By Matthew Coller
Happy Friday, everyone! Well, it’s onto Chicago and the Vikings have a question mark about the quarterback position. The more things change…
Anyway, let’s get into your questions…
Derrick K… Why can’t the Vikings run the ball like the Bears do? Is it a RB issue? A scheme issue? I think the Vikings have the superior offensive line, as well as blocking TE and FB.
They would give me so much money if I truly knew the answer but I’ve got a theory. A few years ago, PFF did a study on “perfectly blocked runs.” What that study showed was that if nobody makes a mistake on a run play, the average yards per carry than if even one person blows a block, no matter what position that player was. When I watch Chicago, I do not see many mistakes. They are on the same page almost every play.
Part of that might be the sheer amount of practice and meeting time they spend on it. Courtney Cronin said on my show that Ben Johnson designs the run plays for the week himself each week. I’m not sure how often you see a head coach putting together a rushing attack on his own. Usually it’s the OL coach, run game coordinator, RBs coach.
They seem to have every tool in the bag and are capable of executing anything they need for that particular week. It’s where the Vikings are trying to reach but they need more time with this run scheme to get there.
The other part is that D’Andre Swift is a very good running back. He’s always given the Vikings fits. He’s a really good fit for what they want to do.
Eldon.. Is there a chance Kyler starts Sunday? or will it be Carson Wentz with McCarthy as back up, and if it is Wentz and McCarthy would Brosmer be brought up as emergency QB just in case?
There’s a chance, yeah. We’ll just have to see what the medical professionals say. I’d prefer he wait another week though.
I’ll be interested in what they do with the elevation. I’m sure they’d like to elevate Kyle Van Noy and possibly Jerome Ford but that would leave them without the emergency QB. They might just roll the dice, though with these QBs you usually feel like you need an emergency QB.
Arora M… Even with the Green Bay win, I am very concerned about the O-line giving up 3 sacks and some additional pressures to a relatively weak D-line. The center and right guard didn’t look very good. Is there any back up plan to address this or can we expect Wentz not last very long as a starter (due to injury like last year).
The backup plan is: Play better. There are no backups to bring off the bench. It’s this group. And with the amount of investment and experience within that unit, there’s no excuse for not being a top-10ish offensive line, even if the center is still adjusting to a new position.
The O-line’s pass blocking grade was 18th in the NFL for Week 1, which is not where I expected it to be vs. a non-Parsons Packers defense. There were too many times where it seemed like everyone wasn’t on the same page, both in run blocking and pass pro. That might be a Week 1 thing, though I think it should have been better considering these five O-linemen played together all summer long.
Looking at Will Fries’ performance last year specifically, through 12 weeks he was the 15th best pass blocking guard in the NFL by PFF. He fell off dramatically after that, likely due to the leg injury recovery he was dealing with but he shouldn’t have as much trouble going forward as he did in Week 1. If he does, they have a problem.
The silver lining is that the Bears’ D-line does not have anyone who be afraid of on the interior, so it should be a bounce-back week.
Perry… Do you really think the Bears were as good as they appeared last week ? I can’t seen the Vikes giving up 50+ points. Wonder how many times we will run blitz?
The Bears’ offense is absolutely good. Are they 50-points every week good? No. If they were, they’d be the greatest team of all time. I don’t exactly see “Greatest Show on Turf” or the 1998 Vikings there but they have a quarterback with physical skills that are top five in the NFL and they’ve stacked the deck with a ton of weapons and their coach is as good as it gets at play design and coaching details. With Caleb Williams looking like a QB who can operate the offense at a high level from a procedural standpoint, all the rest can fall into place. And Ben Johnson’s rushing attack is nothing short of masterful. There just aren’t a lot of flaws.
Against the Vikings’ defense, I’m expecting a great battle. Some successes and failures from both sides with a ton of talent on the field and two masterminds calling the shots. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Bears end up somewhere in the top 5-7 offenses in the NFL and the Vikings top 5-7 defenses by the end of the year.
Roger N… How different would the the conversation and the betting line be if the Bears had defeated the Panthers 35-13 instead of 59-37? It seems we over value high scoring offenses when determining overall team strength.
