The Packers Defense Failed to Account for the Vikings' Best Player

The Vikings were able to move the ball with ease against the Packers in Week 1 for a variety of reasons. Kevin O’Connell, making his head-coaching debut, had a great plan for stressing Green Bay’s defense. It was centered around putting his best receiver, Justin Jefferson, in position to make plays. The Packers, on the other hand, struggled to respond as Minnesota dictated the game to them. And they inexplicably failed to dedicate any special attention to Jefferson.

Let’s deal with that part first, because Green Bay’s approach enabled many of O’Connell’s tactics to work. The Packers are a predominant zone coverage team. That’s how defensive coordinator Joe Barry prefers to play. And as we all could see on Sunday, he generally doesn’t have his cornerbacks follow receivers. They stay to one side, even on those few snaps when they do play man coverage. You put all of those elements together, and that means it’s much easier for offenses to create favorable matchups. Which is exactly what O’Connell was able to do on Sunday.

Using Alignment to Create Mismatches for Jefferson

Jefferson finished the day with 9 receptions, 184 yards, and 2 touchdowns. None of those receptions came against the Packers’ best cornerback, Jaire Alexander. And a majority of them were against linebackers and safeties.

You could see this game within the game taking shape on the opening drive. On the Vikings’ first 3rd down, Jefferson aligned away from Alexander’s side. The Packers played man coverage but matched up based on alignment. That left Eric Stokes to cover Jefferson:

That was quite the “Bang-8” route by Jefferson there. We could write an entire post on that one route alone, but let’s move on to later in the drive. Here, O’Connell went with an empty set. He aligned running back Dalvin Cook on the perimeter to the left and Justin Jefferson in the slot to the right. The Packers matched up with Alexander over Cook and rookie linebacker Quay Walker over Jefferson:

This was an indicator of zone coverage. The alignment not only helped identify pre-snap what the Packers would be doing, it stretched them thin. With the receiver to Jefferson’s side running a go route (taking the cornerback with him), Jefferson was left in space with only a linebacker anywhere near him:

At least Dalvin Cook was bottled up by Alexander on the other side of the field?

In the second quarter, O’Connell again aligned Jefferson in the slot, this time dialing up a shot downfield off of play action. Because it was first down, Minnesota was able to get a more predicable zone-coverage look (Cover-4 on this play). And with Jefferson running his post route from the #2 inside position, he would be matched up on safety Darnell Savage, who spun like a top in response to his route: