By Matthew Coller
The Minnesota Vikings fell to 6-1 with a 19-15 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday.
One note before we dive into the analysis of the game: Kevin O’Connell said that the Vikings are going to evaluate Kyler Murray’s sore hamstring throughout the week and that he is still the starting QB regardless of the injury.,
Alright, let’s get into it…
What went wrong
The offense in key moments
While the Vikings offense was certainly inconsistent, they did enough to put themselves in enough spots where one more big play might have made all the difference.
Those plays included:
— A third-and-7 incomplete pass that forced a 57-yard field goal in the first quarter
— An interception at mid-field with 1:51 left in the half
— A failed fourth down attempt at the Detroit 25
— An incomplete third-and-5 that caused KOC to punt
Here’s a look at the fourth down attempt, where Murray faces instant pressure due to a Detroit four-man rush that had two of the six defenders at the LOS drop back. DeeJay Dallas ended up on the rushing linebacker while Will Fries blocked nobody and Aidan Hutchinson won his 1-on-1 with Christian Darrisaw.
There were lots of reasons to blame Murray for the issues throughout the game but in the biggest moment Detroit was able to create a quick pressure on him and force a floating pass to Jordan Addison.
Overthrows and misses with Justin Jefferson
There isn’t much mystery as to why Jefferson was frustrated on the sideline and after the game. There were far too many inexcusable misses in his direction.
One of the most crushing was a double move by Jefferson in the red zone that created a wide open chance for a touchdown. Murray identified his open man, delivered the ball close to the correct timing and threw the ball over Jefferson. That’s a tough, tough miss when there are only so many times Jefferson will be that open against an opponent’s zone coverage.
The Vikings made up for this miss by getting a 15-yard screen pass to Aaron Jones and then Jefferson made an all-universe catch for a touchdown.
The next bad miss was much more costly. After the Vikings got going on offense to get to mid-field, Murray did an excellent job creating with his legs on a Detroit blitz. He elected not to scramble because he saw Jefferson open one-on-one on the sideline. It should have been an easy pitch and catch but Murray flung the ball way over Jefferson’s head.
Not that anything in football is as easy as the players make it look sometimes but that’s a pass that Murray should be expected to make in his sleep with the type of playmaking ability he’s always possessed. If his momentum was taking him too fast to his left, then he should have just picked up a few yards with his legs.
As if the overthrows weren’t bad enough, there were other times where Murray could have found Jefferson within his progression and simply turned down the opportunity to find him open.
On this play, he starts to the right side where he seems to have an open Hockenson breaking toward the sideline and then comes to his backside where Jefferson is breaking inside over the middle. If Murray throws it as soon as he turns his body, Jefferson will be entering space behind the linebacker and in front of the (very) deep safeties. Instead he passes it up, looks to the checkdown and takes the sack.
This is also an example Murray allowing his own pressure.
In the game, PFF only charged blockers with two QB pressures out of the nine drop-backs where he was under pressure. The rest went to the quarterback.
Murray leads the NFL in pressure percentage allowed by the QB at 30%.
Murray on third down
In his career, Murray has always struggled on third-and-long. So having him face six third downs of at least third-and-7 is naturally quite bad.
The Vikings finished 3-for-10 on third down and 0-for-1 on fourth down.
This season, Murray has thrown 30 passes on third down and longer than seven yards to go and has four first downs.
That tells pretty much the story of the season.
The run game
The Vikings’ three running backs carried the ball 14 times for 46 yards. The struggles played a big role in creating the large number of third-and-longs that the Vikings ended up facing during the game.
One of the reasons was that the strong interior of former first-rounder Tyliek Williams and star Alim McNeil got a significant push against the Vikings’ interior.
Here’s an example of Williams holding the point of attack and allowing no space for Jordan Mason to cut back inside after Max Bredeson missed a block on the edge player that would have allowed him to get to the outside.
One of the standouts for Detroit was rookie Skyler Gil-Howard, who created pressure and made plays in the run game. On this play, guard Will Fries looks like he’s trying to cut off Gil-Howard and work to the linebacker so Brian O’Neill can take him but the DT is too quick and sends Fries by him and pushes O’Neill into the running back.
You’ll also see the Vikings trying to move Williams with two blockers and struggling to do so.
The Vikings’ revamped run game has just 630 yards by running backs so far this year. If there’s an argument for making a trade for a running back, that’s it.
The Lions had some interesting answers for Flores (big personnel)
While the story of the game was certainly the offensive side of the ball, it has to be mentioned that Detroit used some strategies against the Vikings that we haven’t seen much this year, including putting two tight ends in the backfield.
On this explosive run by Jahmyr Gibbs, two TEs and Gibbs are lined up to Jared Goff’s right and one of them goes up the middle for a big block on Kyle Van Noy to spring the speedy RB.
The Lions used big personnel for the majority of the second half as part of their rushing attack and in pass protection. Putting the TEs in the backfield seemed to give them a chance to identify blitzes. While the Vikings sent another wildly high blitz rate, they only pressured Goff on nine of 30 drop-backs.
Detroit also did a good job of getting the ball out of Goff’s hands in the second half when they did pass, including with this screen that caught the Vikings in a pressure and allowed Gibbs to break out.
You can bet that we are going to see a lot more where this came from in the coming weeks.