Vikings

New Orleans Saints vs Minnesota Vikings -- Key Matchup: Michael Thomas

The Minnesota Vikings will have their hands full with the high-flying offense of the New Orleans Saints to open the season. In the past, we’ve seen Drew Brees helm an offense with capable playmakers like Jimmy Graham, Brandin Cooks and Marques Colston. In the last three years, we’ve seen all three of those players depart while Brees continues to throw 5,000-yard seasons with 100-plus passer ratings.

This year, that playmaker will be second-year wide receiver Michael Thomas. Coming off a stellar rookie campaign, Thomas figures to play the central role in this year’s passing-centric Saints attack.

Only eight rookie receivers in the past 10 years have topped the 1,000-yard mark, and Thomas is the latest to do so. He was the sixth receiver taken in last year’s draft, so one could be forgiven for being blindsided by Thomas’ success.

His early production bodes well. The other receivers who matched this feat are almost all serious threats in the NFL. Premier receivers A.J. Green and Odell Beckham Jr. hit that mark, while persistent up-and-comers like Mike Evans and Amari Cooper did the same. Though injury prone, Keenan Allen has been phenomenal and averaged 90 yards a game the last time he played eight games, in 2015.

The only receiver that seems to be somewhat of a question is Kelvin Benjamin, though even if he doesn’t become a top-10 threat like the others have, he will consistently be a factor in matchups for the Carolina Panthers.

Colston, who Thomas is effectively replacing, is the final receiver in the last 10 years to hit 1,000 yards his rookie year. While Colston never made a Pro Bowl, he did average over 1,000 yards per season in his prime, and ended up as the most reliable player on an offense built around consistency.

Thomas provides that same consistency for the Saints, and no one explains this better than Brett Kollman does in the video below:

Kollman hits on a number of themes that will be critical in the upcoming matchup for the Minnesota Vikings. The two biggest ones are his advanced understanding of the game and his incredible competitiveness.

Thomas combines these two traits to exploit seams in coverage, shake cornerbacks off his routes and run through secondaries for surprising yards-after-catch.

This uncommon awareness for the game is something he demonstrated while at Ohio State and he’s really unleashed it by pairing with a Hall of Fame-quality passer who has an incredible presence in football.

Thomas is certainly not a perfect receiver by any means. Though he plays physically and is larger than a number of receivers, he’s also not the size of a player like Brandon Marshall or Benjamin.

His straight-line athleticism leaves a lot to be desired, but his other athletic qualities help make up for it, including fantastic short-area quickness. Despite running slower than teammates Jalin Marshall and Braxton Miller at Ohio State, he was the primary receiver on screen passes and slants.

It’s obvious that a player like this is a better matchup for Xavier Rhodes than Trae Waynes, in part because it would waste Waynes’ speed but expose his quickness. Waynes would be much better off attached at the hip to Ted Ginn Jr. whenever Ginn is on the field.

Rhodes should pair well with the physical play of Thomas and has more bulk to throw around. It won’t be surprising if one or both of them commit penalties in the game, but it will probably be worth it for Rhodes if it can neutralize one of Thomas’ best attributes.

But though Rhodes can play well with deceptive receivers like Thomas, the Vikings may need to do a little bit more than simply put their top corner on the opposing team’s top receiver.

With Thomas’ ability to diagnose coverages quickly on the fly and generate hidden separation until the ball arrives, the Vikings would do better to complicate the reads for Thomas and Brees.

A common concept to defend against offenses that feature heavy option routes for their receivers is to play disguised coverages, like traps, that create one read for a receiver and quarterback but play out as a different coverage.

Commonly, this means a cornerback rolled up to the outside will read the inside receiver and play their assignment based on what that receiver does while the safety up top and an outside linebacker nearby fill in the gaps.

USA Football features one in their video below on the concept that essentially plays man coverage if the inside receiver goes vertical and zone coverage otherwise. This is generally called “trapping the out” because it baits the quarterback into throwing what looks like an open out route before the outside corner drops back down and takes the ball, often for a pick-six.

It’s not always that easy, because often cornerbacks will have to play with a particular technique that gives away the fact that they have their eyes on the quarterback and not the outside receiver. Even so, the offense will stay away from trap coverage when they diagnose it instead of attacking a weakness — meaning that they will have still neutralized the receiver in question.

Other forms of disguised coverage can come with different types of rules that rotate defensive players around to bait certain route concepts.

Below is an example of a disguised coverage that turns what looks like a man coverage concept into a zone coverage concept. Josh Robinson ended up with the interception as a result.

Even a simple Cover-2 look can turn into a Tampa-2 by sending an athletic linebacker down the middle late in the play.

Because slot receivers and tight ends will often read whether or not the middle of the field is “open” or “closed” (whether there is a defender assigned a middle deep zone), one can trick a player into thinking that there is no help over the deep middle when there is.

For a receiver as skilled and intelligent as Thomas, the Vikings don’t just need a good matchup corner —who they have in Rhodes — but an overall schematic approach that can turn what would normally be a strength into a weakness.

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