The Minnesota Vikings advanced to 6-0 with their win over the Colts. Let’s dive into the numbers and All-22.
What went right
Blake Cashman’s All-Pro day
I can’t remember the last time I saw a PFF grade as high as Cashman’s for Sunday’s game: 94.3.
In real time, it felt like one of the best performances we’ve seen from a linebacker and the film told the same story. He finished with three pass breakups, seven tackles for negative Colts plays, two sacks and two more QB pressures.
Here’s a look at an aspect of Cashman’s game that makes him so special: His instincts in coverage. On this play, the Colts run double slants on the left side. The idea is probably to anticipate the Vikings blitzing and dropping back one linebacker and then making him choose which route to undercut. But Cashman seems to read Jones’ eyes or body language and he picks the right slant and nearly gets a pick-six.
There’s another play later in the game where he identifies a screen and breaks it up as the ball is arriving, which you rarely see.
The next play is proof that all blitzing linebackers are not built equally. Cashman is lined up over the guard and begins his rush by taking him wide, then he juts back inside to run a stunt with Jalen Redmond, who crashes into the guard with the center still trying to block him. Cashman appears at Jones’ doorstep out of nowhere.
This is a good example of why other teams can’t just copycat Flores. This stuff isn’t possible if you don’t have the movement skill of Cashman, who has the burst and flexibility of a safety but the size and toughness of a linebacker. It doesn’t work if the guys can’t do their jobs unselfishly, like Redmond just crashing into bodies to get Cashman the opportunity.
Vintage Harrison Smith
Quarterbacks have talked about how frustrating it is to face off with Harrison at the line of scrimmage because they don’t know whether he’s going to blitz or drop back into different types of coverages. In this instance, he blitzed. The Vikings got a 4-on-3 on the right side and there were four blockers taking on only two rushers on the left side. That gave Smith a free run at Jones and he delivered the sack.
He was only given a 0.5 sack on the play but that bumps him up to 22.0 for his career.
Smith’s interception was a pitch-and-catch in the backyard.
I froze the tape to give you a look at what the picture looked like when Jones decided to throw the ball toward his tight end.
It’s hard to make sense of the decision unless he just didn’t see Smith there at all. Nonetheless, gotta make the play and Smith rarely misses an opportunity when they come his way.
Jalen Redmond and Dallas Turner rushing the passer
Every week, we say that Jalen Redmond is a star and folks around the NFL need to start talking about him. He finished the game with five QB pressures to lead the team and three stops for negative plays in the run game.
Dallas Turner only got 18 pass rush snaps but created four QB pressures and shared the sack with Smith. He is No. 2 in the NFL in PFF’s Pass Rush Productivity rate (pressures vs. snaps, weighted toward sacks).
Run D after the 38-yard TD
After the Vikings gave up a big touchdown to Jonathan Taylor, they only allowed him to run for 3.3 yards per carry the rest of the day. Everybody got involved in the action in order to slow him down. On this play, Levi Drake Rodriguez beats his man in the middle by dominating the reach block and closing off a cut-off lane and Andrew Van Ginkel overpowers the blocking TE and slams him back into the RB, giving Taylor nowhere to go.
Six defenders finished with PFF run defense grades over 70 and Cashman had seven tackles on unsuccessful plays.
If we’re looking for one big difference between this version of Flores’ defense and previous iterations, it has been that they are less vulnerable to teams sticking with the run to slow down their blitz-happy ways.
Explosive offensive plays
Despite the offensive numbers being bleh, the Vikings actually had a number of big plays. One of the most impressive came from the shadow of their own end zone on a play-action where Kyler Murray had to deal with some pressure when Max Bredeson couldn’t hold his block and he threw it over a tall defender to Jefferson 20 yards downfield.
Throwing downfield to his left this year, Murray is 6-for-11 with 162 yards and three big-time throws.
Later in the game, Murray hit another pass that has been working for him in recent weeks: Targeting the tight end down the seam.
The Vikings line up in a condensed set and send Jefferson on a double move to the outside and Murray releases the ball just as TJ Hockenson clears the linebacker for a big gain.
Murray also got big gains on underneath throws to Jauan Jennings, who has been staggeringly underused in YAC situations and Gavin Bartholomew, who could possibly be targeted more often with his ability to run with the ball in his hands.
Joe Huber continues to play well
The Vikings’ fill-in left guard had their highest PFF grade in terms of pass protection (82.8) and allowed just one QB pressure.
Since he took over for Donovan Jackson, he’s given up just four pressures and zero sacks and has a average 62.0 run blocking grade.
The Vikings will have to decide whether they want to find a guard at the trade deadline. Huber has at least made his case.
The quick stuff
Murray went 7-for-9 on short throws (0-to-9) and the lone screen went for 10 yards.
It was a nice design by KOC with a pre-snap motion by Jordan Addison where he looked like he was going into the flat but instead turned around for a quick pass and he did the rest with his legs.
Addison’s ability to run after the catch is probably underutilized overall.
Here is another play from the second drive of the game where a pre-snap motion sets up Justin Jefferson for a quick stop route and Murray puts the ball on him for a first down.
These are the types of plays that the Vikings got away from a bit as the game went along but they are in Murray’s wheelhouse.
Later in the same drive, Addison came across the middle of the field and found himself open in front of Murray, who was rolling to his left.
In total this season, Murray has completed 87.8% of his 0-9 passes but he still only ranks 32nd of 38 in percentage of his throws going from 0-9.
That HAS to change. KOC is dialing up good plays for him in quick game and rollouts and then going away from it.
What went wrong
Murray’s accuracy
Murray’s accuracy was atrocious by his typical standard. He finished the game with a Completion Percentage Over Expected of -12.3%, meaning that he should have completed 70% of passes based on the distance and locations of receivers and defenders and instead he completed 58%. Over the last two games, Murray had been +6.8% and +3.9%.
Here was one of the most brutal misses: A third-and-10 throw to Jefferson as he was coming wide open.
For some reason, Murray bounced around and reset his feet before firing and let the ball take off on him. Jefferson had no chance to make a play on the ball and it was nearly picked off.
Murray also missed a routine checkdown to Mason that was likely to turn into an enormous gain and several other throws that you would expect him to make.
The silver lining argument might be that he’s been more precise than this recently and he might have just felt a little sped up. But the downside is that Murray has now had two of his four games where he’s not sharp.
Sacks and pressures