out every game, but they also are not good enough to put away the teams that they should. This results in a lot of gut-wrenching endings like the game against the Bengals was in every sense of the word.

No one wants to start 0-2, but the season is 17 games long now. The season would not be over. However, games against the Seahawks and Browns loom on the horizon and the Vikings might be underdogs in both of those as well. There is also this statistic that team reporter Courtney Cronin dug up:

There is no reason to ignore the obvious. If the Vikings start 0-2, Minnesota might be in for a looooong season. The Vikings face the tall task of taking on a Cardinals team that dropped 38 points on the road in Tennessee. Let’s take a look at what the Vikings need to do in Week 2.

Slowing down Kyler Murray and Company

If Mike Zimmer gets double-digit hours of sleep this week while trying to gameplan for Kyler Murray, I think we would all be surprised. There is simply no way to truly prepare for someone who can do this.

Zimmer intelligently said earlier this week that he knows the Vikings’ defense will not be able to keep Murray in the pocket all day, and of course, he is right. That does not mean they can’t slow him down, though. The entire defense has to stay disciplined and trust their assignments and their teammates. For Minnesota to do that, though, they would need their defense, specifically their linebackers, to be healthy. That doesn’t look to be the case with Anthony Barr out and Eric Kendricks questionable as well. If the Vikings are trotting out a full backup LB core on Sunday, this could be one of those times Minnesota gets blown out.

After looking past Kyler Murray’s insane athletic ability, there are Arizona’s receiving weapons. They have future Hall of Famer DeAndre Hopkins as a headliner, but he and Christian Kirk, AJ Green, and Rondale Moore all received 5+ targets in Week 1. Running back Chase Edmonds also caught all 4 of his targets and is joined by James Connor in the backfield. The Cardinals’ offensive line is also not a big weakness. Either the Vikings’ pass-rush needs to overtake the game (Arizona RT Kelvin Beachum will be a game-time decision, looking at you, Danielle Hunter), or the secondary needs to have the game of their lives and fly towards the ball. Murray led the NFL in Big Time Throws (per PFF) with 6 in Week 1, but he is also good for about one Turnover Worthy Play a game over the last 2 seasons as well. This Minnesota coverage unit needs to take advantage of when that play pops up. There can be no mistakes like this one from Kris Boyd Week 1.

Containing Chandler Jones

As good as Murray and the offense were for the Cardinals last week, Chandler Jones single-handedly made their game a blowout. He had 7 pressures, 5 sacks, including 2 forced fumbles in just 33 pass-rushing snaps. The Titans mistakenly kept their LT Taylor Lewan isolated on Jones all game and it resulted in Lewan’s worst pass-blocking game in what is his 8^th season. Bad news for Vikings fans, Taylor Lewan is MUCH better than Rashod Hill. The good news is, though, that Tennessee outlined exactly what NOT to do when facing Chandler Jones. Expect a lot of chips from TEs and RBs and double teams sent Jones’ way. That may open the way for JJ Watt and the rest of Arizona’s pass-rushers to make an impact, but Minnesota just cannot afford to replicate plays like this from last week.

That was one of the best games that Jones has ever played as a pass-rusher, so Minnesota might just be hoping for some regression on his part in Week 2. He is, however, wanting a new contract, so his motivation seems to be at an all-time high. If the Vikings are unable to contain Chandler Jones and Kirk Cousins sustains some of the hits Ryan Tannehill did last week, this game might end with Sean Mannion or Kellen Mond under center. Expect a lot to be thrown Jones’ way by Klint Kubiak.

Exploiting the Arizona Secondary

If there is one area of this Cardinals team the Vikings should be able to take advantage of, it is their secondary. They brought Malcolm Butler over in the offseason to be their #1 CB, and he has since retired. Budda Baker is an underrated safety who has been solid his entire career, but his safety partner Jalen Thompson is mostly unproven. Byron Murphy, Robert Alford, and rookie Marco Wilson make up Arizona’s top three CBs. Murphy is in his third season and has had an up and down career thus far. Alford played Week 1 for the first time since 2018, and Wilson is a 4^th round rookie.

This Cardinals secondary performed pretty well last week, but that was mostly due to Chandler Jones and the Titans self-destructing. Tennessee owns what is easily the NFL’s top WR duo in AJ Brown Jr and Julio Jones, yet the two received only 13 combined targets, the first of which being an incompletion to Brown with 10:59 to go in the second quarter. If Minnesota waits that long to target Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen, Kirk Cousins and/or Klint Kubiak may find fans with pitchforks at the Minneapolis airport when the team gets home.

