What Worked Against The Vikings (Offense Updated)

[Spartacus]

23 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

What specifically are you looking to see with the defense? Sacks, pressure package reps, 3rd downs, early down wins, run stuffs?

It's much easier to point out what went right with the offense than what went right with defense.

I'm most curious about our secondary. Were we playing man, zone, a mix? Was the secondary fairly lockdown or were there plays out there to be made and Cousins just didn't have time?

[AlexGreen#20]

12 minutes ago, cannondale said:

At the end of the day, it's a philosophy thing for me. You have to challenge the defense. There are so many ways to do that. Stretch horizontally and vertically. Challenge with misdirection. Finesse and power. Force match-ups the defense doesn't excel at. A little trickery never hurts either. As we have seen, it's much easier to do for MLF with scripted plays. Much harder to keep track of in game. Best example I've seen of this thus far this year was S.F. on Sunday or Monday night earlier in the year against a team I don't recall. Every single play looked like a work of art. Chunks of yardage in every way imaginable. My jaw dropped.

Somewhere around halftime Monday night they showed a graphic of the passing game with way too many throws within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. This isn't the first time it's happened. How much easier can you possibly make it on the defense ? I can understand the hot read to a WR with a CB playing with a 10 yard cushion, but these WR screens make me vomit. Again I go back to MLF being obsessed with needing a 2nd and 2 every series of downs. I get it, but it's not a perfect world. I don't like to toss around the word conservative, but how is MLF not conservative ? 2nd and 10 or more is an automatic punt. I'm not smart enough to decide whether it's a play call or the offense itself, but I still refuse to acknowledge Rodgers holds on to the ball for kicks and giggles. Every big play it's revealed in the press conference that Rodgers changed the call.  It's pretty damn hard to go 80 yards 4 yards at a time.

Challenge the damn defense. I think it's a schematic thing.

With one exception, the WR screens killed it against the Vikings. They were fantastically effective on 3rd and short. 

[AlexGreen#20]

5 minutes ago, Spartacus said:

I'm most curious about our secondary. Were we playing man, zone, a mix? Was the secondary fairly lockdown or were there plays out there to be made and Cousins just didn't have time?

It's always going to be a mix. The problem with trying to describe this is that it's very difficult to quantify.

If I say we played:

Man Cover-1 14% of the time,

Man Cover-2 6%

2 Over 5 Under 20% 

3 Over 4 Under Standard 12% 

3 Over 4 Under Cover-6 4%

4 Over 3 Under 10%

Prevent 8% 

Indescernible 26% 

That doesn't really tell anybody anything without comparative numbers for other games this year, or even league averages.

[ChillerBee]

Love this stuff. Pure gold to one who grew up with almost no exposure to football. Appreciate the insight. 

[HighCalebR]

5 hours ago, Spartacus said:

I'm much more interested on what we did right on defense. Specifically was it just the pass rush or was our coverage different then games past? 

Their OL was a disaster. From not getting off the snap for 2 seconds, bad reads, and plan ol being bad they were just outmatched this game. They couldnt so anything.

Not having Dalvin REALLY hurt them.

Coverage was good, they like those deep crossers and King was picking them up on the backside frequently like on the pick play.  Still a few issues, Ibraheim not getting more depth on the 3rd and long. Jaire was a bit handsy after getting toasted. King on Thielen looked good most of the night. Amos deep really cleans things up. 

[jleisher]

Simple, just like with the Packers, no running game and you lose.  

[coachbuns]

The D line played so well against the Vikings O line, I'm not sure even if they had Cook playing it would have made much difference.  Packers wanted to stop the run and they certainly did that.  Don't think it mattered one bit who they had at running back ...  they got stuffed at the line of scrimmage.

[Pugger]

16 hours ago, HighCalebR said:

Their OL was a disaster. From not getting off the snap for 2 seconds, bad reads, and plan ol being bad they were just outmatched this game. They couldnt so anything.

Not having Dalvin REALLY hurt them.

Coverage was good, they like those deep crossers and King was picking them up on the backside frequently like on the pick play.  Still a few issues, Ibraheim not getting more depth on the 3rd and long. Jaire was a bit handsy after getting toasted. King on Thielen looked good most of the night. Amos deep really cleans things up. 

Yes, that OL is a mess and will kill the Vikes in the post season even if Cook is back.

[Pugger]

What I really liked was we utilized a short passing game dinking and dunking down the field.   I hope they continue to do this going forward.  It will keep pass rushers out of the backfield and opponents' offenses on the bench.

[KFP7]

let's start a gofundme for AlexGreen to keep doing this kind of stuff.

[Pugger]

On 12/26/2019 at 2:06 PM, cannondale said:

At the end of the day, it's a philosophy thing for me. You have to challenge the defense. There are so many ways to do that. Stretch horizontally and vertically. Challenge with misdirection. Finesse and power. Force match-ups the defense doesn't excel at. A little trickery never hurts either. As we have seen, it's much easier to do for MLF with scripted plays. Much harder to keep track of in game. Best example I've seen of this thus far this year was S.F. on Sunday or Monday night earlier in the year against a team I don't recall. Every single play looked like a work of art. Chunks of yardage in every way imaginable. My jaw dropped.

Somewhere around halftime Monday night they showed a graphic of the passing game with way too many throws within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. This isn't the first time it's happened. How much easier can you possibly make it on the defense ? I can understand the hot read to a WR with a CB playing with a 10 yard cushion, but these WR screens make me vomit. Again I go back to MLF being obsessed with needing a 2nd and 2 every series of downs. I get it, but it's not a perfect world. I don't like to toss around the word conservative, but how is MLF not conservative ? 2nd and 10 or more is an automatic punt. I'm not smart enough to decide whether it's a play call or the offense itself, but I still refuse to acknowledge Rodgers holds on to the ball for kicks and giggles. Every big play it's revealed in the press conference that Rodgers changed the call.  It's pretty damn hard to go 80 yards 4 yards at a time.

Challenge the damn defense. I think it's a schematic thing.

Of course quick short passes are hard to defend and it keeps the defense on the field wearing them out by the 4th quarter.  By then you can stretch the field and really put a team away.

[cannondale]

1 hour ago, Pugger said:

Of course quick short passes are hard to defend and it keeps the defense on the field wearing them out by the 4th quarter.  By then you can stretch the field and really put a team away.

The flaw in that thinking is that it's hard to put together 14 play drives all game without penalties, human error, great defensive plays, etc etc. And in MLF's system, that means a punt. Bend but don't break defenses are based on the premise that sooner or later a negative play or penalty will stall a drive. MM constantly mentioned explosive plays for a reason. They lessen the need for perfection over a greater number of plays. Did MM stress explosive plays too much ? Probably. I don't think there is any doubt that there was a hole in his play calling or maybe in his system. But if you don't challenge and stress a defense in some way, those explosive plays are harder to get. In a perfect world, 14 play drives that take 8 minutes off the clock and end in a touchdown are ideal and awesome to watch. It's not a perfect world