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Vikings’ strategic tweaks give offensive line a better chance
#1
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins has been under duress on nearly 40 percent of his drop backs this year according to Pro Football Focus. During Sunday’s 41-17 win over the Miami Dolphins, interim offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski made a concerted effort to keep Cousins clean.Heading into the matchup, Cousins had throw 418 passes from the shotgun and just 106 under center. Against the Dolphins it was a rare occurrence to see Cousins in the shotgun as the Vikings used bigger personnel packages with multiple tight ends and fullback CJ Ham while keeping Cousins under center.

“Mixing up different looks to give the defense,” center Pat Elflein said said of the strategy’s effectiveness. “They see he’s under center or different tendencies, you can break those tendencies by doing different stuff like that.”
The Vikings heeded head coach Mike Zimmer’s wishes by focusing on the run game, which picked up over 200 yards against the Dolphins. Elflein said giving the Dolphins a run game to fear made a difference in play-action.
“When you can establish the running game, the play-action can be a little more effective and I think we did that,” Elflein said. “We established a little running game and we were able to hit on some play-actions.”
Getting the run game and play-action going allowed Cousins to roll away from pressure when throwing and otherwise give the ball to playmakers out of the backfield. He only threw 21 passes in the win.
“It was working pretty good,” Zimmer said. “We were hitting five, six yards a carry and, you know, Dalvin Cook is a pretty talented player and when he’s got the ball in his hands, typically good things happen. Latavius Murray is a good, hard, physical running back so I thought all that was good. When you’re running the ball, it sets up play-action passes.”
http://www.1500espn.com/vikings-2/2018/1...er-chance/
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#2
Wow, didn't know the Flip failure was that lopsided towards shotgun.  Perhaps that was partially responsible for the running game disaster.  Only 106 passes out of the under center formation, so teams probably could figure out it was a run simply by seeing Cousins under center.
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#3
Quote: @greediron said:
Wow, didn't know the Flip failure was that lopsided towards shotgun.  Perhaps that was partially responsible for the running game disaster.  Only 106 passes out of the under center formation, so teams probably could figure out it was a run simply by seeing Cousins under center.that explains  wagner yelling they knew what the Vikings were going to do

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#4
Quote: @greediron said:
Wow, didn't know the Flip failure was that lopsided towards shotgun.  Perhaps that was partially responsible for the running game disaster.  Only 106 passes out of the under center formation, so teams probably could figure out it was a run simply by seeing Cousins under center.
That has a lot to do with it. Stef did a good job calling plays, but I think what made it work so well was doing different things out of the same sets. I think Flip became too predictable in what he was going to run out of a particular look, so much so that the Pats and Hawks pretty much knew what we were going to run before we ran it.

Now...that can work great for one game. Fins had no film on Stef, and we were able to take advantage of that. The real test is does Stef have the chops to change it up again, to keep defenses guessing and on their heels. If he can then he can become a damn good OC. We'll find out over the next two weeks. 
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#5
Quote: @MaroonBells said:
@greediron said:
Wow, didn't know the Flip failure was that lopsided towards shotgun.  Perhaps that was partially responsible for the running game disaster.  Only 106 passes out of the under center formation, so teams probably could figure out it was a run simply by seeing Cousins under center.
That has a lot to do with it. Stef did a good job calling plays, but I think what made it work so well was doing different things out of the same sets. I think Flip became too predictable in what he was going to run out of a particular look, so much so that the Pats and Hawks pretty much knew what we were going to run before we ran it.

Now...that can work great for one game. Fins had no film on Stef, and we were able to take advantage of that. The real test is does Stef have the chops to change it up again, to keep defenses guessing and on their heels. If he can then he can become a damn good OC. We'll find out over the next two weeks. 
Yes, one game at home against a weak opponent doesn't make him the answer.  But I will say that on a short week, he did well taking over the job.
I wonder if Zim wanted to do it earlier after the NE game, but with the road trip out to Seattle, probably didn't think that was a good time to put it on Stef.
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#6
Flip thought Cousins could carry the offense, but he's not that guy. Stef's play calling reminded me a bit of Shurmur's.  I think Cousins will do much better in Stef's offense.
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#7
Maybe discussed elsewhere, but I heard Ben Leber make some comments on the radio this week and he had some interesting takes on why JDF was hired during the offseason instead of Stefanski. According to him, hiring JDF was an overreaction to the loss in Philadelphia, and was expected to:
1) Allow the Vikings to copy the Eagles' offense that was successful in 2017
2) Let Zimmer find out how the Eagles embarrassed his defense in the NFCC
3) Hurt the Eagles


