Do the Vikings need a shift in offensive identity?
Seattle's offense is being used as a road map but... is it really?
By Matthew Coller
Did you hear that the Seattle Seahawks ran the ball a lot in the Super Bowl?
The new model for championship-level dominance has arrived! Whew, good things it’s straight out of 1993.
There is nothing quite like the week following the Super Bowl where those covering the other 31 disappointed teams look at the champions and say: “See, this is what the winners did, you need to do that.”
In Seattle’s case, that discussion has been focused on how they were willing to lean on their run game with Kenneth Walker and dominate the New England Patriots (and everyone else except the Rams) en route to a ring.
It is true that Seattle leaned heavy on their ground game all year, rushing the ball 507 times, third most in the NFL.
It is also true that they had a prolific play-action game off their run with Sam Darnold finishing with the second most play-action yards in the league.
But there’s a few problems with using Seattle as the ipso facto here to prove that the Minnesota Vikings need to copycat the league winners.
In 2025, the Seattle Seahawks led the NFL in passes that gained 40+ yards and ranked 7th (tied) in 20+ yard completions.
They were No. 1 in yards per completion, fifth in terms of yards per pass attempt adjusted for sacks and interceptions and ninth in passing Expected Points Added
Let’s compare that to the 2024 Minnesota Vikings with the same quarterback at the helm. They were No. 1 in 20+ yard completions, 5th in yards per completion, 9th in ANY/A and 6th in EPA.
Hmmm.
With a heavier run game, Seattle must have used play-action more effectively though, right?
Not really. In 2025, Sam Darnold ranked 5th in the NFL with a 123.1 QB rating when using play-action. In 2024, he had a 129.4 QB rating using play-action despite the Vikings’ run struggles.
He must have used it way more though, right?
Not really. In 2025, Darnold used play-action on 27.6% of attempts. In 2024, that number was 28.9%.
The passing games were remarkably similar. Both offenses leaned heavily on the No. 1 wide receiver with Justin Jefferson producing 1,533 yards (second in the NFL) in 2024 and Jaxon Smith-Njigba for 1,793 in 2025.
As you can see from these scatter charts, 2024 Jefferson (top chart) and Smith-Njigba (bottom chart) were both targeted all over the field and produced a ton of receptions in the middle.
Seattle very rarely used screens with Darnold, only creating 202 yards this season from them (he had 358 screen yards in 2024).
Seattle used 12 personnel (two tight ends) on 27% of their plays (per SumerSports) and the 2024 Vikings used 12 personnel on 25% of their plays.
It’s hard to find many discernable differences between the two offenses aside from Seattle giving up less pressure on the quarterback. His sack rate was chopped nearly in half and he went from being pressured 37.9% of the time as a Viking to 34.2% of drop-backs as a Seahawk.
He may have also gotten better at not trying to overextend plays because his time to throw went down from 3.08 to 2.74 seconds per PFF.
In the fawning over the Seattle run game, there should at least be some mention of the fact that they were not very efficient overall during the regular season.
The eventual champs ranked 26th in total EPA and 24th in yards per attempt.
The 2024 Vikings were 28th and 25th.
The way the two teams mirror each other is almost spooky when you find out that in terms of points per drive, Seattle was 11th in 2025 and the Vikings were 12th in 2024.
You might think that Seattle controlled the clock but they did not. They ranked 22nd in time of possession per drive.
Did they turn the ball over less than the 2024 Vikings by handing off so much? No, they did not.
It’s almost the same picture except for the fact that Seattle ran more often.
So what was the difference?
Could the gap between the two clubs have been driven by the team’s defense? The 2024 Vikings were very good defensively but they were not as dominant as Seattle. The 2025 Seahawks only gave up 1.48 points per drive (No. 1 in the NFL) and 25.8 yards per drive (4th) while the Vikings gave up 1.72 points (4th) and 30.5 yards (14th) per drive.
The 2024 Vikings were 28th in passing yards allowed as they routinely allowed opposing teams to come back in games, whereas Seattle shut down those trying to throw themselves back in the action by ranking 10th despite leading most games.
We shouldn’t equate a defense that squeezed every ounce of blood from the stone vs. one of the most complete and dominating defenses of the last decade.
Your eyes also did not deceive you: Ken Walker is very good at football. He was PFF’s No. 2 highest graded running back and he finished with the fifth most 10+ yard runs. In 2024, Aaron Jones was 16th by PFF and 17th by 10+ runs. Even if there was not a huge gap in total efficiency, there was a gap in explosive ability.
And there were definitely times Kevin O’Connell could have run the ball more often in 2024.
