The connection between a head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterback has to be strong for an offense to succeed in the NFL, particularly when it comes to situational football.
With two parts of that triumvirate brand new this season for the Minnesota Vikings, the group of Mike Zimmer, John DeFilippo and Kirk Cousins has faced plenty of tests in two-minute drills early in the season that may act as valuable learning experiences.
The execution, though, hasn’t been perfect.
Minnesota has been tested at least once per game in an end-of-half situation where they inherited the ball with 2:20 or less remaining in the half and wanted to score. They’ve ended up with one touchdown, one field goal and four drives that resulted in zero points, though one of those was a meaningless drive at the end of a loss to Buffalo where there was very little urgency.
The hurry-up offense was at its best in Green Bay when Kirk Cousins got the ball at his own 25-yard line with 1:45 left and drove the Vikings for a touchdown in just one minute, 14 seconds to send the game to overtime. It was Cousins’ first-ever touchdown pass with his team trailing and less than two minutes to go.
The bad? Last Thursday at Los Angeles with the Vikings trailing by seven, Cousins lost a fumble with 1:29 remaining that effectively ended the game in a 38-31 loss.
In both of the situations above, the game hung in the balance with the Vikings needing a touchdown to stay afloat, which, of course, changes the aggressiveness of the play-caller.
“Your mentality, I would say, at times, you’re probably a little bit more aggressive at the end of the game if you need to be,” said DeFilippo. “You saw us in Green Bay make a couple of tight-window throws and those type things.”
At the end of first halves, however, the Vikings have been given opportunities in three games to get points on a two-minute drill before heading to the locker room, but they have only succeeded once — and that lone success might have received the most second-guessing.
Against San Francisco in the season opener, Minnesota started at its own 2-yard line with 2:18 on the clock. The Vikings could’ve been forgiven for simply playing to run the clock out in that situation, but they managed to work the ball down to the 49ers’ 40-yard line with 34 seconds left and one timeout — on the edge of Daniel Carlson’s field goal range. From there, they went 13 yards backward as the half ended with Cousins getting sacked.
Already down 27-0 against Buffalo in Week 3, the Vikings took the ball at their own 19 with 56 seconds to go and one timeout. Needing about 45 yards for a field goal attempt, they managed four plays and gained 20 yards before the clock ran out.
Finally, against the Rams, the Vikings moved the ball from their own 30 to the Rams’ 39-yard line with 37 seconds left and all three timeouts. They only managed three more plays from that point on and settled for Dan Bailey’s field goal. With the ball at the 21-yard line, Minnesota chose not to use a timeout with 23 seconds left, instead allowing the clock to run down to six seconds in a failed effort to run another play and save the timeout.
Zimmer said Thursday he would’ve liked to see the sequence play out differently, as did Cousins when he spoke on Wednesday.
“I think looking back at it you would’ve loved to have been able to stop the clock or been able to get another play run before we kicked that field goal,” said Cousins. “That would’ve been ideal.”
The Vikings did manage to come away with points on that drive, which DeFilippo believes is the goal when the game is still in the first half.
“The half is obviously a little bit different than the end of the game,” said DeFilippo, who has regular conversations with Zimmer about the topic. “You want to come away with points, any points. Where at the end of the game, it could be a field goal or a touchdown. … At the end of the half, you’re trying to – not to steal Coach [Hank] Stram’s words – try to matriculate the ball down the field.”
What happened against the Rams wasn’t ideal for the Vikings, but it had a better outcome than the 49ers game where Minnesota took itself out of field goal range entirely with plays of minus-six and minus-nine yards on its final series.
That mishap might’ve also played into Minnesota’s decision-making at the end of their tie against the Packers. They opted to settle for a game-winning field goal attempt instead of taking a shot or two into the end zone, likely to avoid the chance of a sack or a holding call. But Carlson ended up missing the kick.
“There’s a protection piece in that,” said DeFilippo. “You need to make sure that you don’t get into an extra-long situation to where you’re going to get out of field-goal range.”
The conservative approach also plays into another philosophy that Seinfeld legend George Costanza would appreciate: double-dipping.
“Say you’ve got the ball coming out in the second half, our goal is to get points, and then you double-dip,” said DeFilippo. “We call it a double dip where you score at the end of a half and then, hopefully, come out in the second half and score again.”
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