01-06-2025, 11:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-06-2025, 11:11 AM by purplefaithful.)
Detroit blitzed Darnold on nearly 56% of his dropbacks and generating pressure 49% of the time.
NFL Next Gen Stats show that as the third-highest pressure rate Darnold has faced all season..
According to the NFL, nobody sent more zero blitzes in a game than the 14 Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn called in the 272nd and final game of the regular season.
“They brought a lot,” Bradbury said. “They brought everything. I think they brought ‘Saw’ — double [blitzers] off each edge — three times in the first two drives, a lot of twists, a lot of different pressures, safeties, bringing all-out [pressure]. The frustrating thing is I didn’t feel like they got home on a lot of those. Obviously, they affected the plays. But there’s just — we didn’t play good enough offensively.”
Unlike the Oct. 20 loss to the Lions, Vikings blockers were protecting against a little bit of everything.
“It was just the variety of looks we saw,” O’Neill said. “Where the first game, they did one or two or three things over and over again. This week we kind of saw the whole Rolodex of things, so that might’ve had something to do with it.”
Lions coach Dan Campbell said his defense’s focus was to not allow Darnold time in the pocket to “pick us apart.”
“Darnold has really played better and better every week,” Campbell said. “It feels like he’s just continued to make this gradual climb and continued to improve. And what you really see is, man, when he gets the play-action pass and they nudge the edges, or they’ll max protect on some of this stuff, two-receiver routes, three-receiver routes, and he can see it and has time, he’s deadly. And we could not allow that to happen. We didn’t feel like there was any way we could let him sit back there, because we did think he would pick us apart.”
“We tried to bring more than they could handle,” he added.
The outcome could’ve been different, coach Kevin O’Connell said, had the Vikings capitalized on three red-zone trips in the second quarter that amounted to two field goals and a turnover on downs.
NFL Next Gen Stats show that as the third-highest pressure rate Darnold has faced all season..
According to the NFL, nobody sent more zero blitzes in a game than the 14 Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn called in the 272nd and final game of the regular season.
“They brought a lot,” Bradbury said. “They brought everything. I think they brought ‘Saw’ — double [blitzers] off each edge — three times in the first two drives, a lot of twists, a lot of different pressures, safeties, bringing all-out [pressure]. The frustrating thing is I didn’t feel like they got home on a lot of those. Obviously, they affected the plays. But there’s just — we didn’t play good enough offensively.”
Unlike the Oct. 20 loss to the Lions, Vikings blockers were protecting against a little bit of everything.
“It was just the variety of looks we saw,” O’Neill said. “Where the first game, they did one or two or three things over and over again. This week we kind of saw the whole Rolodex of things, so that might’ve had something to do with it.”
Lions coach Dan Campbell said his defense’s focus was to not allow Darnold time in the pocket to “pick us apart.”
“Darnold has really played better and better every week,” Campbell said. “It feels like he’s just continued to make this gradual climb and continued to improve. And what you really see is, man, when he gets the play-action pass and they nudge the edges, or they’ll max protect on some of this stuff, two-receiver routes, three-receiver routes, and he can see it and has time, he’s deadly. And we could not allow that to happen. We didn’t feel like there was any way we could let him sit back there, because we did think he would pick us apart.”
“We tried to bring more than they could handle,” he added.
The outcome could’ve been different, coach Kevin O’Connell said, had the Vikings capitalized on three red-zone trips in the second quarter that amounted to two field goals and a turnover on downs.
