Friday mailbag: Defense?

Vikings fans are looking forward and wondering: Can the Vikings' defense hold up?

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday, everyone! It feels like it’s been a while since the Vikings last were on the field but they’re back at it playing meaningful football in December — and not the “in the hunt” graphic type football. So let’s dive into your questions…

@jrm531 Trying to figure out the issues on D. Can these chunk plays be minimized by scheme? Or are players not capable of it? Are the players up to it, but being let down on the schematic side? Clearly they aren’t going to blank teams, but can they minimize the chunk play issues?

This really speaks to the concept of defenses being weak-link systems. The idea of this defense is to keep everything in front of the safeties but no matter what you do schematically mistakes are going to get punished. If you look at the distribution of PFF grades on the starting defense this year there’s five guys with grades between 74 and 83, which means they are playing pretty darn well and then there’s five players below 65. That’s pretty emblematic of what they are: Lots of areas for opponents to attack but enough terrific talent to create sacks/turnovers. I’m not sure there’s a solution because even if I think they could be a tad more aggressive, more blitzing means more players left alone in coverage.

@headcoach21 Who is an underrated player that has been a key in the Vikings successful season so far??

It’s hard to tell you guys about an underrated players because Vikings fans know the roster inside and out. You folks are the ones who debate WR5 during the preseason. So if I said Ryan Wright, you’d all be like, well duh. The best I can do is Harrison Phillips. He won’t get any attention during broadcasts or nationally but stopping the run has been the key to winning some of these games late and Phillips ranks as the 10th best run stuffer in the league by PFF. If he wasn’t there, I can think of a few games where opponents would have just run out the clock with leads in the fourth quarter.

@alstrain What is the most random good season by an average Vikings player (excluding QBs). I'm thinking things like Orlando Thomas having a year with 9 INTs, Moe Williams having 11 TDs in 2002, Dwayne Rudd making an All Pro team. Things like that.

Love this question. Those are great nominations. How about 2002 Michael Bennett and 2006 Chester Taylor? Both guys had top 15 rushing seasons in Vikings history and never again. I know Sidney Rice’s 2009 season was Favre-driven but it’s exactly what you’re describing. He had over 1,300 yards in ‘09 and never topped 800 again. Would Kai Forbath qualify? Lights out in 2017, go-ahead field goal in the Minneapolis Miracle game and then cut the next year. Does DJ Wonnum’s 8-sack season end up on this list?

@TVanHatten I've been meaning to ask this since #18 is lighting everything up. Excluding current players, who is your Mount Rushmore of Vikings WRs? I think the first two will be a slam dunk.

He’s already third. With all respect to Stefon Diggs, Adam Thielen, Jake Reed, Anthony Carter and Sammy White, nobody has done this type of stuff except Moss. Even if Jefferson demanded a trade tomorrow and played the rest of his career as a Jaguar, he’s still got a great argument. The debate about the fourth guy on the Mount Rushmore is really tough. I might lean AC because he was good for so long but that’s a great debate.

@gabdougcharles Do you think the biggest difference this year compared to last year is the amount of penalties we have given up? We were 11th last year and right now we’re 27th for penalties against. Seems like KOC has this team well coached and disciplined.

Yes, it is a big difference. The question I’d have about that is…what’s the randomness level of penalties? In 2020 the Vikings had the eighth fewest penalties. Last year they had one particular player Oli Udoh committing a ton of penalties and they had issues in the secondary with Bashaud Breeland committing six and Everson Griffen had his typical jumps offsides (seven penalties). Flags might be something where we give too much credit/criticism to coaching, but it’s definitely been helpful for this particular team. They need to continue the trend.

@AdPlusVerb I've been thinking about what happens between snaps. When studying film do opponents watch body language *between* plays for tells on what is going to happen? Dominique Foxworth on Mina Kimes' podcast said the other day that defensive players make kind of obvious hand signals to communicate the coverage (two arms up for cover-2, tap thigh for quarters)… how much of those queues affect the outcome of the game?

