Vikings Have Mystery on Their Side vs. Packers
GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Minnesota Vikings have had months to come up with a game plan to beat the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.
The Packers, on the other hand, have had months to guess at the Vikings’ game plan.
After the Vikings finished five games behind the Packers in the NFC North standings last season, they fired longtime coach Mike Zimmer and replaced him with 37-year-old Kevin O’Connell. O’Connell is the latest branch snapped off the Sean McVay coaching tree. To run the defense, he hired Ed Donatell, the latest disciple of venerable Vic Fangio.
In 2019, Packers coach Matt LaFleur brought McVay’s offense to Green Bay. In 2021, LaFleur hired Joe Barry, a secondary branch off the Fangio tree.
So, in theory, Sunday’s season-opening showdown could be like an intrasquad scrimmage from a schematic perspective. And that, in theory, should make the Packers’ Week 1 prep easier. LaFleur had all offseason to watch film of the Broncos’ defense. That’s the unit that Donatell coordinated while working under Fangio the last three seasons. Barry had all offseason to watch film of the Rams’ offense. That’s the unit that O’Connell coordinated while working under McVay the last two seasons.
Between the offseason film sessions and a training camp filled with practices against similar schemes, LaFleur and Barry should have a decent grasp on what the Vikings are going to throw at them on Sunday.
If only it were so simple.
“You would think, ‘Hey, it’s going to be Sean McVay’s offense,’ and I think, of course, to a certain point, it will,” Barry said on Thursday. “But they have their own beliefs, their own philosophies. They’re going to put their own stamps on it.”
O’Connell will have his own way of doing business and a scheme presumably tailored to get the best out of his premier playmakers, receiver Justin Jefferson and running back Dalvin Cook. He probably absorbed some of what’s worked for quarterback Kirk Cousins, Cook and Jefferson in the past, especially plays that gave the Packers troubles. And with no play-calling history, there are no down-and-distance tendencies.
For cornerback Rasul Douglas, it’s “looking at a little bit of everything” but not so much that it’s not information overload.
“Yeah, and we’re their first game,” he said. “They didn’t play [their starters] in the preseason so you really don’t know. We’ll be the first to see what they’re doing. Hopefully they throw everything at us in the first half so we can go in and adjust.”
It’s a bit of a different story on the other side of the ball. While, ultimately, this is still LaFleur’s offense, there’s a new coordinator with Adam Stenavich and a new focus in the wake of the Davante Adams trade.
LaFleur, Stenavich and quarterback Aaron Rodgers will be facing a defense headed by 65-year-old coordinator Donatell, who didn’t call the plays for Fangio. His staff includes two familiar faces: assistant head coach Mike Pettine, who coordinated Green Bay’s defenses from 2018 through 2020, and outside linebackers coach/pass-rush specialist Mike Smith, who served as Green Bay’s outside linebackers coach the past three seasons. Plus, outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith and, especially, slot cornerback Chandon Sullivan have secrets they’ll be thrilled to share.
“That’s the trap you can fall into as a coach where you can just get obsessed with all that stuff,” Stenavich said. “Or you can just kind of lean on the things that you hang your hat on. ‘This is what we do.’ You have to be ready for that stuff but, at the same time, you can’t get obsessed with it. You’ve got to get your guys ready and have them playing with confidence that, ‘This is the stuff we do well.’ The nice thing is we see this style of defense every day. I’m excited about this matchup.”
For LaFleur, this week was about projecting what the Vikings might do but then leaning on his team’s schemes, coaches and players once the ball is kicked off. For the scheme, it’s not as if the Vikings have reinvented the wheel. For players, it’s about winning individual matchups. For coaches, it’s about making the right adjustments.
“You study places they’ve been and you go off that,” LaFleur said. “At the same time, it always comes back to you. What are the things that you feel like you do well as a team in all three phases? I would like to think that the stuff that we give our players has answers for the majority of the things that you’re going to see out there. But Week 1, it’s always a crapshoot. It’s always interesting. It’s just how do you respond and make adjustments along the way?”
