Why are the Vikings running so few plays?
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — As the Minnesota Vikings prepare to play the Indianapolis Colts in a major swing game for their season, one statistic has seemed to stick in the mind of head coach Kevin O’Connell: 50 plays.
The Vikings’ offense was only on the field for 50 plays in a loss to the Los Angeles Rams last Thursday, shining a light on an issue for the Vikings all season. They have simply not had enough plays on offense. In fact, O’Connell’s team ranks 32nd in terms of plays per drive and total offensive plays with 397 in seven games. That has caused them to struggle with consistency and left their defense worn down.
What’s the cause? What’s the solution? Let’s dive in….
Short scoring drives and playing from ahead
Part of the reason for the Vikings’ shortage of plays is that when they have produced points, they have done so quickly. They have 32 scoring drives this season and the average number of plays that it has taken to either reach the end zone or kick a field goal is 7.2. That is the second quickest in the NFL with only Detroit scoring on fewer plays.
Explosive plays in the passing game have been a big reason that has been the case. When you score a 97-yard touchdown, the defense has to get right back on the field. Overall, Sam Darnold has the third most yards accumulated by completions of 20-plus yards in the air.
Only 11 of the 32 scoring drives have required more than three first downs. The Vikings have had 10 scoring drives that started from their own 30 or worse that still required three or fewer first downs. Simply put: Lots of quick strikes.
Since the Vikings have lost their last two games, it’s easy to forget that they were winning all the time during their 5-0 start. No team has more total plays run with a lead of 9 points or more than the Vikings. In fact, the Vikings have 37 drives when leading by at least two scores and the next highest mark in the NFL is the Broncos (surprisingly) with 26.
With their two score leads, the Vikings haven’t done a great job of putting their opponents away. Out of the 37 drives when up by at least 9 points, 17 have ended in punts, six in turnovers, two on turnovers on downs and they have only run an average of 2:13 off the clock.
The NFL average drive when a team is up by at least two scores is producing points on 39% of drives. The Vikings only scored on 21% of drives once they were ahead and averaged just 4.6 plays per drive. No team with at least 10 drives when leading by two scores has a lower plays-per-drive total.
If we flip the coin, the Vikings defense has been on the field for the most plays when leading by at least nine points and overall they have been very successful, giving up scores on 28% of drives (5% below league average) and causing turnovers on 20% of such drives. The opposition, however, does average 5.7 plays per drive.
We can pretty clearly say that their number of total plays has been impacted by the score and their performance when ahead by a wide margin.
*stats using Stathead by Pro-Football Reference
Penalties and sacks
Quick scores and scoring margins are not the only reason for the Vikings’ lack of total plays.
They have had 21 drives impacted by penalties in a negative way i.e. they were on the wrong side of the net penalty yard differential. Only four of those drives finished in the end zone, three ended with field goals, 11 ended with punts, one with a turnover and one with a turnover on downs. So that’s 33% produced points and 52.4% required a punt.
If we flip it, the Vikings have 60 drives where they are even or on the right side of the penalty yardage and they scored on 43% of those opportunities and punted on just 25%.
The Vikings are 5th in penalties per game overall and third in pre-snap penalties, only behind Cleveland and Chicago.
On Friday, O’Connell addressed how they can cut down on the delay of game and false start flags.
"Sam [Darnold] has done so many really high level good things, especially throwing the football for us. I think we all have to remember sometimes that it is his first year starting [in the system]...."
"We've got to do some things to help him. Shorten up that play clock when we break the huddle every snap in practice and try to put us up against it a little bit. There's some other times where part of the bigger picture of the orchestrating of our offense, can we make it a little easier on him? Can we make it easier on the guys around him to have clarity? At the same time, never had a detriment to what we think gives us the best chance to win in an NFL offense trying to move the ball and score points. There's a good balance there."
Another drive killer has been sacks. Sam Darnold has been sacked on 10.4% of his drop-backs, second highest in the NFL, and he has been credited with responsibility for the sack on the fifth most sacks.
That plays into the issues with Darnold understanding where he has to go with the football.
“We can just continue to help him from a philosophical perspective, play intent, kind of what we're hunting and the risk-reward on some things, where maybe it's not turnovers, but holding the ball, trying to make things right based upon his confidence in either the play, the diagram, what he thought it would be,” O’Connell said. “And then more importantly, his confidence in the guys running routes for him. But all of that comes with just volume of plays. And I think we want to possess the ball. We don't want to force our defense to be out there for more snaps than they need to.”
Long drives against
The Vikings have allowed 15 drives of at least 10 plays or more, which is the 10th most in the NFL. They have given up the ninth most pass completions that have gained between 1-10 yards and the third highest percentage of short completions that have resulted in first downs. Against the Rams, Matthew Stafford had 20 attempts on passes that traveled less than 10 yards and completed 16 for 110 yards.
The short passes helped beat the Vikings’ vaunted pressures. Stafford went 10-for-13 with 128 yards and Jared Goff completed 15-of-16 for 165 yards when the Vikings sent at least five rushers.
“That's just the ongoing chess match throughout the season,” Flores said. “I think it's how much do you add within a week?… What players do you have available? I think all kind of come into play when you kind of go into the -- hey, we did this for these four or five weeks, now we have to move on to this.”
Running against the Vikings has picked up over the last two weeks as well. Prior to the matchup with the Lions, they allowed over 100 yards rushing just once on the season but Detroit posted 144 and Los Angeles 107.
The bottom line
The Vikings’ issue with a shortage of offensive opportunities is influenced by circumstance, play style and miscues. There are certain elements that will be difficult to fix but penalties can be cleaned up and Flores can make adjustments to better limit opponents’ short passing games vs. his blitzes in the coming weeks. And if the Vikings still end up with fewer plays because they are up by three scores, well, nobody would argue with that.
Great article Mathew 👏 I wish KOC would figure out a way to get the ball much quicker out of Sam's more consistently.