Vikings Defense vs. Packers Offense - A Look Back at Week 4
The 13-2 Vikings and 11-4 Packers will play a fairly big game this Sunday in Minnesota. The Vikings still have a chance to win the NFC North and get the #1 seed. The Packers still have a chance of getting the #5 seed. The Lions will be watching closely.
The first time these two teams played in Week 4, the Vikings were able to jump out to a 28-0 lead, partially because their offense started the game red hot, and partially because they were able to turn two first-half Jordan Love interceptions into scores. The Packers got away from their running game and Josh Jacobs finished with just 9 carries.
Green Bay will look to avoid a similar situation this weekend, but that’s easier said than done. The Vikings have the #2 run defense in the NFL. They have the ability to make an offense one dimensional. And when they do, Brian Flores’ scheme can make life extremely difficult for the quarterback, as Love experienced in Week 4.
Below, you can check out my recap from back in October of that first matchup to see how the Vikings gave Love and the Packers’ passing game trouble.
Week 4 Recap - Vikings Defense vs. Packers Offense
Aside from the Chiefs, it’s hard to argue that there’s a team in the NFL with a better combination of scheme on both sides of the ball than the Vikings. Maybe it’s no coincidence that both teams are 4-0.
Last week, we focused on Kevin O’Connell’s offense and how they dismantled a good Texans defense. This week, we’re going to highlight the other side of the ball and Brian Flores’ complex defensive scheme.
The one word I’d use to describe Flores’ defense is “uncomfortable.” That’s what opposing offensive coordinators, offensive lines, and quarterbacks seem to be when they play the Vikings.
It isn’t just one thing that Flores does to unsettle his opponents. He puts mental pressure on the offense by forcing them to decipher complex coverage and blitz disguises.
From a pressure standpoint, the Vikings blitzed at the highest rate in the NFL when Flores arrived a year ago, and that trend has continued this season (they were still #1 through the first 3 weeks).
And those blitzes aren’t easy to sort through. As we wrote in Week 1, his pressure schemes can make offenses somewhat predictable.
From a coverage standpoint, Flores is just as aggressive in his desire to keep the offense on its heels. A look at his coverage tendencies illustrates this.
According to data provided by
of MatchQuarters (Go subscribe if you haven’t already), the Vikings ranked #1 in frequency of cover-0 usage and cover-2 usage last season. They ranked 4th for each entering last week’s game against the Packers.Those two coverages alone are diametrically opposed to each other. Cover-0 is a more aggressive defense, defined by 1-on-1 matchups across the board, no deep safeties, and blitzes. Cover-2 drops 7 defenders into zone (2 deep, 5 underneath). This gives you a pretty good idea of the variety in Flores’ coverage choices.
And as I mentioned above, he utilizes lots of disguise to get to his various coverages. For instance, the Vikings ranked 2nd last year in frequency of 1-shell to 2-shell disguise and 1st this year through Week 3.
All of this is to say that offenses can’t trust their eyes against the Vikings.
The Packers certainly had issues getting a feel for Minnesota’s defense in Week 4. Yes, they scored 29 points, but two of their touchdowns came on drives that started at the Vikings’ 3 and 20-yard line respectively. They turned the ball over 4 times (including 3 interceptions). And on the downs where every defensive coordinator loves to disguise and attack (3rd and 4th down), they converted just 4 of 14 opportunities.
In his first game back from injury, Jordan Love struggled to decipher what he was seeing from Flores’ defense, which he alluded to in his post-game press conference (and we’ll highlight below).
This first example was a 3rd-and-7 in the first quarter. The Vikings were showing pressure with a 6-man front, and their safeties were moving around in the middle of the field pre-snap:
Would they rotate to single high and bring pressure? Would they spin out into a 2-deep look?
As it turned out, the Vikings would rush just 4 and play Tampa-2 coverage behind it. Two of the potential blitzers on the line of scrimmage dropped out, including linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill (#54), who became the deep-middle-hole defender:
The Packers had a Dagger concept called, which isn’t a bad play against Tampa-2 coverage. The thru route (in red below) generally takes the deep-middle-hole defender (Grugier-Hill) with it, allowing the quarterback to high-low the hook-curl defender with the dig-curl route combo (in yellow below):
Love thought he had Christian Watson’s dig-route open. However, Grugier-Hill would fall off the thru route and undercut Watson for the interception:
After the game, Love said “I didn’t see him” when referring to Grugier-Hill. The tape backs this up.
As you can see from the end zone angle, Love got his eyes to his left almost immediately after the snap and didn’t seem to account for Grugier-Hill dropping out:
If this was Tampa-2 out of a traditional look, Grugier-Hill likely would have been eaten up by the thru route and cleared out of the area. And that would have left the dig open.
But since he was dropping from the line of scrimmage, he was in position to read the route concept, fall off, and get underneath the dig. It was difficult for Love (who normally processes disguise pretty well) to see him because of where he was coming from.
That wouldn’t be the only time Minnesota beat Love with their scheme on this day.
Disguises aren’t always intended to lead to outright confusion or quarterbacks not seeing defenders in coverage. Sometimes, the disguise just keeps the offense from getting into the best possible play at the line.
That’s what happened on these next two examples.
This first play was a 3rd-and-10 for the Packers in Vikings territory. Take a look at what Flores showed pre-snap. All 11 defenders were within 4 yards of the line of scrimmage:
What defense were they playing here? What’s the best play to beat this coverage? It was anyone’s guess.
The Vikings wouldn’t end up bringing pressure. This time, they dropped out into 2-man coverage (2 deep safeties, man coverage underneath):