I’m not so sure about that. Since 2010, 20 out of the 32 teams to reach the Super Bowl scored at least 450 points during the regular season (only eight teams did that last year). While defense had a moment last year, offense and passing success are still going to drive a championship team most of the time.
A different way to look at it might be like this: Week 1 results are the least telling of any time during the season. Chicago’s win over Carolina was crazy but it’s not likely that their offense is going to be that good all the time and the fact that Carolina was matching them for a large portion of the game probably impacted the final score.
However, we can pretty clearly say that Chicago is extremely dangerous on offense. Over the last two years, there was a lot of Vikings fans hoping that Williams wouldn’t turn out to be that good and that Ben Johnson would flame out like many other Chicago coaches before him but it’s probably not the case. Williams is an absolute problem for everyone else in the NFC and Johnson is top notch in terms of offensive minds.
Tony T… Shouldn’t a backup quarterback’s second priority (after being at least average) be “not getting hurt”? Does Carson Wentz know this?
I’ve seen teams play their backup for weeks and weeks. But not the Vikings. They always seem to want to empty the clip.
A topic for the offseason: why do teams maintain their culture even though coaches and players constantly change and no one lasts very long. If Cleveland traded and fired everyone - players, staff, beer hawkers - and rebuilt, would they change? Or is it in the water? Does the ownership alone keep the Steelers being the Steelers?
Yes, it is very important for the backup QB not to get hurt and I agree that O’Connell has still wanted to push the ball downfield with Wentz at the helm. I think this week they did not “empty the clip” though because KOC really leaned on the run game and avoided putting too much on Wentz’s shoulders. Also Wentz had the fifth quickest snap-to-release time in the NFL, per PFF. So they did what they could vs. GB.
My guess is that they will try to work the YAC game with quicker passing as long as Wentz is playing just like they did against Cleveland last year in London. Just trying to keep Wentz on schedule and keeping things moving rather than asking him to stand back there for a long time.
Thing is, he’s still Carson Wentz. He’s a big dude who has always played a certain way. It’s in his DNA to hang in the pocket and try to make extra plays. He’s never been afraid of taking shots, so that’s how it’s going to go sometimes.
Matt D… Which position group do you think outperformed expectations week 1? Which group underperformed? Also, how did the crowd noise compare to other games in your experience? I was at the game and it felt playoff loud for some of those 4th quarter Packer drives.
The defensive tackles overperformed expectations, though I’d say that training camp was very good for Levi Drake Rodriguez and Ty Ingram-Dawkins. I’m just not sure anyone thought they’d dominate the game and totally stifle the Packers’ run game.
Underperformed was pretty clearly the center/right guard combo and the safeties. We talked a lot about the safety spot all summer and wondered if it could hold up against a quarterback who knew how to buy time and push the ball downfield against blitzes and we got the answer.
This week is going to be a big test for both. It’s a much tougher challenge against Chicago’s run game for LDR and TID and it’s every bit as difficult when it comes to the passing attack, if not harder. Williams can buy time and Johnson has been stellar at figuring out how to work the middle of the field behind blitzes vs. Flores in the past.
In terms of how the noise was at US Bank Stadium, I’d say at the end of the game it was close to as loud as I’ve heard it. After the Minneapolis Miracle play was No. 1. That time that the Texans had like three false starts in a row, the decibel meter was like at 125 (it was 118 on Sunday) and that’s the highest I remember ever seeing it. The atmosphere was very good once the game turned.
Robert S… Good to hear that Kyler Murray might be cleared to play soon. Going back to last season, with the kind of hits Wentz routinely takes, I don’t think we can count on him to play more than 2-3 consecutive games without being too hurt to play. The same can be said about JJM. The NFL limits a team to use IR with designation to return 8 times per season. I think we have already used it for Jurgens, Yurosek, and now Mason. Should the Vikings reconsider putting players on IR to avoid losing them at cutdown time?
Interesting question. I’m sure that teams try to use those earlier in the season when you’re trying to keep as many guys on your roster as possible. As you go on throughout the year and lose players to injury for the year, it becomes easier to have an injured player stay on the 53 without sacrificing someone else, if that makes sense.
