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Vikings defense is so good ranking last in one major statistic doesn't matter
The calling card of the Minnesota Vikings this season comes in two forms: quarterback Sam Darnold and Brian Flores' defense. They have arguably been the best stories so far in the National Football League and it has helped catapult the Vikings to a 4-0 record.
The Vikings have a fantastic +57 point differential this season and have held 20+ point leads in three of their four wins with two of those being 22 and 27 point victories. With those kinds of leads, game scripts are altered and can impact how you view a defense.
Vikings rank last in key defensive metric
Despite those positives the Vikings have, they aren't a perfect unit. Going into Monday Night Football, the Vikings rank dead last in passing yards allowed this season. They have allowed 1,097 yards through the air this season and quite frankly, it doesn't matter.
A lot of the passing yards the Vikings have allowed have been with the team being up by 20+ points. The Packers alone got 90 passing yards on their final drive down nine points with two minutes to go. When you have that kind of success against you that late down multiple scores, it usually signals a prevent style coverage. What matters more is how you perform in neutral situations. With all that said, the Vikings have forced their opponents to pass 70.96% of the time and are second in the NFL in rush yards allowed per game at 75.0.
One of the easiest ways to view success in neutral situations is to use the garbage time filter on rbsdm.com. When you set it to the win probability being between 10-90%, the Vikings rank:
- First in EPA/play allowed: -0.290
- Second in success rate: 34.1%
- First in dropback EPA/play: -0.296
- Second in dropback success rate: 32.9%
- Second in rush EPA allowed: -0.280
- Seventh in rush success rate allowed: 36.0%
Those stats are much more stable and show how well the defense is playing. When you update the numbers without a garbage time filter, you get this:
- Second in EPA/play allowed: -0.189
- Fifth in success rate: 38.1%
- Second in dropback EPA/play: -0.195
- Sixth in dropback success rate: 39.1%
- Sixth in rush EPA/play: -0.174
- Seventh in rushing success rate: 35.1%
Those numbers are very different. Why? The game is already in hand and the Vikings don't need to put more of their exotic looks on tape when the game is already in hand. At that point, they focus on making plays in basic coverages, which they also have been doing. The Vikings defense is so good in situations when the game is in doubt that they can afford to allow garbage time production.
Sure, ranking last in the NFL in passing yards allowed sounds bad, but it's really not as bad as you think it is.
