Led By Danielle Hunter, Vikings Defense Gets Back to Dominating
MINNEAPOLIS – On Sunday afternoon, the Vikings defense looked like the Vikings defense for the first time in a while.
Coming into this Week 14 game against the Lions, Mike Zimmer's prized unit had given up an average of 27.5 points over its last four outings. The secondary, always among the league's very best over the previous three years, was struggling to make plays. The run defense was atypically leaky, never more so than last Monday night in Seattle. Perhaps most importantly, the Vikings' fearsome pass rush was noticeably absent.
Against an outmatched Lions team, the Vikings defense got back to where it wants to be. They made plays against the pass, including their first multi-interception game in nearly two months. They stopped the run. And behind a dominant first half from their superstar defensive end, they pressured the quarterback.
"Defensively we played a little bit more like I expect us to play," Zimmer said. "I think it's important we get a chip back on our shoulder, and I thought we kind of did that today. So we need to keep going and keep doing that."
One strong game does not indicate that the Vikings defense has fixed all of its issues and is back to being an elite group, especially not when the opponent is led by a third-string quarterback making the first road start of his career. But forget about the opponent for now – the Vikings needed a shutdown defensive performance like this for confidence purposes. It serves as a reminder that the talent is still there, and that Zimmer's schemes and plans still work.
Those are things that the Vikings continued to preach and believe in during their rough patch, but there's nothing like seeing it come to fruition in a game setting once again.
"We just try to correct things week in and week out," Eric Kendricks said. "Obviously, we can’t control what happened last week anymore, but we came out today with some fire and showed what we could do. We were communicating really well, we made little adjustments, and we had good coverage on them all day."
Right from the game's opening series, the Vikings defense set the tone against Lions rookie QB David Blough. After batting down his first two passes, the Vikings sacked Blough on third down to force a punt and crank the noise level in U.S. Bank Stadium up a couple notches. The guy who got home was Danielle Hunter, who on the play became the youngest player in NFL history to reach 50 career sacks.
Hunter would add two more sacks in the first half, with all three coming on third downs. It was the first three-sack half of his career and gave him 12.5 on the season, placing him back among the league leaders in that category. Blough held onto the ball too long on a couple of them, but it can be difficult for a quarterback to make the right decision with a player of Hunter's stature bearing down on them.
"He's a great pass rusher," Kirk Cousins said. "He's strong. Not a lot of weaknesses to his game. And when you can give our defense a lead at home and give them the chance to rush the passer, someone like Danielle is going to take full advantage."
It wasn't just the five sacks – Everson Griffen and Jaleel Johnson each got one in addition to Hunter's three – that made this a great day for the Vikings defense. With Linval Joseph seemingly back at full speed after missing time with a knee injury, the run defense was stout. Detroit was held to 70 rushing yards on 22 carries, never breaking a run for more than seven yards.
The unit that had struggled the most during the Vikings' recent defensive lull was the secondary, but that unit also bounced back in a big way on Sunday. With Zimmer rotating corners in and out and the safeties playing well, it was a much-needed lockdown day for the Vikings defensive backs. Normally a full-time player, Xavier Rhodes was part of that rotation until injuring his ankle. Trae Waynes and Mike Hughes – perhaps the Vikings' starting corners next season if they elect to move on from Rhodes – played well in the victory.
With all three levels of the defense clicking, the Lions were unable to get anything going on offense, recording just 98 total yards through three quarters. The Vikings have only held opponents under 100 yards through three quarters four times since 1991.
"We played complementary football," said safety Anthony Harris. "We got after the quarterback a little bit. We had some pass break-ups. Everybody was playing together. We have to give those guys some time to get to the quarterback by keeping the windows tight. If we continue to do that, we will be in good shape."
It was a victory reminiscent of some of the Vikings' wins from early this season and in recent years, in that the defense's level of play allowed the offense to be conservative and focus on doing just enough to win the game.
"Can't say enough good things about our defense, the way they really dominated so much of the game," Cousins said. "And that really created the tenor for the game for us. We didn't feel that much pressure on offense to have to keep scoring, keep scoring because of the way our defense was playing. If anything, our focus was don't give them anything, don't give them a short field, don't turn the ball over and allow our defense to really win the game. And they did."
In facing Philip Rivers and Aaron Rodgers over the next two weeks, the Vikings will have stiffer competition on which to judge if their defense has truly turned a corner. But for now, this performance offered some hope that a once-dominant unit could still be a catalyst for a deep playoff run.