If the Vikings want to expose this Cardinals secondary, they need to make life easier on themselves with play-action, something the Titans did not do last week. Former Tennessee Offensive Coordinator Arthur Smith led such great offenses the last few years that he is now the head coach in Atlanta. Ryan Tannehill had the highest percentage of play-action dropbacks in the NFL last year. Last week, Tannehill had the second-lowest percentage. The blame for that complete 180 on offense for Tennessee falls on new OC Todd Downing. Is it difficult to run play-action when you are down by 25 points? Yes, but it also might be the reason why you are down 25 points. Play-action has been a staple of Kubiak-led offenses for years, so this should not be an issue for Minnesota.

The Vikings also might finally have themselves a solid third WR in KJ Osborn. He caught all of his 7 targets for 76 yards, forcing one missed tackle, and converting 3 first downs, the biggest of which being on 4^th and 4 on Minnesota’s game-tying drive in regulation. The Vikings do not need Osborn to be a star, they just need him to be capable of taking advantage of the opportunities left by defenses focusing on Jefferson and Thielen. Through one week, he seems up to the task. Osborn could prove to be an important piece to this offense moving forward.

Prediction

It is hard to be optimistic entering Week 2 for Minnesota after Arizona’s beatdown of Tennessee and the Vikings’ loss in Cincinnati. However, games like this are why the NFL is so unpredictable. Minnesota could easily come out and look impressive on the road, similarly to how they did in Seattle last season. That game, of course, ended in heartbreak for the Vikings, which is how I envision this one going as well. The Cardinals try to throw the ball too much to AJ Green instead of their three superior receiver options, allowing Minnesota to keep it close. Arizona’s rushing game will prevent the Vikings from getting the ball back at the end of the game, though, with the final score being Arizona 27, Minnesota 20.

The post Vikings at Cardinals Week 2 Preview appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

By: Grant Schwieger

The 2021 Minnesota Vikings season is a true make-or-break season. All signs have indicated that Minnesota is going all-in once again. Another lackluster campaign could prove to be the last straw for any of GM Rick Spielman, Mike Zimmer, and Kirk Cousins, or all three. A week ago, I predicted the Vikings would go into their bye with a record of 4-2. (predicting-the-vikings-record-weeks-1-6) How Minnesota performs after the bye will be imperative in the direction the franchise goes after 2021. Let’s take a look at each game one by one.

Week 8: Dallas Cowboys. Prediction: L

The Vikings continue their tough slate of home games when they host the Cowboys after the bye week. This will be a much different Dallas team than the one that Andy Dalton led to victory at US Bank Stadium last year now that Dak Prescott is back. This game has all the potential for an offensive shootout, with offensive playmakers all over the field for both teams. While Minnesota may have the better defense, Prescott is the better QB in this game and will pull it out at the end for the Cowboys.

Week 9: @ Baltimore Ravens. Prediction: L

While the Ravens have suffered injury after injury lately, they remain a class above the Vikings. Baltimore will deploy an offense unlike any other Minnesota will see unless Trey Lance is starting in Week 12. Zimmer is a defensive mastermind but slowing down Lamar Jackson is not something many teams can do. To pair Jackson with the seemingly always-solid Ravens defense, this is going to be a hard team for Minnesota to beat on the road. It would be a surprise if the Vikings could keep it close, but if they can, the recent loss of CB Marcus Peters for Baltimore might be detrimental for them. 

Week 10: @ Los Angeles Chargers. Prediction: W

Week 10 brings another matchup that will be flush with storylines. Vikings and Chargers fans went back and forth all offseason over who should have won the 2020 Rookie of the Year between Justin Herbert and Justin Jefferson and which wide receiver is better between Jefferson and Keenan Allen. For what it’s worth, Jefferson slotted higher than both of them on the NFL’s Top 100 players list. The last time Minnesota visited the Chargers, the stadium had more purple in it than blue, so this should make for a fun battle for both teams. Los Angeles has what looks to be a much-improved offensive line over what they’ve had in years past. It would not be a surprise if this game came down to who has the ball last as these teams look to be somewhat evenly matched. Minnesota gets back on the winning track in this scenario, though.

Week 11: Green Bay Packers. Prediction: W

Minnesota has to wait until Week 11 to face off with their division rival in 2021. Now that Aaron Rodgers has bought into playing in Green Bay for what appears to be his last season there, the Packers are a much more formidable opponent. Mike Zimmer almost always brings his best when it comes to facing the reigning MVP, and the Vikings have the advantage of playing at home in this one. Similar to the game against the Chargers, this one has all the potential to come down to the wire. If Patrick Peterson is playing like his old self and can help keep Davante Adams in check, that could prove to be the difference for Minnesota.

