The Minnesota Vikings dropped a game they were heavily favored in to the 1-6 (now 2-6) Chicago Bears 20-10, though the game was closer to a 20-3 score before a garbage time touchdown to Stefon Diggs made the score look more respectable.
In a funhouse mirror version of their win over the New York Giants, the Vikings saw every phase of the game fail in some way, and that makes things difficult if only because there is not small group of people to blame for the loss.
Every unit seemed to have its problems and the coaching decisions up top also played a role.
That includes the defense, who some are content to excuse because of the abysmal offensive performance. That’s not fair to either group, however—the offense’s game plan is predicated on a good defense, which is why it is designed around ball control, draining the clock and gaining field position over explosive playmaking.
The very nature of the way the Vikings gameplan means that even when the offense performs poorly, the defense can be at fault for a loss because the offense makes scoring points only a modest priority relative to other offenses.
That said, it’s not as if the offense doesn’t hold the majority of the blame in this specific loss, though how exactly that comes about is interesting, if disappointing.
It’s easy to at first isolate the offensive line. The running game was a big problem, with 3.2 yards per carry somehow a high watermark for the season. To pair with that, Sam Bradford was sacked five times and once again saw pressure on 40 percent of his dropbacks.
Jake Long actually didn’t do as poorly as a lot have implied, and though was isolated on the broadcast actually had a relatively clean game in pass protection—though he had some help, with Rhett Ellison taking on edge defenders while he downblocked and getting some work as an area blocker with Clemmings isolated in man protection on the other side.
Of those three players on the left side of the line, Long was certainly the most porous—but that means three of the four pressures allowed, which doesn’t include a pressure misattributed by commentator Jon Gruden during the game. It is also worth noting that Long was extraordinarily inconsistent in terms of technique—on the Leonard Floyd sack, his hands were up far too late, a basic mistake.
Alex Boone was completely clean in the game and Berger only allowed one pressure (which happened to be a sack) and all three generated movement as run blockers, Boone more than anyone else. Berger did a better job in space in this game than he did in the prior game and got to the second level to secure some running space.
On the right side, Fusco played a very good game until I had the gall to praise him.
After that tweet, Fusco gave up five pressures and started losing movement in the run game.
T.J. Clemmings was a disaster. Aside from giving up pressure more often than the rest of the offensive line combined, he also whiffed in the running game, even allowing tackles for loss on runs designed to go to the left side.
Clemmings is the worst tackle in the NFL and he may be hurting his team more than any starter in the NFL at the moment. The impact Clemmings had on this game was titanic—not in the mythical Greek sense, but in a tragic nautical sense.
That’s unfortunately not the end of the blame game when it comes to the Vikings’ offense.
Sam Bradford played poorly, even after accounting for the fact that he had a poor offensive line to play behind. He responded poorly to pressure, held on to the ball too long and was inaccurate with a lot of his throws—even when unpressured, as evidenced by his deep ball to Stefon Diggs early in the game.
His completion rate under pressure was 36.4 percent, and he did an exceedingly poor job of moving around in the pocket to create space or getting rid of the ball quickly. He may be an immobile quarterback, but that doesn’t stop veterans like Tom Brady (or, to prevent completely unfair comparisons, Brian Hoyer) from creating space with footwork and pocket sense.
He made mistakes, and when he had time, he didn’t use it in an effort to create plays downfield, sacrificing aggressiveness for safety—the kind of “safety” that leads to an eight-yard pass on third and ten.
If receivers didn’t get open downfield that wouldn’t be much to Bradford’s discredit, but they actually did a decent job finding space on their route concepts. They did a good job creating leverage against the Bears defensive backs and tracked the ball well as it arrived.
Stefon Diggs finally met the statistical markers people wanted him to, but it was mostly in garbage time. He had a largely good game, but it was hidden in the weeds of a bad offense.
Tight ends Kyle Rudolph and Rhett Ellison did an excellent job as well, and their contributions in run blocking were important for the Vikings to generate the minimal yardage they could manage. Rudolph also had a rare consistent game as a receiver, catching five of his six targets, but not for very much yardage—a product of when he was targeted more than anything else.
The running backs were disappointing. While it’s reasonable to give both Ronnie Hillman and Matt Asiata more credit for the fact that their run blocking wasn’t great, there were some great creases that both Asiata and Hillman gave up for more contact and less yardage.
It wasn’t even a question of bouncing outside versus sticking it up the gut; Asiata ran through the wrong A gap at times and Hillman cut upfield at the wrong time. Near the end of the game, Hillman did well with his outside runs, but for the most part couldn’t help move the chains as a runner.
Defensively, the Vikings did better—but not by much. Their defensive line really stands out as the only unit that holistically did well. Pro Football Focus actually logs more pressure per snap for the Bears than they do the Vikings.