Otherwise there isn’t a ton of evidence to support the idea that Klint Kubiak’s Super Bowl-winning philosophy with Darnold at the helm was much different than when O’Connell had the former No. 3 overall pick. Of course, since the two offenses have similar roots, that makes sense.
Now there is a different argument to be made about the 2025 Vikings. A team with JJ McCarthy and Carson Wentz at the helm probably should have had more commitment to the run. There were several notable moments that proved costly i.e. goal line failures against Atlanta and Philadelphia and a sack/turnover-filled game against Pittsburgh.
O’Connell later acknowledged after the Vikings win over Detroit that he sometimes needed to adapt to doing whatever it took to win that day rather than how he wanted to play. Maybe there were times in 2023 when he was leaning heavily into Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullens that the same could have been said.
That leads us to a few potential conclusions.
The first is that O’Connell’s offensive philosophy does not need a total overhaul, it needs someone to throw the ball accurately to Justin Jefferson. Remember: Every quarterback before JJ McCarthy had a 107 QB rating when targeting Jefferson.
Certainly there needs to be a more concerted effort to reduce pressure and sacks on the quarterback, which has been a major issue for Vikings offenses since KOC took over. Seattle’s offensive line did not have elite PFF grades in pass blocking and still got the ball out of Darnold’s hands quicker.
And running the ball effectively is still very good. The Chicago Bears offense behind an up-and-down Caleb Williams overachieved in 2025 in part to their +50.0 EPA (4th best). It’s a darn good way to mitigate inconsistent or struggling quarterback play. Having an explosive running back comes in handy. The Vikings can’t go into 2026 with two RBs who struggled to muster big plays.
They could plan to get a quarterback who is better suited for the play-action game like Kyler Murray, who was 12th by PFF in play-action grade and fifth in play-action yardage passing in 2024 or Mac Jones (8th highest grade in 2025) or Kirk Cousins (14th). McCarthy was 34th, by the way.
The other conclusion is that you’re probably not going to win 14 games without a highly efficient passing game. The Los Angeles Rams, probably the NFL’s second best team, were No. 1 in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt and the AFC representative New England Patriots were second.
Why does KOC love his downfield passing game so much? The QBs that ranked in the top five of 20+ yard completions were Matthew Stafford, Drake Maye, Jared Goff, Caleb Williams, Sam Darnold, Trevor Lawrence and Josh Allen. That’s three of the final four, a 13-win Jags team, divisional-round Bills, divisional-round Bears and Goff’s top-five ranked offense in scoring.
But an alternate conclusion is that every single one of those QBs was a top draft pick. Josh Allen is the only one not taken in the top five and he was seventh (and has a cannon).
Can the Vikings really emulate what Darnold did over the last two years with anyone else?
McCarthy has the arm strength to do it but arm talent is different. He would need to take enormous steps in the play-action passing game in order to come anywhere close to those throwers.
Geno Smith is probably the only possibly available QB with the type of arm that matches the most explosive passers but he rarely was used in the under-center passing game.
Otherwise the Vikings will have to make an adjustment.
We usually only look at the Super Bowl winners because that must be the best model but if you can’t reproduce that type of thrower then you need something else.
The Colts were able to build Daniel Jones’ success off the top EPA run game in the NFL and they very likely would have made the postseason had he remained healthy.
Buffalo ranked No. 1 in time of possession, grinding out long drives to keep their struggling defense off the field.
The Broncos threw the most passes in the NFL but only averaged the 25th highest yards per completion.
Maybe the best work-around for the Vikings if they can’t go back to the 2024 style offense is doubling down on Brian Flores’ defense.
Being a good defense is very helpful. Being a great defense can get you deep into the playoffs. The Broncos, Texans and Eagles had issues offensively but all finished in the top five defensive and gave themselves a chance in the playoffs.
The Vikings would need to get Flores more in terms of coverage. Seattle was No. 1 in terms of yards per attempt adjusted for interceptions. The Vikings were 9th.
The bottom line is that under the right circumstances the Vikings had the right type of offense under O’Connell in 2024 to be similar to the Super Bowl champions. They needed to reduce sacks, create more explosive runs and put together a truly elite defense in order to get farther than they did that year.
Now it’s going to be tough to run KOC’s 2024 offense unless McCarthy really clicks. So they may need to mold to McCarthy or another quarterback by leaning hard into the run game or defense.
The odds of success are certainly not the same as running it with a top-notch downfield passer but there may not be any other way.
I couldn't help but think all season how ironic it was thought during the 8 years of Mike Zimmer we were yelling at our televisions "PASS THE BALL" because we just wanted some of these quick game and long passes everyone else was doing. Just one we get a coach that wants to do that the league is shifting.
To summarize, JJ sucks