An Old Cliché, Yes, but Crucial for the Vikings in 2024
Mastering complementary football is crucial to playing winning football. Cliché, yes, but still true. The Vikings need to evolve by letting each phase of the game enhance, not complicate, the other phases of the game.
Upon first glance, football appears to have distinct components that somehow coalesce into a disjointed whole. Spending some time with the game, though, will reveal that each seemingly separate part works together to form a coherent whole.
Mike Zimmer could commonly be found espousing the merits of complementary football, but his message began to wear thin for a lot of Vikings fans who were ready for Minnesota to move in a new direction. At the end of a 7-10 season, though, it’s hard not to think back to what Zimmer would preach.
The final game of the season, a 30-20 loss to the Lions, perfectly illustrates the issue.
An Old Cliché, Yes, but Crucial for the Vikings in 2024
In Week 18, the Vikings allowed the Detroit Lions to score the game’s opening touchdown because bad offense fed into bad special teams which, in turn, fed into bad defense.
Sam LaPorta gave Detroit a lead less than seven minutes into the game by scoring a touchdown off of a 2-yard pass from Jared Goff. The singular play was the climactic moment within a string of poor football from all three phases of the game.
Consider what happened before the rookie tight end got the pigskin into the endzone.
Minnesota had just forced a three and out, meaning Nick Mullens had the chance to lead his offense to points and an early lead. At 14:05 in the opening quarter, Mullens started to move his group down the field. Josh Oliver snagged a first down and then Ty Chandler added on another a couple of plays later.
Shortly thereafter, the drive stalled. A delay of game penalty halted the momentum before the Vikings saw Chandler pickup 5 yards on a run and then K.J. Osborn go for a 6-yard catch. The 3rd & 4 from Minnesota’s 38 resulted in an incomplete ball to Osborn. Ryan Wright stepped onto the field and sent a booming ball to Detroit’s 6-yard line.
The issue, of course, is that Kalif Raymond put together a marvellous return. Take a look:
If NaJee Thompson makes the initial tackle, Goff trots onto the field with roughly 94 yards ahead of him. Instead, the task was considerably less daunting: just 52 yards before hitting pay dirt.
Making matters even worse for Minnesota is that the defense failed to rise to the occasion. Very wisely, the Lions didn’t content themselves with a humdrum play after the Kalif Raymond return, instead going for a kill shot toward their WR1, Amon-Ra St. Brown. The deep pass was a success, chewing up 34 yards.
Go ahead and relive the lowlight:
Inserting the extra offensive lineman into the game forced Minnesota to respect the run. After the snap, a tight end releases to the flats, forcing Harrison Smith to cover the short area while Detroit gets their preferred look of St. Brown on Akayleb Evans. Predictably, that’s a scenario that worked well for the Lions.
The Lions then go on to hit St. Brown again before handing the ball off to David Montgomery for a short gain. On their fourth play of the drive, Jared Goff finds Sam LaPorta for a touchdown. At no point did Detroit give the lead back.
So, behind the singular play outcome — a touchdown pass from Goff to LaPorta at 8:10 in the opening quarter — was a stretch of poor football on offense, then on special teams, and then on defense. The sequence we’re discussing is just a singular incident, yes, but a fuller examination of Viking football in 2023 would show a similar trend across many games.
Kevin O’Connell has a very full offseason ahead of him. The head coach should carve out time for meaningful rest before working toward raising his team out of the doldrums of the NFL standings. Foremost among his concerns should be an effort toward implementing a brand of football where all three phases of the game help each other to succeed.
Doing so could be the difference between sitting on the couch by the middle of January, 2025 or playing meaningful football while pushing toward a game in February, 2025.
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K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter and as a co-host for Notes from the North, a humble Vikings podcast.