Late Sunday night, after the day’s NFL slate had concluded, one television network was showing game highlights. It was the usual whip-around with upbeat music in the background. An impressive 60-yard throw here, a wild interception there. Eventually, the Minnesota Vikings received their due.
Justin Jefferson’s stupendous catches were lauded. The Green Bay Packers’ tidal wave of momentum made for a fun finish. Once it was all rehashed, one of the commentators asked, “Is the Vikings’ 4-0 start sustainable?”
It’s a common question on many of the popular NFL podcasts, and it’s a question that encourages offshoots. Can quarterback Sam Darnold continue his stellar play? Will defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ system be figured out? These conversation points all seem sensible given how different the team’s results have been compared to the external expectations this preseason. How else would we, as humans, deal with the unexpected? Well, we’d try to figure out why we didn’t expect it in the first place.
Four for four. #Skol pic.twitter.com/mOjeo2Pa64
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) September 30, 2024
There are a few obvious contributing factors here. First, the Vikings’ offseason additions were mostly unheralded names. Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, Aaron Jones, Shaq Griffin and Stephon Gilmore had all been productive NFL players, but none of them signed top-of-the-market contracts. Darnold, too, had spurts of NFL success, but they were few and fleeting. The offensive line was deemed good, not great. Depth on the defensive side was questioned. The rest of the NFC North seemed to be on the rise, and here was this Vikings team, absorbing dead cap money, moving off an experienced quarterback in Kirk Cousins and gearing up for a transitional year until first-round pick J.J. McCarthy grabbed the reins.
You could poke countless holes then, and still could now, especially after the Packers’ scare Sunday. In the second half, Darnold threw an interception and lost a fumble. The Vikings struggled in short-yardage situations. Flores’ defense lost its bite as the Packers posted chunk plays through the air. For the first time in 2024, these Vikings did not seem bulletproof.
The finish heated up the embers on the “Is this sustainable?” flame, so let’s dig a bit deeper into the overall start to the season, and what went wrong over the final 30 minutes on Sunday. To start, here is a snapshot of where the Vikings rank in many meaningful metrics, courtesy of TruMedia:
| Statistic | Vikings ranking |
|---|---|
|
Turnover margin
|
4th
|
|
Offensive explosiveness
|
5th
|
|
Defensive explosiveness
|
19th
|
|
Offensive efficiency
|
11th
|
|
Defensive efficiency
|
5th
|
|
Strength of schedule (thus far)
|
7th
|
Most of those statistics send positive signals, especially turnover margin. Kevin O’Connell became the Vikings’ head coach in 2022, and since then, Minnesota is 21-0 in games when it has broken even or won the turnover margin. This offseason, the Vikings’ offensive coaches and players made ball security a priority. Defenders did not talk about it as much, but Flores and the coaching staff entered the season with one goal: be all about the ball. The Vikings have deflected 32 passes in four games, seven more than any other team.
Of those numbers, the only eye-opener is the Vikings’ standing in allowing explosive plays. Last year, the Vikings ranked second in the NFL in this category. Preventing passing game chunks and lengthy runs resides at the core of Flores’ philosophy, so what’s happening? The competition deserves some credit. Green Bay ranks first in explosive play rate. Houston is fourth. San Francisco is 15th, but the 49ers do lead the NFL in plays of 10 yards or more.
The other aspect of the Vikings’ ranking returns us to Sunday’s game. Minnesota allowed 12 plays of 10 yards or more in the second half against Green Bay. No NFL team tallied more in the second half in Week 4.
“What we’ve done great all year,” Cashman said Sunday, “was our (pass) rush and coverage have matched up. Green Bay did a good job of slowing our rush down and keeping plays alive, which allowed them to get a lot of chunk plays.”
No postgame comment hit more at the heart of what is essential for Flores’ defense to continue suffocating offenses. In the first three games, the Vikings pressured the opposing quarterback on nearly 45 percent of snaps when rushing four. Minnesota’s pressure rate dipped by more than 10 percent in that same situation Sunday.
The decisiveness and downfield vision of quarterback Jordan Love contributed to the Packers’ chunk plays, but tempo was also an important element of their success against the Vikings. Green Bay deployed five no-huddle snaps from Weeks 1 to 3 — then did it 19 times on Sunday. Several times, the Vikings’ typical third-down pass-rush package remained on the field on rushing downs, so it’s also possible the Packers’ pace affected the Vikings’ pass rush.
“I think (the Packers) went into the game with a good game plan trying to trap us in different personnels,” Vikings linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill said. “In that second half, I think, yeah, maybe we got a little tired. Things were going fast.”
The Vikings had potential counters available in the form of bringing more pass rushers or playing more drop-eight coverages, as Flores began to do down the stretch. Notably, cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. snatched an interception on a 50-50 ball that Love lobbed up with safety Harrison Smith screaming toward him off the edge. It is also worth mentioning the Packers rank No. 1 in the NFL in pass-blocking grade, according to Pro Football Focus, which also played a role in the Vikings’ pass-rush struggles.
Big play from @byronmurphy!
📺: @NFLonCBS pic.twitter.com/tdZBOYD5LR
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) September 29, 2024
Offensively, the sustainability question revolves around Darnold’s historical tendency to turn the ball over. His turnover-worthy play rate through four games is 3.8 percent, just a smidge beneath his career average of 4.1 percent. Comparisons are fraught with issues, but most high-level NFL starting quarterbacks have career averages in the range of 3.2 to 3.8 percent. Two of Darnold’s interceptions, O’Connell said Monday, were direct results of poor play calls. O’Connell was referencing Fred Warner’s interception for the 49ers and Xavier McKinney’s pick Sunday. Darnold’s fumble, meanwhile, occurred on a creative cornerback blitz on second down.
Trouble in short-yardage situations also affected drives Sunday, and in general, the Vikings were stifled when attempting to run between the tackles. This was partially a byproduct of the Packers applying more defenders up front on early downs to stop the Minnesota rushing attack. Green Bay utilized an eight-man box once in the first half and five times in the second half. That explains why Minnesota adjusted and passed more down the stretch even though they were winning and wanted to kill the clock.
All of these issues — opposing tempo, the less effective pass rush, Darnold’s turnovers and short-yardage inconsistency — are relevant in the overall evaluation. So is the fact that the Vikings have not played from behind, a point legendary coach Bill Belichick made in one of his media appearances last week. These potential cracks in the foundation, though, feel much less worrisome than major personnel or coaching holes. And that reality may answer the sustainability question better than anything else.
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(Photo: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
