After several years of untimely injuries, quarterback switches and coaching staff upheaval on the offensive side of the ball, the Minnesota Vikings were craving stability when they signed Kirk Cousins and brought in John DeFilippo from the Philadelphia Eagles staff. With his full complement of offensive playmakers intact last Sunday, DeFilippo’s play-calling in the second half and overtime led to one of Minnesota’s most impressive passing performances in years.
Trailing 20-7 early in the fourth quarter — a situation that often put Cousins in predictable passing situations — the Vikings nonetheless put up 22 points and 257 yards between the fourth quarter and overtime.
Cousins went 15 of 21 in that span with 11 first-down completions and three touchdown passes, and the numbers could’ve been better. Of his six incompletions, four went off a receiver’s hands, including his lone interception that was dropped by Laquon Treadwell.
“It just solidified the type of leader [Cousins] is, and you’re never out of the game,” said DeFilippo on Thursday, “and I think that showed our team: play to the end. Play for four quarters.”
Last Sunday also built some credibility for DeFilippo, whose calls helped the Vikings convert 50 percent of third downs and keep the Packers off balance down the stretch.
“I think Coach Flip called an outstanding game,” Cousins said afterward. “The nature of the game put Coach Flip into a position time and time again where he had to call consistently back-to-back great plays, and he did that. I was really impressed with the way he called the game and led our offense.”
A well-schemed 3rd-and-1 call on a play-action pass to Kyle Rudolph on the final play of the third quarter seemed to act as a catalyst. Rudolph helped sell a run fake to Latavius Murray, then spun off the line for a 23-yard catch and run while Adam Thielen sealed off the Packers safety from pursuing.
“That play was gameplanned, and we knew in that situation that more than likely we were getting man coverage,” said DeFilippo. “I think it got executed to perfection. Adam Thielen did a fantastic job on that play, and he wasn’t even in the progression. That play’s designed to leave the end man on the line of scrimmage free for the quarterback, and you’re hoping — it doesn’t always happen — you’re hoping that he crashes down on the line of scrimmage, crashes down on the run fake.”
DeFilippo played the percentages, and it paid off. As he laid out Thursday, that’s a huge of part of how he approaches his job: identifying tendencies and attempting to exploit them.
“Here’s how you call plays,” he said. “You call plays by using the information you have and the numbers you have of what they’re gonna be in, the potential, and you put the best play call against that situation against those numbers out there.
“A lot of times they hit if you do your homework and you do a good job and you’re not a briefcase coach and get out of the building at 5 o’clock. Sometimes they don’t. But you take calculated risk in what you think is gonna be your best play to put your team in the best situation to have success.”
Early indications are that DeFilippo will be expanding the repertoires of his biggest playmakers. According to Pro Football Focus, Thielen’s usage in the slot has increased from 39 percent of his snaps last year to 49 percent. Diggs’ has gone up from 27 percent to 37 percent. Rudolph’s has been used less in-line and more in the slot as well, going from 27 percent to 38 percent of his snaps.
Even Dalvin Cook has been used more creatively, lining up wide three times against Green Bay and hauling in a 24-yard catch on a slant.
“I told him our first week on the job, just get ready to line up everywhere,” DeFilippo said of Cook. “I told him that, actually, the first day I met him, because I’d watched him on tape obviously and saw the explosiveness in the first three and a half games.
“There’s all kinds of different ways if you get creative to try to get your guys the football.”
Thielen has been the primary beneficiary thus far, leading the team in receiving yards each of the first two weeks, but he still sees untapped potential in an offense that seemed to wait until the fourth quarter to hit its stride last Sunday.
“I think every week you just kind of build confidence with the quarterback and the offensive coordinator as well,” he said, “You kind of figure out what he likes to do, and you just get more comfortable within the system, so we have to continue to build. We can take some things that we did last week into this week and try to get better at the things we didn’t do well.”
Become a Zone Coverage Member Today!