It might also be similar to the way I view using timeouts at the end of a game. Just use them and deal with it later. You can’t take them with you.
David M… What adjustments did the Vikings defense make at halftime that enabled them to stifle the packers offense in the second half? And how much of that second half defensive plan is likely to translate to the Bears game?
I’m no Brian Flores, so I can’t tell you the details and what tiny changes may have been made but the one thing that I noticed was Blake Cashman blitzing right up the middle seemed to happen a lot more as the game went along.
I also think that they just continued to pressure, pressure, pressure and eventually the Packers cracked. Their blocking was so bad from the O-line to RBs vs. Flores’ blitzes that Jordan Love had to be heroic in the first half to hit on a lot of those plays. It’s hard to play hero for four straight quarters.
George K…. Matt, my biggest concern is our running back depth. Does DeeJay Dallas find the holes quickly enough to plug in as our second back? Sometimes, these physical veterans who have been floating around the league surprise us…..could he fit that bill? For sure our GM likes him.
I look at DeeJay as being very similar to Alexander Mattison. He’s not a burner by any means but there’s enough toughness and feel for the game to make it work in a part-time role. He seems to be a really smart guy who understands football very well. That’s a lot of the battle. Nobody’s expecting him to come in and rush 30 times for 200 yards. He just needs to get the job done well enough for them to trust him when Aaron Jones needs a breather or on obvious passing downs. If he can average 4.0 yards per carry, catch a few passes and pass block, it’ll be fine.
If they need someone to rush more than a couple times per game, they’ll probably have to use Jerome Ford.
Sean M… If Fries continues to underperform, does he end up being benched or does his contract provide him with some security? If he is benched who would be the likely replacement?
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves because of one game. There’s no doubt that Fries had a really tough first game but he had a really good stretch last season in the middle of the year so we should probably give it a few weeks before we jump right to a benching. It would have to be totally unmanageable in order to reach that point.
That doesn’t mean it’s going to be as good as expected when they signed him. That ship may have sailed but the next man up is probably Trevor Keegan, who they picked up after he was cut by the Cowboys. They don’t exactly have Dalton Risner there anymore.
(Should they have just kept Risner? Probably. But they were too into spending irresponsible money and not keeping Sam Darnold that offseason.)
I also think that some of the play on the right side was due to confusion facing off with Gannon’s fronts. Let’s not forget that guy went to the Super Bowl as a DC. He’s not exactly a bum.
Ramsey K… Dash motion was a huge thing in the niners-rams game in week 1. Is that going to be this year’s “3 Tight Ends,” where it becomes the strategic talk of the season? if not, what will be?
I could definitely see that. It’s always the 49ers and Rams that everybody is copying.
From what I saw, fullback usage is definitely going up and also the concept where they “insert” a blocker. I think the Vikings did this with Jauan Jennings where they motion somebody in, either a TE or WR, and then insert them into a gap. Felt like I saw it a ton on Sunday.
I’m curious if teams start ramping up their blitzes and defensive looks where everyone is aligned up front on early downs after that Flores did this week. The league has been taking stuff he does over the last few years but that was next level.
If I was a team like the Detroit Lions, I’d just start blitzing every play because the defense is horrible and they need to find some way to get pressure on the QB.
Jason… I understand the safeties didn’t grade well as a whole last week. How much of that is a product of Flores designed the game and how much of that was their performance. It seems like the blitz rate will leave without underneath help quite a bit.
I asked Josh Metellus something along these lines on Thursday and he basically said that it was a product of communication. They should have had answers but they didn’t always get everybody on the same page. That’s probably a product of opening at home with the noise at things being a little different with the secondary setup.
I view it as something that will always happen to teams that blitz a lot. Brian Flores is like a modern NBA coach who knows that shooting 3s constantly is going to result in some ice cold runs but the overall result is going to be better. It’s the same way with going all-in on the blitzes. There will be times that they just don’t get into the right coverage or get beat one-on-one like Murphy Jr. did but you’ll trade that for the four sacks and INT.
Every year has kinda gone that way with Flores’ defenses. We forget some of the times in 2024 where they almost allowed two huge comebacks to Jordan Love.