If you watched the Minnesota Vikings beat the Chicago Bears on Sunday, you probably already know that Justin Jefferson only had 27 yards on two catches against the Bears. That’s because the FOX broadcast would not stop talking about how Chicago’s defense held Jefferson to just one catch during regulation, even though the Vikings were winning.
It wasn’t until overtime that color commentator Daryl Johnston mentioned the obvious — the Bears’ focus on Jefferson created massive holes elsewhere, and the Vikings’ had three offensive players — Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson, and Aaron Jones — go for over 100 yards from scrimmage on the day.
Throughout the game, Jefferson consistently drew coverage away from his teammates, leading to Sam Darnold going an impressive 22 of 34 through the air for 330 yards and two TDs. The Bears played with two high safeties most of the game, creating space in the run game for Jones, who got his second 100-rushing-yard game of the season. Jefferson also drew 45 yards worth of defensive pass interference penalties, both on drives that ended in TDs.
While it may be obvious from the stats that the Bears tilted their coverage toward Jefferson, it can be hard to tell live because the broadcast angle doesn’t show the secondary during the play. I went to the tape to confirm, and the Bears lost the game because they over-focused on Jefferson in coverage.
Let’s dive in to discover the nature of how the Bears tried to take Jefferson away and what it opened up for Minnesota’s offense.
the nature of double coverage
The phrase “double coverage” can mean many things. Most of the time, you’ll hear it when commentators refer to a play that isn’t actually a designed double team by the defense but more due to how the distribution of the routes and zones played out.
Take Will Levis‘ interception in Week 11 as an example. He throws the ball, which Harrison Smith picks off, into “double coverage.” However, the Vikings are not intentionally double-teaming Calvin Ridley. It’s just that they were playing Quarters, and no routes in the intermediate threatened Smith, so he moved to help Stephon Gilmore and got the pick.
True double coverage occurs when a team dedicates two resources to stopping one player, altering its defensive structure, and creating holes elsewhere. When the Vikings have a WR they want to shut down on defense, they will run their “1 Double” coverage, like they did on their second sack of Levis last week.
There are other ways, like the Fangio tree’s “Zeus” call, which puts a Cover 2 look to the side of the receiver you want to double, so have a CB pressing and a safety over top of that player dedicated to vertical routes.
The Bears didn’t necessarily employ either of the two strategies above, but they tilted their coverage toward Jefferson. Primarily, this looked like having their best CB, Jaylon Johnson, line up and press Jefferson, sticking with him in man coverage while the rest of the defense played zone.
The first third down of OT is a great example. The Bears are in Cover 3, which is a zone coverage that has three deep defenders and four underneath defenders. The two outside CBs and deep safety are typically responsible for the deep zones, while traditionally the two LBs, box safety, and slot CB are responsible for underneath zones.
However, in this case, the Bears have Johnson lined up in press coverage on Jefferson at the top of the screen. He plays man all the way, following Jefferson to the middle of the field.
That leaves safety Kevin Byard, who is the second DB overtop the two-man stack of Addison and Jefferson, in one-on-one coverage to the top of the screen. Because Johnson is in press, Byard has to lineup in off coverage. Because Byard is in off, he has to backpedal when Addison threatens vertically in his route. However, because Byard gets too much depth in his backpedal, Addison is open for an easy completion past the sticks when he breaks his route inside.
If this were a traditional Cover 3 play, Johnson would have been covering the flat and may have had a slight chance of deflecting a pass from an underneath zone. Instead, he ends up well out of the play, and Jefferson has three defenders in his area, all useless to stop Addison. Check out the play below.
After the game, Hockenson talked about how this defensive style consistently put Chicago’s other defenders in bad positions. “Jets takes coverage from us to let us be able to do our job,” he said. “He may have had a down day, but that’s not… We didn’t have up plays. We just did our jobs because they were taking coverage from him.”
The play below is the throw to Hockenson that put the Vikings in range to win the game with a field goal, which is another great example of that idea. On it, you can see that the Bears are again in Cover 3 with Johnson locked in man coverage on Jefferson. This time, safety Jonathan Owens, who I believe has a deep third responsibility, comes down to chuck Jefferson before dropping into his zone.
The extra attention paid to Jefferson means that Owens came too far forward on the play and didn’t even see Hockenson crossing the field on a deep over route. Because Owens was unaware of Hockenson, he couldn’t get enough depth, and the Vikings had an easy pitch-and-catch to win the game.
Manning up on Jefferson ruined Chicago’s coverage structure, leading to huge plays for other players on Minnesota’s offense.
how Jefferson Draws opposing Eyes
Outside of the plays where Chicago asked Johnson to trail Jefferson while the rest of the defense played zone coverage, you could also tell that the Bears defenders were hyper-aware of where Jefferson was at all times in more traditional man and zone reps. The Vikings knew this, which allowed playcaller Kevin O’Connell and the other receivers to manipulate them.
“Their backers were just playing off a lot,” Hockenson said. “I was able to move them a little bit.
