The Minnesota Vikings went bombs away on the Atlanta Falcons, winning 42-21 as Sam Darnold threw for five touchdowns. The pass catchers were led by second-year Jordan Addison‘s imposing 133 yards and three TDs on eight catches.
That’s the second-highest yardage total for Addison in his young career, only outdone by his 162-yard output against the Chicago Bears just two games prior. Only two other players, Ja’Marr Chase and Jauan Jennings, have had three receiving TDs in a game this year.
Addison’s stats exclude a 47-yard defensive pass interference penalty that he drew when he ran by old friend Mike Hughes in coverage, forcing the CB to grab him while trying to prevent a catch. Addison has been on a torrid stretch, with 410 yards and five touchdowns over the past four weeks, averaging an impressive 17.8 yards/catch. No. 3 has been getting free.
As a prime deep threat, Addison does most of his damage downfield. Let’s dive into how his deep route running and red zone success unfolded against the Falcons.
Deep speed burns
Addison first broke open Atlanta’s defense with a 49-yard TD on Minnesota’s second drive. He ran a double move, and Darnold launched the ball to him. However, Darnold’s arm was hit in the process, and it caused the throw to be short. Addison adjusted well to make the catch and score.
In Shanahan terminology, the concept the Vikings are running appears to be Pylon-Locker. Here’s the play design:
At 15 yards, Addison takes a single stutter step. I believe he’s trying to make this look like a Read (takeoff) route, which calls for the stutter.
Here is the route instruction:
Addison doesn’t win on this play. The DB maintains his outside and deep leverage, not biting on the double move and capping off the route. The key comes at Addison’s break, where he looks back for the football. Instead of looking for the ball, Hughes is looking for Addison and turns upfield to run with him.
Addison deserves massive credit for turning around and finding the ball while Hughes flipped his hips to run with him. It allows him to stop on a dime to make the catch and run the ball in for the score.
Addison followed up an adjustment to an underthrown ball with a true win. Here, the Vikings are running a “Rider” concept with an additional high cross route by Jalen Nailor. This concept attacks the deep middle safety against Cover 3, putting him in conflict.
On the play, the safety, Jessie Bates, has a choice. He can help with Jefferson, Minnesota’s most dangerous threat, who is covered by another safety in Justin Simmons on the crosser. Or he can help Hughes with Addison deep.
Bates is an aggressive player. He has likely often seen Darnold target Jefferson on these routes, so he tries to jump the crosser. That leaves Hughes, who got outrun by Addison in a tough spot. Hughes grabs Addison’s arms while trying to catch up, restricting his catch opportunity and leading to DPI.
Darnold’s ball was again a tad underthrown, and Addison had to slow down, leading to the contact. However, the replay showed he almost made the catch anyway.
Here’s the full play:
Addison won and got the catch against man coverage on the third big play. Pre-snap, you see man-coverage indicators, with DBs playing inside leverage on the line of scrimmage against the outside receiver and off with outside leverage against the slot receiver.
There are two safeties deep pre-snap, which might have indicated 2 Man or some sort of zone, but they quickly rotate post-snap into Cover 1 Robber. The Vikings are running a variation of 989, or maybe 969 (8 is a post and 6 is a dig). Nailor’s route is somewhere in between the two, a staple Air Coryell concept (think Norv Turner’s offense) that uses the post route to attack two-high.
Once the coverage resolves to single high, the Thru route is dead, so Darnold must choose one of the deep routes or check down. He has wins by both Jefferson and Addison; the two players get even with their defenders in their route stem, which most likely means they are moving faster and will stack the defender. That means Darnold has his choice of the two routes, and he should throw away from the single high safety, who has leaned towards Jefferson.