I’ve asked players about that before. What they usually say is that if you try too hard to figure out the other teams’ signals you can lose focus on your assignments and techniques. Trent Williams was talking about that with his stance. You might be able to get some hint but if the coverage adjustment works to slow down the play call, it probably isn’t helping a ton if the offense can figure it out or not. But the actual adjustment is massive. That’s why Zimmer liked Anthony Barr so much. He was so good at making those checks based on what he saw from the offense.

@tadfundermann Obviously the defense has not improved this season. How much do you blame on the aging vets, the lack of overall talent, and the scheme/play calling from Donatell? Feels like a lot was put on the aging vets and they just can't keep up at the same level they used to.

As far as the olds go, Za’Darius and Peterson have been elite players at their positions this year but the fits of Eric Kendricks and Harrison Smith are pretty questionable in this system. The middle of the field is so open all the time that it seems like Kendricks is being asked to cover the entire field and Smith isn’t being used as aggressively as he has in the past when he’s been an All-Pro. Smith’s PFF grade is the worst it’s been since 2013 and I don’t think that’s because he’s wildly different as a player. If you look at his snap distribution, he was lining up all over the place with Zimmer and this year it’s mostly free safety. I’m not sure something can change there at this point but they have six weeks to try to make it fit better.

@mattverick KJ does not seem to be making as much of an impact this year. Is that because JJ is taking more share of yards or is there something about KJ's game that has regressed this year?

It’s really odd. I wish I had a clear answer. My initial take on this was that they need to get the ball in his hands on some quick throws but now that I look at his numbers from last year, he was incredibly successful downfield in 2021. He was targeted 27 times on passes that traveled more than 10 yards through the air and caught 17, seven of which were for touchdowns. This year, 15 downfield targets with four catches. It seems like several of them have been open and Cousins just hasn’t been on the same page or made an accurate throw. You might be onto something with him not being the first option as often. Maybe that’s something they could look at down the stretch.

@Just1SBB4IDie What would it take for KOC to get another DC. I don’t think they should move on but you never know.

I could see it happening after this season, though it seems like Donatell is Kwesi’s guy. It might depend on how things go from here. If they demolish some of these bad QBs coming up and get right during the playoffs, we’ll forget all about giving up 382 to Mac Jones but if this trend continues and they lose in the postseason because the defense can’t stop anybody, they’d have to consider something else.

@WriterChurchill Okay, here goes -- The Vikings defense will be the death of me. I'm calling it now. Upon said death, if the coroner's report reads: "Death by Vikings defense," will you serve as a pall bearer at my funeral?

I’m not going to try to talk you out of feeling like this because it’s a huge concern. We are now flipping the switch from, “are they going to keep winning?” to “what are they going to do in the playoffs?” And if the defense looks like this, they won’t win too much in the playoffs. I checked the numbers and only one team to allow more than 6.0 yards per play on defense has reached the Super Bowl since 2010 and that team had Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. as its QB and still had a plus-171 point differential. The Vikings are currently allowing 6.1 yards per play. Of course, they do play some horrific quarterbacks coming up soon so that might help them get things turned around and going in the right direction come playoff time.

@_vermcat Is the handoff pass the next major evolution in the playaction passing game?

Only if there are RBs who can throw the ball. I think it used to happen more often back in the day. Walter Payton threw 34 career passes. There was a RB pass play on Madden that would never, ever work no matter how hard you tried. The innovations in play-action are coming in how they manipulate the defensive rules, which is pretty hard to spot unless you’ve got a friend who coaches football, but that’s what Miami seems to be doing so brilliantly.

@DarrickMoren Vikings defense was starting to show signs of improvement and then were hit by injuries. Over the next 2 games they should have Dantzler, Evans and Dalvin back. Assuming a healthy D heading into the playoffs, where do you think the defense will rank among the 14 playoff teams?

Well, they had a good game against the Commanders but before that they gave up 375 yards and 26 points to Arizona, so I’m not sure there was ever a run of games where they were stout. But to you point, Tomlinson and Dantzler are really important guys to get back. I have to see more of Evans to be sure what they have in him. Still they haven’t exactly been ravaged by injuries on defense. Missing two guys out of 11 this time of year is pretty darn good. The only potential playoff defenses that are lower in Expected Points Added are Seattle and Los Angeles. That sounds about right.