Vikings’ keys to beating Packers are very simple, but they require something rare happening again
Sunday afternoon at Lambeau Field is going to be an explosive matchup on both sides of the football.
It’s border battle week, and the Minnesota Vikings need a win against the Green Bay Packers to stay in the NFC North race. Now, this isn’t going to eliminate the Vikings but it will make it much harder to win. All four teams in the division are at least three games over .500. Collectively, they’re 20-4 against teams outside the NFC North.
The biggest storyline heading into Sunday is quarterback Kirk Cousins. You can talk about his quirks all day, but what he brings to Minnesota is stability. The Vikings haven’t had any of that so far this season, and the offense needs to get going fast.
If it doesn’t, Minnesota is in serious danger of wasting a historic defense. Led by linebacker Blake Cashman and defensive tackle Jalen Redmond, they are playing out of their minds. Safety Harrison Smith may be on his last ride, and he isn’t the only other contributor on the unit playing well. The offense, on the other hand, has been abysmal.
Simply put: the duo of Cousins and head coach Kevin O’Connell, along with the defense, are the keys to victory.
Kirk Cousins and Kevin O’Connell have history on their side
A lot of the offensive struggles fall on O’Connell. He hasn’t gelled with J.J. McCarthy, Carson Wentz, or Kyler Murray, and that has been a massive reason why Minnesota has struggled over the last two years. Looking back, we took for granted how well O’Connell and Cousins knew each other. That continuity helped the Vikings have some of their best success.
There are levels to the conversation. How much blame belongs on the quarterbacks, and how much belongs on O’Connell? It’s a combination of both. The quarterbacks haven’t played well even when O’Connell has given them good things to run. O’Connell, meanwhile, needs to do a much better job of adapting to his quarterbacks. He can do it, and he does do it, but he won’t sustain it.
Cousins will likely start on just five days in the building, but he spent six years in Minnesota. He knows his way around TCO Performance Center, the team’s training facility, and he knows most of the people in the organization. He’s thrown to wide receivers Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and tight end T.J. Hockenson. Offensive tackles Christian Darrisaw and Brian O’Neill have blocked for him so they know his tendencies. Because of that, the learning curve is small, even if the staff has to catch him up on some new additions to the offense.
It’s also not the first time that the Vikings are going to start a quarterback on a short timeframe. They did so with Sam Bradford against the Packers to open up U.S. Bank Stadium in 2016, and it was one of the more memorable games in the history of the rivalry.
What Cousins brings to the Vikings offense
Cousins isn’t an elite player at this stage, but he is playing very good football. He has 20 touchdown passes and eight interceptions, a 5-to-2 ratio that beats his career mark.
He has an old-man savvy, and that’s meant as a compliment. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees all had it where you process information at such a high level that you can balance out your diminishing physical ability. Cousins knows when to get the ball out quickly to prevent negative plays. Along with that, his ball placement is excellent. Accuracy means the ball is catchable, but ball placement
Take the common goal line concept where the two outside receivers run picks and the slot receiver runs to the pylon. That ball usually gets thrown behind, which lets the defender catch up. Baylor ran that exact play against Auburn in the first week of the college football season, and quarterback DJ Lagway threw it inside and behind, resulting in a tackle short of the end zone. Cousins’ ball placement would lay it out front. When a defender closes on one shoulder, he throws low and outside to the opposite side of the body. Those details matter, and Minnesota hasn’t had them over the last two seasons.
He also activates the middle of the field, something the Vikings simply haven’t done since Sam Darnold. He has peppered tight end Brock Bowers with targets, and the same should happen with Jefferson and Addison.
His robotic drop depths might be the most underrated piece. Darrisaw and O’Neill will know exactly where he’ll be, and that muscle memory should come back quickly. Murray was more inconsistent, and because he’s shorter, his drops ran deeper, which made life harder on the tackles.
The tradeoffs and the matchup with Green Bay
Cousins does create different problems in pass protection than Murray did. He lacks escapability, even though his pressure-to-sack rate is the strongest it’s ever been this year. Defenses will use more aggressive pressure packages because they don’t have to worry about him breaking the pocket the way Murray could. Cousins is also older, and quarterbacks his age can see their arm strength fade over the course of a season.
The intrigue lies in how O’Connell calls this game. He’ll certainly try to get Jefferson the football as he did against the Buffalo Bills, but Wentz was off target all night on Monday.
The Packers run two-high safety looks at one of the highest rates in the NFL, and their linebackers can be taken advantage of in the passing game. Safeties Evan Williams and Xavier McKinney are playing at a high level, but they’re aggressive. A mills concept, with a dig from the inside receiver and a post from the outside, can catch them in quarters for a touchdown over the top. Finding ways to manipulate those players will be a major factor in a successful game.
On the other side, quarterback Jordan Love has proven doubters wrong, myself included. He ranks ninth in EPA per dropback and 10th in pressure-to-sack rate, while doing it without much of an offensive line. Zach Bako-Bewele is out for the season, Green Bay could be down to its third-string center, and Jordan Morgan has struggled at left tackle. The Packers rank 30th in EPA per rush and 25th in success rate overall, yet Love has carried them anyway.
Covering wide receivers Matthew Golden and Christian Watson just enough is the path to beating Green Bay, and few teams have managed it. Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores has his defense pressuring opponents relentlessly. How that pressure holds up against Love will go a long way toward deciding whether Cousins’ return keeps Minnesota in the race.
This border battle should be one for the ages.