Darnold makes the right call but again can’t get everything he wants on the ball because of a defender in his face. Addison has to adjust inside and makes a great catch in tight coverage:
Speed created an advantage for Addison on all three of these plays. On the first, he drove the corner off while he was able to stop for the ball. On the second and third, he ran past the defender, forcing him to misplay the ball. All three cases show Addison’s great deep-ball tracking, with the ability to turn his head, locate the football, and get his hands in a position to make a catch.
Addison’s advantage from offensive design
Design aided Addison on a few plays. One that stands out is his first catch, a 16-yard gain that converted Minnesota’s first third down of the game. The Falcons are playing what I believe is a match coverage, and the Vikings motion Jefferson across the formation to a two-man stack with Addison. That forces the DBs to switch their coverage and gives Addison an advantage on his corner route as part of a smash concept.
Here’s the play design:
Because the DB has to follow Jefferson across the formation, this creates a clear leverage advantage for Addison at the snap.
That leads to an easy win for Addison on the route, but the CB does a decent job of getting underneath the throw. Darnold puts it in a good spot, and Addison uses great technique to high-point the ball and get two feet down in bounds for the conversion.
Here is the full play:
The next play came on Addison’s second TD of the day. Here, the Vikings ran another smash concept (or something similar to it). The Falcons appear to be in a combo coverage, with man to the bottom of the screen and zone to the top. The idea for the Falcons would be to keep their star CB A.J. Terrell in man on Jefferson rather than allowing the defense to force a switch by using motion.
However, CB Dee Alford is not on the same page as Terrell. When Jefferson bumps inside Addison, Alford puts his eyes on Jefferson at the snap. He quickly realizes that Terrell intends to cover him and scrambles to recover and get to Addison.
However, it’s too late, as Addison has the outside leverage he needs:
Addison lets his quickness do the rest, cutting outside, extending his arms away from his body to make the catch, and then twisting upfield and reaching past the pylon for the TD.
Watch it unfold:
In the two plays above, you can see how motion and a defensive focus on Justin Jefferson helped free up Addison to make big plays.
Underneath conversions
Continuing to play off the defensive focus on Jefferson, the Vikings found ways to get Addison the ball underneath, leading to his two TDs. The first was on a third-and-two that Minnesota needed to convert in the red zone. They put their three best pass catchers on one side and let the threat lead to an open Addison on a concept that is similar to Buffalo:
The Falcons have good coverage on the corner routes, with an outside defender falling off under T.J. Hockenson and a deep defender covering Jefferson’s corner. However, they do not cover Addison well, as the spacing in their underneath zones is messed up. The edge rusher dropping from the line of scrimmage ended up in the same spot as the slot corner, leading to a lot of space for Addison to make the catch.
Addison made the catch and stretched forward toward the end zone but could not get the ball over the goal line.
Once Addison was marked short, the Vikings tried to sneak and ran a wildcat play but got called for a penalty, leading to second-and-goal from the six. So, they went back to Addison, setting him up with a drag-china route out of a bunch formation. The Falcons tried to “box” the bunch, which is a way to cover bunch routes in zone.
Here’s the route instruction for Addison. You can see how the stem sells the zone corner to the outside, which should create inside space:
The deeper routes forced the inside zone defender deeper due to the rules of Box coverage. That led to a ton of underneath space for Addison once he pivoted back inside:
Addison made the catch and stretched out for the TD. Here’s the play:
Conclusion
Jordan Addison had a great game against the Falcons, helping propel the Vikings to a 42-21 victory. His skills were on full display, as his vertical speed threatened and beat defenders. When he won deep, he showed excellent ball tracking to find the football and make the perfect adjustment to put himself in position for the catch.
He did a great job regularly high-pointing the ball and catching the ball away from his body, which is a must for an NFL receiver. After the catch, he showed the ability to turn upfield in the red zone and got the ball over the goal line on two occasions, coming close on a third.
The Vikings developed strong plays that helped Addison get open. When defenses focus on Jefferson, like the Falcons did in this game, the Vikings need other players to step up. Addison has proven that he’s ready for that role.
