Vikings QB Kyler Murray’s future to Brian Flores’ blitzing highlight improbable Week 1 victory vs. Packers
The Minnesota Vikings found a way to beat the Green Bay Packers
You remember Enron from the early 2000s? When the stock price absolutely skyrocketed to the top of the DOW charts and then absolutely cratered, robbing people of pensions? Well, this is the reverse Enron. Everything cratered for the Minnesota Vikings, dropping all of their stocks down, and then all of a sudden Brian Flores’ defense takes them to the moon and they beat the Green Bay Packers 39-22.
Within the context of the game, there are a lot of fascinating elements to discuss, and it unfortunately starts with an injury.
Kyler Murray’s concussion changes everything
Quarterback Kyler Murray’s day ended almost before it started. On the second play of the game, he threw a desperation pass that the Packers intercepted. Minnesota got the ball back, but the early vibes were brutal, compounded by two back-to-back false starts that raised questions about the cadence with a new quarterback. Those are the kinds of kinks you can forgive in a season opener, but cadence is the one element of chemistry a team should already have locked in.
Then Murray went down. He got hit twice on a bang-bang play, and while it was borderline, it wasn’t necessarily dirty. His helmet came off after one player pulled at it, and then Javon Bullard delivered a hit to the neck and shoulder area. Murray’s arms went straight, a telltale sign of a concussion. He was ruled out with one shortly into the second quarter.
It’s likely Murray will miss the Bears game because players rarely return within one week from a concussion. The hope is that by the Week 3 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, there will be a better understanding of where his health stands. Concussions are nothing to play with, and it would not be a shock if the Vikings hold him out even if they beat Chicago next week at Soldier Field.
The frustrating part is that Murray’s injury history has never involved upper-body issues. He missed three games with a high ankle sprain, half of two seasons with a torn ACL, and 12 games last year because of a foot injury. He has always done a great job of preventing himself from getting hit. This time, he got hurt trying to protect himself.
Justin Jefferson is inevitable
With Carson Wentz stepping in, the Vikings leaned on their best weapon. Wide receiver Justin Jefferson finished with eight catches, 92 yards, and two touchdowns. He was the only player with more than four catches, as the Vikings completed just 15 passes.
Jefferson’s two touchdowns were his best plays of the day. The first came right at the two-minute warning in the first half. Lukas Van Ness jumped offsides, Wentz stepped up and fired a deep ball to the back of the end zone, and Jefferson made a beautiful move on rookie cornerback Brandon Cisse with a jab step outside before swimming inside for the catch.
The second was a play-action bootleg with split-flow action going across the line of scrimmage where Jefferson caught the ball in the opposite flat and dove for the pylon. He stuck the ball out, kept it under control, and scored without putting it in harm’s way. That touchdown made it feel like a lead the Packers could not come back from, putting 22 points on the board in the final quarter.
On the other end, wide receiver Jordan Addison did not catch a single pass. He had two targets, one thrown behind him and one thrown way outside of his frame that hit his hands. Because of its location, nobody is going to credit him with a drop. It makes Jefferson’s performance that much more impressive.
Brian Flores wins this game in the second half
Flores sent heavy pressure at Jordan Love, who is significantly worse when pressured than the average quarterback. Of Love’s 46 dropbacks, Love faced the blitz on 40 of them. The problem in the first half was that Love’s pocket presence allowed him to escape and gash the Vikings with chunk plays: a 42-yard completion to Matthew Golden and an 81-yard touchdown pass to Christian Watson among them. When Minnesota generated pressure, it didn’t contain Love, and it didn’t make that pressure count.
The second half was a different story. Flores changed things, and the results were immediate. Dallas Turner was dominant, with Pro Football Focus crediting him with nine pressures and a sack. NextGenStats had 10 pressures, seven of which came within 2.5 seconds. Jalen Redmond was consistently making plays. Andrew Van Ginkel got a strip sack in the fourth quarter to help pad what was a three-point lead at the time. On the next drive, James Pierre grabbed an interception when Harrison Smith barely missed his 40th career pick.
Flores’ 2-minute defense was poor again in the first half, a recurring problem from his first two years with the Vikings. This will likely be a talking point throughout the season. However, the halftime adjustments were excellent. The cornerbacks were no longer stranded on islands, and the blitzes were smarter, more calculated, and congruent. That formula is what the Vikings need to sustain success with Flores’ scheme.
The officiating controversy
The Vikings’ go-ahead touchdown drive was essentially gifted by the officials. Two turnovers were overturned, including an objectively terrible roughing the passer call where the defensive tackle had his hands out to brace himself and was flagged for using body weight. An interception by Evan Williams in the end zone was overturned because of a holding penalty on Xavier McKinney, which was more defensible but still frustrating for Green Bay. An earlier illegal contact call on third down was borderline because Wentz was being swallowed up in the pocket.
The Vikings got lucky on those calls. They didn’t get lucky on other instances where penalties should have been called and weren’t. The narrative from Green Bay will be that the refs cost them this game, but the reality is simpler than that. Brian Flores changed everything in the second half and won the Vikings this game. Minnesota has a lot to clean up on offense, but Flores’ defense carried the day.