While that may not feel true for Vikings fans, and there’s credibility to that feeling, it speaks to the impact that a scheme can have on mitigating pressure. Norv Turner kept on calling deeper dropbacks that got rid of the ball late for the Vikings offense, which allowed pressure from the Bears to come home.
The Bears, on the other hand, found ways to get rid of the ball immediately. Everson Griffen and Danielle Hunter got off the ball quickly and beat the linemen in front of them to put heat on Cutler on a consistent basis. Up the middle, Linval Joseph wreaked havoc.
He stuffed runs up the middle, where the Bears only averaged 3.1 yards per carry. He himself made multiple stops behind or at the line of scrimmage while also creating four pressures on the quarterback. It was a great performance as a nose tackle that was overshadowed by those around him.
Brian Robison may have been the only poorly performing member of the defensive line, and his missed tackles on the outside were a killer.
The bigger problem in the running game, however, had to do with the linebackers and safeties. While the defensive line did their job and filled in the appropriate gaps along the offensive line, the uncovered gaps contributed to Jordan Howard’s historic game against the Vikings.
Anthony Barr had a monstrously bad game, and did a poor job getting to the point of attack, wrapping up tackles and generally being an impactful player. He struggled in coverage, too, allowing Zach Miller to make hay downfield. He also was late to his zone landmarks and was generally a weak spot against the pass.
Eric Kendricks also struggled as a run defender, but at least performed well in coverage. Kendricks was partially responsible for Howard’s big run early in the game, and he had trouble getting off of blocks to fill in on the run.
In the secondary, we saw a more uneven performance from Rhodes than we’re used to seeing. A great pass deflection in the end zone marked the high point of his play, but he let Alshon Jeffery get behind him and was lucky Jeffery suffered from a drop.
Dropped interceptions usually feel like missing out on icing on the cake, but they are a problem, because teams won’t get many opportunities in a game to create turnovers. Squandering those opportunities can be a big problem.
Still, “uneven” doesn’t mean he was a bad player; he largely had a good game that could be overrated. Terence Newman didn’t get the same luck as Cameron Meredith actually caught the pass that Newman gave up, but Newman wasn’t targeted too often.
Captain Munnerlyn was only targeted once but earned a pass deflection on that target. Waynes had limited time, but allowed a touchdown immediately after subbing in for an injured Rhodes.
What’s more is that Waynes was a liability on special teams as well. He turned an excellent punt from Jeff Locke into a touchback because of his awareness and then allowed a gunner to get past him when he was blocking for Stefon Diggs as a jammer—without that, Diggs had an enormous lane and was poised for a big return.
At safety, both Harrison Smith and Jayron Kearse had their struggles. Though Smith earned back that effort with positive plays in the running game as well as against screen passes, Kearse didn’t. Both of them found themselves out of position as a result of play-action and Smith’s movement was partially responsible for the Alshon Jeffery touchdown that Waynes gave up.
With issues in every phase of the game, with nearly every unit the Vikings had, Minnesota did not give credit to their record and fell to what should have been a reeling Bears squad. Some of the performances were uncharacteristic of the players in question—like Harrison Smith and to some extent Anthony Barr—but others point to cracks in the armor for the Vikings that may get exploited again and again.
Beyond that, the coaching isn’t adapting to the realities of the roster. To some extent, those offensive line problems are baked in the cake. After a while, it becomes difficult to blame a player for simply not being as good as advertised. The coaches knew this problem going in, and they didn’t do much about it.
Knowing that Chicago’s best chance to kill the game was the pass rush and return of Pernell McPhee, Turner called surprisingly few short drops and didn’t find ways to wear McPhee out, like screens to his side of the field. Clear weaknesses for the Bears, like the tackling of their cornerbacks, weren’t exploited with YAC-opportunities for a talented after-catch receiving corps, either.
Late in the game, when the Vikings were still somewhat in it, the coaching staff chose to play as if they had a lead, draining the clock and keeping the Vikings out of no huddle. Beyond that, they continued to waste time running the ball when it was clear that running the ball was not a successful proposition and that it would drain precious time off the clock even more.
Even smaller decisions, like waiting until the end of the game to give an outside runner outside runs, really draws confusion.
The Vikings also should have been more comfortable playing Jeremiah Sirles at the right tackle position. Of the three players they’ve had play there, Sirles has by far been the best, even when he doesn’t benefit from the help that Clemmings and Long received on the left side.
Had the number of pressures from the right side been cut in half—a problem exacerbated for Fusco because of the incredibly wide splits they flashed their edge rushers to (thereby giving defensive tackles much, much more space than they’re accustomed to working with against a guard)—the Vikings would have been in the game much longer.
A pitiful showing from what should be a dominant team with a reputedly strong coaching staff really paid homage to the holiday in the worst possible way.
