Sunday night signaled the end of the road for the Minnesota Vikings while the Green Bay Packers locked in home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The game never felt close once Aaron Rodgers and the offense got rolling.
Here are five numbers that tell the story of the Packers’ beatdown of the team in purple.
4
While the Packers sputtered early, producing only two field goals on their first three drives, Minnesota could do absolutely nothing on offense with Sean Mannion running the show.
In the first half, the Vikings went three-and-out on four of their six drives. It didn’t matter if they tried throwing with Mannion or handing it off to Dalvin Cook; nothing worked. Those three-and-outs were sandwiched between a five-play opening drive that resulted in nothing and a first-half-ending drive that saw the Vikings get a field goal going into the break.
Green Bay’s defense wasn’t lights out, even if they played very well. This was a case of the Vikings looking sluggish and going through the motions while Mannion struggled to find any sort of rhythm. Four consecutive three-and-outs against this Packers team is never a recipe for success. Green Bay usually gets off to a slow start, but on Sunday night, the Vikings started low and slow — and never got much better.
13
Part of the reason the Vikings’ offense couldn’t do much was an uncommonly quiet night from Dalvin Cook. The star running back finished with nine carries for only 13 yards a week after Nick Chubb shredded the Packers.
Instead of feeding Cook, the Vikings tried to get Mannion going early on with some high-percentage passes. Many believed Minnesota would come out and ride Cook on repeat against a run defense with its fair share of struggles. That Cook only got nine carries all night is puzzling, despite the game getting out of hand.
Without Adam Thielen and Kirk Cousins, it’s clear this offense runs through Cook and Justin Jefferson. It makes it that much more of a head-scratcher that the Vikings didn’t feature No. 33 more. It likely wouldn’t have made a difference in the final score, but not getting the ball in the hands of your best players is typically a good way to lose a game. The score should never matter when it comes to getting Cook touches — getting nine rushes played right into Green Bay’s hands.
11 for 136
Davante Adams was unstoppable on Sunday night. The top receiver in the league finished with 11 receptions for 136 yards and a touchdown. While Rodgers dropped some absolute seeds right into Adams’ lap, the superstar wideout had his fair share of great catches as well.
As Adams continued to torch Minnesota’s secondary over and over again, it became increasingly baffling that the Vikings didn’t try bringing consistent safety help or try straight-up double-teaming him. The Baltimore Ravens implemented this two weeks ago and, while it looked unorthodox, it was effective in spurts. Instead of trying anything different, the Vikings were content watching Adams haul in one pass after another all night.
38:33
As a result of several three-and-outs for the Vikings on offense, the Packers dominated time of possession — especially in the second half when they leaned on A.J. Dillon to run through a gassed Minnesota defense.
Green Bay had seven scoring drives as they marched up and down the field. Credit to the Vikings, they held the Packers to field goals on three of those drives, but it still wasn’t enough given what their offense was doing.
Dillon showed up big in the second half as he paved his way through the line of scrimmage and into the second layer of the Minnesota defense. Two second-half touchdown runs from the second-year back out of Boston College put a bow on Green Bay’s victory.
30+
This was the fourth game in the last five tries for Green Bay where they eclipsed 30 points. Green Bay had only two such games in their first 10 outings. The offense is starting to fire on all cylinders, and Aaron Rodgers will likely earn back-to-back MVP awards. Matt LaFleur and Nathaniel Hackett are grinning ear to ear with this offense playing its best football at the right time of the season.
