SKOL Searching: Re-evaluating the Vikings' early season trends
In the NFL, narratives tend to be sticky.
Regardless of the time frame – evaluating full careers, individual games, or anything in between – it can be difficult to kick initial opinions.
That certainly can be true in the context of a single season, as storylines form after a few weeks and can be hard to shake.
During Minnesota’s Week 7 bye, I analyzed where the Vikings' offense and defense were breaking, trying to identify some of those early storylines. Now 12 games in, I found the article particularly useful to revisit as it serves as a natural midway reflection point for Minnesota’s season thus far.
What has changed? What has stayed the same?
The Vikings have played six games on either side of that bye week. They are 5-1 in each stretch and similarities abound. Each featured a blowout loss to a top NFC contender that Minnesota quickly bounced back from. One-score wins and favorable luck have been common in both stints. From a macro perspective, the two six-game runs look very similar.
The underlying statistics tell a different story. While the results have led to the same record, many of the trends that defined the first half of Minnesota’s season have shifted – for good and bad.
Now two-thirds of the way through the season, let’s evaluate the latest six-game run and compare it to the Vikings’ first six to get a current understanding of this team’s struggles and successes.
The ups and downs of the offense
The Jekyll and Hyde nature of Minnesota’s offense has been the only dependable theme throughout the year. Look no further than last week’s win against the Jets.
In the Vikings’ three touchdown drives, they gained 235 yards. On their other eight drives (excluding both end-of-half kneel-downs) they gained 52 yards and three total first downs.
It wasn’t just a one-game anomaly though.
In Minnesota’s Week 6 win against the Dolphins, they racked up 207 yards on three touchdown drives. On the other 11 drives, they gained 27 yards; 10 of the drives resulted in three-and-out punts.
It’s a feature of the offense, not a bug. Yet, the route the Vikings have taken to those results has differed greatly.
Through the first six weeks, Minnesota’s offensive success was built upon its first-down prowess. The team ranked fifth in Football Outsiders’ DVOA on first downs. They were converting first downs on first down at a league-high 31% clip. Even when they were not generating first downs, if they gained four or more yards, they remained one of the top offenses in the league, ranking first in DVOA on 2nd-and-mid plays and third on 3rd/4th-and-short.
Problems arose only when those first-down plays failed. The Vikings were one of the least-efficient teams in the NFL on 2nd-and-long and 3rd/4th-and-long situations, ranking 31st and 32nd in those categories, respectively.
The latest stretch of games has been nearly the opposite.
Minnesota has dropped from fifth in first-down efficiency to 20th. From game to game, the culprit has been different. Against the Jets, the passing game had a success rate of only 36% on first down. Against the Patriots, the Vikings managed just 26 yards on 14 first-down rush attempts.
What has been largely consistent is an improved third-down offense – even despite being put in difficult situations more frequently. Minnesota’s 3rd/4th-and-long efficiency has gone from dead last in the NFL to 19th and they’ve largely been an above-average offense on all 3rd downs, ranking 12th in efficiency and 13th in conversion rate.
Excluding the Cowboys game, the Vikings have converted 46.8% of third downs since Week 7, which would rank 4th in the NFL over a full season. Even including the Dallas game (in which the Vikings were 1-of-11 on third down), they still rank inside the top 10 in conversion rate over that time frame.
Particularly on the third-and-long situations, Minnesota’s offense has looked much more competent. In the last two weeks alone, the Vikings have converted six third-and-long (seven or more yards) attempts. Through the first six games, Minnesota had done that just eight times.
That increased competence is surely influenced by Kirk Cousins’ growing willingness to throw the ball further down the field.
The interesting component is that it’s not that Cousins has become more aggressive than he’s ever been, he’s just broken out of one of the most risk-averse stretches of his career.
After the Miami win, Cousins’ average depth of target (aDOT) was 6.5 yards for the season, on pace to be the lowest of his entire career by a wide margin (his previous season low was 7.9 in 2018).
But over the last month and a half, Cousins has looked much more comfortable throwing the ball deep both on early and late downs. His aDOT is 8.7 yards in the last six games, much closer to his career average of 8.4.
