Three Things We Learned From the Vikings’ Debacle In Detroit
Credit: Junfu Han - Imagn Images
The situation in Week 18 was a simple one. Win, and the Minnesota Vikings would clinch the No. 1 seed in the NFC and a 15-win season for the first time since 1998. Lose, and the Detroit Lions would again clinch the NFC North and send the 14-win Vikings on a road trip to LA to face the Rams.
What happened was an anticlimactic thrashing akin to 38-7 and 41-0 as the Lions put their proverbial belt to the Vikings behind in a 31-9 drubbing. While this isn’t the end, it sure feels like the Lions exposed Minnesota. Here’s what we learned from the game:
KOC’s Preparation Must Be Better
From the get-go, the offense was out of sorts, and while Sam Darnold will get his share of the blame, Kevin O’Connell and the crew on the offensive end appeared to be underprepared and out-coached. The Lions’ front seven dominated all game long, and the Vikings couldn’t take advantage of a cornerback unit that kept on sustaining losses to injury.
Dan Campbell had Detroit coached up, especially in the red zone, where the Vikings got four trips and scored a total of six points. After a week where the coaching staff and players preached about not letting the moment be too big for them, it felt like the offense side of the ball shrunk in the most important moments. On their first offensive drive, facing 3rd- and 4th-and-goal at the three-yard line, it looked like they struggled to get the right play called at the right time.
Detroit put Darnold and the offense through hell all game long, and O’Connell consistently didn’t have answers for that, or how to find success when Darnold and Justin Jefferson weren’t on the same page.
The Defense Can Hang With Heavyweights
While the offense was a major issue in the first half, Minnesota’s defense kept the team in the game for three quarters, despite the compounding points the team left on the table. They came up with multiple big plays, desperately trying to change or shift the momentum when things were looking dire. Andrew Van Ginkel‘s big hit on Jahmyr Gibbs, Ivan Pace Jr.’s interception, and the Jonathan Bullard tip on 4th-and-inches to create a Harrison Smith pick all could have changed the game, had the Vikings been able to be even slightly effective in the red zone.
While they did give up 10 points in the first half (no thanks to Will Reichard kicking a ball out of bounds to put Detroit in field-goal range with 20 seconds left), if you told most Vikings fans before the game that the Lions would have 10 at the half, they would have taken it.
They looked extremely disciplined in the run game and made it hard for Gibbs to break too many runs or turn the corner. The pass rush was getting home and the coverage forced Goff to hold on to the ball more than he would have liked as he scanned the field for any open receiver. While the floodgates opened in the second half, that was more a product of the offense’s inability to give them sustained time off of the field. Outside of that, this defense was pretty stellar against arguably the NFL’s best offense.
Teams Can, In Fact, Fluster Darnold
Prior to this week, the most impressive aspect of Darnold’s season was how he dealt with when pressured and blitzed. His touchdowns against the Atlanta Falcons and Seahawks Seahawks were prime examples of that. He’s used his mobility to get out of sticky situations and, despite taking a lot of sacks, he could hit gigantic plays after buying time. But against Detroit, this ability was non-existent.
Darnold looked awful, especially in the first half, missing the have-to-have-it throws and forcing balls to Jefferson despite being uncharacteristically out-of-sync with his star receiver. Darnold was off target on 50% of his throws on his first four drives. His highest percentage in a complete game was 22%. Darnold kept missing high and putting his receivers in spots where they either had to make acrobatic grabs or let the ball sail over their heads. It looked like the moment got to him and, needless to say, Darnold can’t let his nerves get to him in these massive games.
While the offensive line did not give him much help, Darnold’s decision-making under pressure was horrific. Even when he had the open man on some throws, he looked way too rattled to make them. While the game might have been close until early in the fourth quarter, Darnold’s struggles made even an eight-point deficit feel like an insurmountable lead.
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