Week 12: @ San Francisco 49ers. Prediction: L

The Vikings head into San Francisco for the first time since Stefon Diggs’ last game as a Viking in the 2019-2020 playoffs sitting at 6-4. The 49ers got hit hard by injuries in 2020 but their 2021 roster looks to be a very competitive one. San Francisco is set up so well that they might not even have to play the 2021 3rd overall pick, Trey Lance, at QB and still compete for a playoff spot. I would like the Vikings’ chances better if they were at home in this one but going to the west coast for the second time in three weeks might hit Minnesota in this one. Kyle Shanahan’s offense will be able to put Minnesota away in this one and Nick Bosa will terrorize the Vikings’ tackles.

Week 13: @ Detroit Lions. Prediction: W

The 2021 Detroit Lions could be playing some inspired football by Week 13, or they could already have their eyes set on the 2022 QB class. Until Dan Campbell’s squad can prove it, however, any game against the Lions should be a Minnesota victory. A loss to Detroit here would put a fork in Minnesota’s season and put them at 6-6. That alone should inspire the purple and gold to come out in this one and take care of business. The Vikings start an important month of December with a win to put them at 7-5.

Week 14: Pittsburgh Steelers. Prediction: W

Minnesota has a short turnaround here with a Thursday Night Football matchup at home against Pittsburgh. The Steelers have been in a downward spiral since starting 11-0 last year, ending with an embarrassing playoff loss at the hands of the Browns. Big Ben is back at QB for one last go, but by Week 14 it wouldn’t be a surprise if his arm is shot. The Steelers still boast a very impressive defense led by TJ Watt and his new record-breaking contract. Their offensive line, however, is a big weakness entering the season. This could be a defensive battle on national television, and Kirk Cousins will pull out a rare victory under the bright lights.

Week 15: @ Chicago Bears. Prediction: L

The Vikings get a long break going from a game on Thursday to one on Monday night of the next week. It marks the second straight season Minnesota plays in Chicago on Monday Night Football. It is hard to imagine a world where Justin Fields is not starting at QB by this point for the Bears, and it would probably serve the Vikings better if they played Chicago earlier in the season. Alas, they do not, and Fields might have this Bears offense humming by this point. Even with a victory at Soldier Field last season, it just seems unwise to predict a Vikings win in Chicago with the whole country watching for the second straight week.

Week 16: Los Angeles Rams. Prediction: L

Minnesota finds itself back at home with a tough matchup once again. There are a lot of people high on the Rams this season after swapping out Jared Goff for Matt Stafford at QB this offseason. Stafford has rarely found success against Mike Zimmer’s defenses, but he is set with one of the best teams around him he has had in his career. Los Angeles’ depth took a hit this offseason as they continued their approach of prioritizing proven players over draft picks. That might not matter in this game, however, as Aaron Donald is good enough to single-handedly ruin the Vikings’ offensive gameplan. A loss here drops Minnesota to 8-7 with two weeks to play.

Week 17: @ Green Bay Packers. Prediction: L

A January contest at Lambeau Field just oozes of a Vikings loss. This game is currently scheduled for Sunday Night Football, which would be Minnesota’s third nationally televised game in four weeks. Pair all of that with the fact that in this scenario, Aaron Rodgers lost to the Vikings in Week 11, and this could be a Green Bay blowout. The Packers will not forget about Minnesota winning at Lambeau in 2020 and this game will be a revenge game of sorts for them. With all sorts of playoff-seeding implications in this one, Kirk Cousins and the Vikings fall to a record of 8-8, which the national media will certainly run with.

Week 18: Chicago Bears. Prediction: W

A tie in this game would do wonders for the “Kirk Cousins is a career .500 QB” narrative, but sadly that is unlikely. A 9-8 record might just be enough to sneak into the playoffs in the NFC, so Minnesota should still have plenty to play for here. Chicago does not have a good enough roster to beat Minnesota twice in one season, and the Vikings should be able to end the 2021 regular season on a high note. The Bears’ offensive line might be worse than Minnesota’s this year, and Danielle Hunter and company should feast. This puts the Vikings in a possible “wait and see” position to see if the chips fall in their favor when it comes to making the postseason. Regardless of if they make the playoffs, will a 9-8 season be enough for Rick Spielman, Mike Zimmer, and/or Kirk Cousins to remain in Minnesota in 2022? It could make for some incredibly difficult decisions and a franchise-defining offseason.

The post Predicting the Vikings record post-bye appeared first on Pro Football Mania.