Ed Donatell, Vikings Defense Had Another Rough Day in Week 17
Ted Schwerzler
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The Green Bay Packers have been quite a disappointing team on offense for most of the season. After losing Davante Adams coming into the year, they added on defense and hoped that would shield Aaron Rodgers and his lack of weapons. It certainly didn’t seem to matter against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday as Ed Donatell and the Vikings defense had another rough day.
In Week 1 against the Green Bay Packers, rookie wide receiver Christian Watson dropped a deep ball that was sure to go for a touchdown. From that point forward Minnesota took momentum and ran away with the game. It couldn’t have been a more opposite set of circumstances from Lambeau Field, and the Vikings defense reverted to its terrible ways.
Someone should’ve told Ed Donatell and his group that this was a game played on a crummy grass surface. While not bitterly cold weather that we’ve seen around the NFL in recent weeks, it’s still Wisconsin in early January. From the jump it was beyond evident that Vikings defenders were getting zero traction on the field, and it was playing right into the Packers hands.
Minnesota’s defense held Rodgers to just 81 yards on 16 attempts in the first half, but they allowed over 100 rushing yards on the ground. Aaron Jones consistently gashed the purple defense, and nothing about the blocking schemes looked out of the ordinary. Donatell continued to fail when it came to making adjustments, and the Vikings defense was blown off the ball at will by Green Bay.
For weeks the problem Minnesota has faced is their own defense. They went on a stretch of five consecutive games where they allowed more than 400 yards to the opposing team. The game that broke that stretch was coincidentally the largest comeback in NFL history, and that was largely aided by the Indianapolis Colts inability to do little of anything on their own.
In the playoffs, Donatell and his group must figure out a way to show a semblance of competence when they are on the field. While it’s great that Josh Mettellus has swarmed to the punter for two straight weeks, or Patrick Peterson has come up with timely picks, suggesting that bend-but-don’t-break is a strategy should fall on deaf ears.
Had the Vikings at any point this season been a bit further behind in the winning percentage category, it may have seemed pertinent for head coach Kevin O’Connell, or general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, to move on from their strategy and perhaps the coordinator. Ultimately, that situation never arose, and it’s something that should be considered prior to next season, but the playoffs make it necessary to be figured out.
The secondary has been a large issue for the Vikings this season, but Matt LaFleur and Aaron Rodgers just showed the Vikings that they have little ability to stop the run in certain circumstances as well. Aaron Jones tallied 111 yards on the ground, and he needed just 14 carries to do so. Maybe Minnesota’s players would have benefitted from better cleat options, but that’s a known scenario coming into the action, and there’s zero excuse for the production from that group on Sunday.
This team has argued all season long that their style of timely turnovers was a benefit, but we’ve seen enough by this point to understand it’s not sustainable on a weekly basis when trying to control optimal opportunity. There’s plenty of holes for Minnesota heading into the playoffs, but again on Sunday, the defense was among the worst of them.
Ted Schwerzler is a blogger from the Twin Cities that is focused on all things Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings. He’s active on Twitter and writes weekly for Twins Daily. As a former college athlete and avid sports fan, covering our pro teams with a passion has always seemed like such a natural outlet.