In four of the last five games, Cousins has had an aDOT at 9.1 yards or above. He had no games with an aDOT above 9.1 over the first month and a half of the season.
Here’s another way to look at it that may shed some light on the increased third-down success in particular.
NFL’s Next Gen Stats measures average air yards to the sticks, which measures how far a ball is thrown in relation to the first down marker. Anything negative means the quarterback is throwing behind the line to gain. Positive means they’re throwing past it.
Through the first six weeks, Cousins was throwing the ball, on average, about 2.5 yards behind the line to gain, which was the third-shortest mark in the league. That’s now jumped to 1.3 yards behind the first down marker, 17th among starters this season and slightly ahead of Cousins’ 2021 mark.
Cousins has never been one of the most aggressive quarterbacks in the NFL, but he is taking more risks over the last stretch of games. That was on display in the Vikings’ win over the Bills but has shown itself to be consistent in the data over the last six weeks.
Still, it hasn’t led to wide-scale improvements. Minnesota scored 23.1 points per game over the first six weeks. They’ve scored 25 per game over the last six games. If anything, the Vikings’ negative regression on first down and positive regression on late downs seems to have just canceled each other out.
Part of that can also be attributed to the offensive line, which after a strong start to the season has fallen off dramatically. Cousins has been pressured on 43.9% of dropbacks since Week 7, the second-highest rate in the league.
It’s been a game of whack-a-mole all season with that unit. Other than Brian O’Neill and Christian Darrisaw, each of Minnesota’s offensive linemen has had debilitating stretches of bad play. And even when one begins to play better, another falls behind.
For example, over the last two weeks, Ed Ingram has allowed only two pressures, per PFF. It’s the only two this season he’s allowed less than three pressures in a single game. Yet just as he’s played better, Minnesota’s left tackle position has fallen apart without Darrisaw.
Blake Brandel has allowed 12 pressures and six sacks in 139 pass-blocking snaps. Darrisaw has 12 pressures and two sacks in pass-blocking 393 snaps.
Garrett Bradbury and Ezra Cleveland have had bad stretches too. Cleveland allowed 13 pressures and one sack in weeks 9 and 10. Bradbury allowed eight pressures in weeks 10 and 11.
With an inconsistent offensive line, the offensive output is bound to follow suit. That’s been unfailing all year – but the different ways they’ve performed both positively and negatively have shifted.
Situational football covering up defensive warts
While the Vikings’ overall offensive output has not changed drastically from the beginning of the season, it has for the defense.
Through the first six games, Minnesota allowed 19.7 points per game. In the last six games, the Vikings have allowed 26.8 – just about a touchdown more per game. Over the last three games, they’ve allowed 29.3 on average. Only the Colts and Jaguars are worse.
But it could have been a lot worse if not for Minnesota’s expanding situational aptitude.
Let’s think back to where the defense was after the Miami game – particularly in the red zone. The Vikings had given up touchdowns on the last 10 opponent red zone trips. Those touchdown drives were led by Jared Goff, Andy Dalton, Justin Fields and Teddy Bridgewater.
For the full season, the Vikings allowed a league-high 80 percent of their opponents’ red zone opportunities to turn into touchdowns.
Now imagine if that trend continued to this point in the season, where Minnesota has now fallen to 31st in yards allowed per game (398.7) and has given up a league-high 1,353 yards over the last three weeks.
The result surely wouldn’t be 10-2.
Instead, the Vikings’ defense has resurrected its red zone defense. Highlighted by stymying the Jets to 1-of-6 in the red zone last week, Minnesota has allowed touchdowns on only 36 percent of opponents’ red zone trips since Week 6.
Even if you remove that result as an outlier for the unit, the Vikings have allowed touchdowns on 43.8% of drives in the other five games. Extrapolated for an entire season that would rank third in the entire NFL. And over the last three games, they rank second in the NFL in red zone efficiency.
It’s come by being more efficient against the run and pass. Minnesota went from 32nd in overall red zone DVOA to 15th, from 31st to 14th in pass red zone DVOA and 32nd to 23rd in rush red zone DVOA.
So while the bend-don’t-break defense has seemingly started to break more often with teams’ converting big yardage gains, the Vikings have found their teeth in the red zone. Without it, the defensive performances would have been disastrous.
