The Minnesota Vikings could not overcome Kirk Cousins‘ injury to get back to the playoffs, ending a tumultuous season in disappointment. They’ll be at home watching the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers play in the Super Bowl, a rematch of the contest the Chiefs won after the 2019 season.
There isn’t necessarily a correct way to build a team, but studying the final four and how they got to that point can be instructive. I took a closer look at the four teams in the conference championship games — the Chiefs, 49ers, Baltimore Ravens, and Detroit Lions — and came away with some principles to consider when building a team.
Have a great offense or QB, or both
On the AFC side, the QBs representing their teams will have accounted for four of the last six NFL MVP awards once Lamar Jackson wins his second this season. All four teams had offenses within the top 11 in EPA per play. The 49ers were first, the Ravens were sixth, the Lions were eighth, and the Chiefs were 11th. San Francisco built a Death Star of talent on the offensive side of the ball to help Brock Purdy, and Detroit has an elite offensive line, talented RBs, and a couple of strong pass-catching options in Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta.
All four teams also have play callers who are held in high regard. Andy Reid and Kyle Shannahan have been two of the best in the NFL for a long time, and Ben Johnson and Todd Monken were strong HC candidates this cycle for good reason.
How do the Vikings match up to this? They have only cracked the top 10 in offensive EPA/play once since Kirk Cousins was signed in 2018, and that was in 2019. However, they were 11th in EPA/play through eight weeks, while Kirk was healthy this year. Their offense has strong skill position talent outside of running back, highlighted by Justin Jefferson, and they have an offensive line that is ascending with two bookend tackles. They hired Kevin O’Connell in large part because of his potential play-calling acumen, and he has done well with play design through two seasons.
That leaves the QB question wide open. Assuming Cousins returns to form, his ceiling has proven to be as a Purdy or Jared Goff-type player instead of one of the elite QBs in the game. The Vikings will have to decide if they want to settle for him moving forward or swing for the fences in the draft.
Improvisational play at QB matters
The QB position is so important that I’m mentioning it twice. The scramble below by Purdy on third-and-four was one of the most critical plays in the 49ers-Lions game:
That drive ended in a TD that put the game out of reach for the Lions. In the other game, Mahomes and Jackson made plays that bordered on absurdity, like this crazy scramble on third-and-five:
Or this pass that Jackson caught himself and took for a first down:
In the group, the only QB who doesn’t have that improvisation talent, Goff, ended up losing after failing to convert a fourth-and-three in scoring position:
Against the best teams in the playoffs, sometimes the defense will have the offense’s number. The plays above are well-defended, but three of the four QBs rose above their circumstances and made a play anyway.
That’s the biggest question for the Vikings. Cousins has never been an improvisational player, and plays like the fourth-and-eight in the Wild Card round have been the biggest point detractors have made against him over the years — regardless of whether they are correct. It’s certainly possible for another player to step up and transcend the moment like Justin Jefferson did on fourth-and-18 against the Buffalo Bills last year. But it’s much easier for the QB to have that effect on the game than any other player. That’s what the team will have to grapple with this offseason as they decide which direction to go at QB.
Adjusting on defense is critical
Defensive adjustment is best illustrated by a team that won and a team that lost, the 49ers and the Ravens. The Lions and Chiefs got off to hot starts, but neither scored in the second half of either game.
The Chiefs started off the game by screening the Ravens to death. Kansas City had drives of 10 and 16 plays go for TDs to eat up nearly a full quarter of game time. Baltimore adjusted to these concepts and took away quick passes, forcing five consecutive Chiefs punts in the second half. It helps that the Ravens might have had the best defense in the NFL. Still, holding Mahomes to 17 points is commendable.
San Francisco’s shift was even more drastic. The Lions scored TDs on three of their first four drives and went up 24-7 before the half. In the second half, the 49ers bent a couple of times but didn’t break. They made critical fourth-down stops and also forced a fumble. Detroit came out with a strong run game and quick passes that generated significant yards after the catch to players like Sam LaPorta. In the second half, San Francisco was able to close down on the run game and force Goff to throw deeper, lower-percentage routes. That led to incompletions, which eventually led to the fourth-down failures.
Both offenses had good initial plans of attack, but the strong defenses were able to adjust. It let the 49ers win the game and allowed the Ravens to keep it competitive.
Baltimore might have pulled out the victory if not for the next item:
Turnovers are crucial but fickle
Turnovers are some of the most impactful plays in football. Most of the time, teams that win the turnover battle win the game. That was extremely true for the 2023 Minnesota Vikings:
The Ravens turned the ball over three times, including one fumble on the goal line that took away a touchdown. The complexion of their game would have been drastically different had Zay Flowers scored on that play or if they had taken the ball away from the Chiefs in the game.
Luck is a hard thing to quantify. Turnovers are maybe the best expression of luck that football has because so much is determined by the bounce of an oddly shaped ball.
Obviously, an individual turnover displays skill or a lack of it. But from a team perspective, the results end up being pretty random. Just because a team is good at getting turnovers in the regular season doesn’t mean that luck will continue from game to game. The Ravens and Chiefs are great examples of this. Baltimore was +12 in turnover differential during the regular season, the best in the league. Meanwhile, Kansas City was at -10, 28th.
I’m not sure there’s much for a football team to learn from this point, but it is instructive for a fan. You can’t count on turnovers, the best you can do his hope your team wins the battle. If they don’t, they’re probably going to lose, and that sucks.
Paying players is fine — but you’d better draft well
For years, people warned against mega-lucrative quarterback deals because of a narrative that a QB had never won a Super Bowl while taking up whatever moving goalpost of cap percentage the person talking wanted to put in there. Patrick Mahomes killed that narrative, which can be seen in three of the four teams that made the championship games.
The Ravens and Chiefs each have six different players making more than $10 million per year. The 49ers have an astounding nine players making that much. If you’ve watched the Vikings over the past five years, though, you understand that a star-studded roster also needs depth to compete at a high level, and that comes through drafting well.
Baltimore got major contributions from picks like Tyler Linderbaum, Zay Flowers, Isaiah Likely, Kyle Hamilton, Justin Madubuike, Brandon Stephens, and Geno Stone. The Chiefs found players like Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith, Rashee Rice, L’Jarius Sneed, George Karlaftis, and Trent McDuffie. San Francisco got great play from Brock Purdy, Brandon Aiyuk, Deommodore Lenoir, and Talanoa Hufanga.
Many of the players listed above were first- or second-round picks, but there are several later-round players in there. Many didn’t break out until two or three years after they were drafted. Having the infrastructure to support and develop those players is important. The 49ers lit three first-round picks on fire by drafting Trey Lance and spent a bunch of draft picks to acquire Christian McCaffery. Still, they found and developed quality depth.
The Lions are an example of a team built with young, cheap players through the draft. They did so by amassing a massive amount of draft capital by trading Matthew Stafford and losing a lot of games. That’s not necessarily a path the Vikings can or want to follow, so they must build with players like Jordan Addison, Camryn Bynum, Josh Metellus, and Ivan Pace Jr. once Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw get big contracts.
So what does this all mean?
These are not hard and fast rules, but here are the steps to becoming a competitive team:
- Find a QB who can make plays in critical moments.
- Support your QB with a great offense.
- Have a defense that can play to your opponent.
- Find a way to win the turnover battle.
- Draft well to build depth.