“Like I said, they’re playing a lot of Cover 2 for Jets — there’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it,” he continued. “They’re making sure that he’s not going to wreck the game. We’re just there to do our job and get open when we can.”
The other huge Hockenson catch came on third-and-12 with just over three minutes remaining, and it would have allowed the Vikings to close out the game if they hadn’t botched the onside kick recovery.
O’Connell pulled out one of his signature third-down bunch designs, having Hockenson start out wide in the three-man stack and then motion inside for the bunch. The Bears were playing man coverage, making the LB, T.J. Edwards, covering Hockenson move inside with him.
O’Connell then had Addison and Jefferson take inside stems while Hockenson switch released outside on a wheel route. The switch release forced Edwards to go back outside after coming inside while responding to motion. Because Johnson was pressing Jefferson again, Edwards’ foot clipped Johnson’s.
Johnson fell down and definitely committed a penalty against Jefferson that wasn’t called. It also messed up Edwards, who ended up flat-footed, allowing Hockenson to run by him for a big gain.
But why didn’t Edwards have help over the top? The Bears were playing Cover 2 Man, where you have the deep safety to help with vertical routes. The problem was that the deep safety had his eyes on Jefferson. As a deep safety in two-man, you read “two-to-one” or inside out. Because Hockenson worked outside Jefferson on his release, Jefferson was the No. 2 receiver, and the safety needed to keep his eyes on him in his vertical stem. You can see him keeping his eyes on Jefferson and only breaking outside when the quarterback throws the ball.
Defenses read two-to-one because usually a CB is on the outside, with an LB or nickel player on the inside. On this play, O’Connell could flip that defensive principle on its head and get Hockenson a one-on-one matchup with an LB while Jefferson got doubled. Hockenson has a huge advantage over an LB, so that’s a win for the Vikings.
Just like he said in his quote above, Hockenson was able to move the LB and take advantage of the Cover 2 the Bears were using to take away Jefferson.
Drawing the defense’s eyes also helped on the Addison touchdown. In the play below, the Bears are running man coverage again — in this case, Cover 1 Rat. Byard is the “rat in the hole” playing a middle zone. There are a couple of different ways you can play this coverage, depending on whether you want to assign the Rat to “cut” a crosser. A cut call means the hole player will take the first crossing route, and the person in man coverage on the receiver running the crosser will become the new rat.
That works well against crossing routes because they use leverage. Addison is running a crosser underneath, and you can see from the end zone view that he can make the catch because he has gained a step on Owens, who is trailing him in man. If Byard had cut the route, he would have had better leverage on Addison and made a catch much more difficult.
Instead, Byard had his eyes on Jefferson. He stayed in the middle hook and dropped off onto Jefferson’s crossing route on the back line. That took away Jefferson on the play but hung Owens out to dry, leading to a Vikings TD.
Jefferson was clearly in the opposing defenders’ minds in the last two plays and in the play below. Jalen Nailor‘s TD came on a condensed play in the red zone, but it functions like Smash against Cover 2. Smash is a high-low concept with an out route and a corner route. The read for the QB is on the CB in the flat. The instruction for the QB is that if the CB drives on the flat, you throw the corner. If he sinks to the corner, you throw the flat.
The Bears are worried about Jefferson. In the play below, Johnson steps backward into the end zone when he realizes Jefferson is running a corner route behind him. That opens space for Darnold to throw to Nailor in the flat, and Johnson stepping backward gave Nailor just enough room to take the pass in for the TD.
an element of selflessness
As a receiver, Jefferson did the dirty work all game to work against Jaylon Johnson in press coverage and help get teammates open. His willingness to do so without pouting and demanding the ball represents his leadership. He also shows selflessness in his willingness to help in the run game.
Jefferson’s presence often puts defenses in two-high coverage. That makes running easier because the offense will have the same number of blockers as the defense has defenders in the box. On the play below, you can see both safeties start 10-plus yards from the line of scrimmage, meaning the Vikings have seven blockers while the Bears have seven defenders in the box.
Defenses obviously know that two-high structures are weak against the run, so they will have safeties trigger hard downhill and hopefully limit gains. On the play below, you see that Chicago’s seven box players are easily blocked. However, the safety on the left, Owens, is coming downhill, hoping to hit Jones in the hole.
Who comes in to make the block? None other than Jefferson. He squares Owens up, delivers a strong block, and turns the run into a gain of 11.
It wasn’t a perfect block, but the superstar’s willingness and physicality late in a game where he wasn’t getting many targets were refreshing to see.
conclusion
Jordan Addison, Aaron Jones, and T.J. Hockenson had great games during Sunday’s win against the Bears. They made stunning individual plays, but they also had help from Jefferson, who didn’t show up in the box score often.
The Bears centered their game plan around stopping Jefferson. That part worked. The overall plan blew up in their faces because the Vikings recognized the focus and played around it, ending with 452 yards of total offense and 30 points on the day. Defense and special teams made the game interesting, but the Vikings’ offense dominated en route to the team improving to 9-2.