If true, it seems like a ridiculously knee-jerk hiring, especially regarding #3 and even #2 - the Saints seemed to have cracked our 2017 defense almost as well as the Eagles.
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#8
Quote: @Jor-El said:
Maybe discussed elsewhere, but I heard Ben Leber make some comments on the radio this week and he had some interesting takes on why JDF was hired during the offseason instead of Stefanski. According to him, hiring JDF was an overreaction to the loss in Philadelphia, and was expected to:
1) Allow the Vikings to copy the Eagles' offense that was successful in 2017
2) Let Zimmer find out how the Eagles embarrassed his defense in the NFCC
3) Hurt the Eagles


If true, it seems like a ridiculously knee-jerk hiring, especially regarding #3 and even #2 - the Saints seemed to have cracked our 2017 defense almost as well as the Eagles.
Ridiculous knee-jerk hiring?  he was the next best thing. If we didn't hire him, Shurmur may have, or Indy the Eagles would have promoted him.  It was largely touted as one of the best hires.  Who knew he didn't have what it takes to call a game? 

I like Leber, but he isn't privy to inside info so I assume most of this is speculation.  We needed an OC, JDF was one of the best options.  As to figuring out how the eagles beat us, I think that is pretty simple. They changed their offense in the 1st week of the playoffs.  There was really no film on the plays they ran.  The same reason they poured it on the Pats in the super bowl. 

Most defenses rely heavily on film and tendencies to put together a game plan.  The Eagles changed theirs and it caught our defense by surprise.  We were playing tight coverage, trying to deny the short RPO plays that had been their staple since Foles took over.  They rarely threw deep with him.  Once Case threw that stupid pick 6, momentum shifted.  We had held them to 3 and out on their first drive.  But with the score tied, Pederson took a chance and took some shots deep on double moves.  We weren't prepared for this unknown offense as our D was in a fight to limit the success of the short RPO.  A couple double moves (and another turnover by the offense) and suddenly the floodgates were open. 


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#9
If the offense produces in the next two games somewhere close to what happened against Miami, Stefanski is the man. Period. But I think that's a big if.
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#10
Quote: @greediron said:
@Jor-El said:
Maybe discussed elsewhere, but I heard Ben Leber make some comments on the radio this week and he had some interesting takes on why JDF was hired during the offseason instead of Stefanski. According to him, hiring JDF was an overreaction to the loss in Philadelphia, and was expected to:
1) Allow the Vikings to copy the Eagles' offense that was successful in 2017
2) Let Zimmer find out how the Eagles embarrassed his defense in the NFCC
3) Hurt the Eagles


If true, it seems like a ridiculously knee-jerk hiring, especially regarding #3 and even #2 - the Saints seemed to have cracked our 2017 defense almost as well as the Eagles.
Ridiculous knee-jerk hiring?  he was the next best thing. If we didn't hire him, Shurmur may have, or Indy the Eagles would have promoted him.  It was largely touted as one of the best hires.  Who knew he didn't have what it takes to call a game? 

I like Leber, but he isn't privy to inside info so I assume most of this is speculation.  We needed an OC, JDF was one of the best options.  As to figuring out how the eagles beat us, I think that is pretty simple. They changed their offense in the 1st week of the playoffs.  There was really no film on the plays they ran.  The same reason they poured it on the Pats in the super bowl. 

Most defenses rely heavily on film and tendencies to put together a game plan.  The Eagles changed theirs and it caught our defense by surprise.  We were playing tight coverage, trying to deny the short RPO plays that had been their staple since Foles took over.  They rarely threw deep with him.  Once Case threw that stupid pick 6, momentum shifted.  We had held them to 3 and out on their first drive.  But with the score tied, Pederson took a chance and took some shots deep on double moves.  We weren't prepared for this unknown offense as our D was in a fight to limit the success of the short RPO.  A couple double moves (and another turnover by the offense) and suddenly the floodgates were open. 


I know Leber isn't necessarily correct, but your alternative explanations don't make me feel more comfortable about the Vikings. Seems like you're saying:1. JDF was hired because he was the prominent OC candidate around the league - mentality of the mob
2. Our defense couldn't stop Philadelphia because they did something different and Zimmer and staff had no film to watch in pre-game preparation
Great - Vikings management does not have an original thought in their heads. Hire whoever is popular and trendy, and build defense around the assumption opponents will keep doing the same things they did all season without trying to surprise us.
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