Brian Flores’ defense continues to prove it’s dominance, and their performance against the Bills highlights the dire need to win the trade deadline
Historic is the word often thrown around with the Minnesota Vikings’ defense, and it’s 100% warranted.
The entire world has its eyes on the Minnesota Vikings, and it’s even more so because of their embarrassing 23-6 loss on Monday Night Football to the Buffalo Bills.
It wasn’t just an embarrassing loss; the Vikings had the worst quarterback performance I’ve seen in 20 years. Since 1999, Carson Wentz had the third-worst EPA/play and the worst CPOE among all Vikings quarterback performances. Think about the ground that covers. It was worse than the Josh Freeman game, Max Brosmer against the Seattle Seahawks last season, and any game Christian Ponder played.
Brian Flores’ defense continues to play at a high level
Against the Detroit Lions, the run defense was particularly brutal. They allowed a 0.321 EPA/rush and a success rate of 63.6% in the second half. It was atrocious the entire half, and the time of possession didn’t factor in nearly as much as many believed.
Monday night saw the Bills hold the ball for a whopping 42:32. It’s an astounding number that is one of the highest time of possession totals that we’ve seen in a while. What really stood out was how well the defense played considering the issues they’ve had.
The Vikings defense was on the field for 80 total snaps with 79 official plays. They allowed 339 total yards, but the efficiency the Bills had was poor, at just 4.3 yards per play.
On top of that, the Bills, who ranked at the top of the league in offense, ran the ball for just 3.0 yards per carry. The entire Vikings unit was flying around the field in all phases, including linebackers Blake Cashman and Eric Wilson playing like All-Pros.
The Vikings need to make a move right now to fix what is going on, because this defense is playing at an insane level. They held arguably the three best offenses in the game right now: Bills, Lions, and Green Bay Packers to an average of 21.33 points. With how their defenses are, going just 1-2 in these games is an incredible disappointment.
With the trade deadline here, don’t waste this defense. Make a move and support them.
