Vikings’ dramatic win overshadowed defense’s worst second half of the season

It is great for the offense to control the clock BUT with the offense getting the ball to start the second half, the defense was off the field for a very long time. I'm not sure what time halftime started but the defense didn't take the field until 7:58 left in the 3rd quarter.
That is a very long time to be out of the game. Plus I'm sure Shamar Stephen going down and Sandejo getting knocked out made a difference. 

I hope the defense and coach learned from that experience. Holding a lead against a playoff team is a lot different than holding against Brett Hundley and Mitch Trubisky. Zim just plain gets too conservative too fast at times. As hidalgo points out, they (the D) sure were not on the field all game long.

When you have an elite defense, I can understand the thought process of getting conservative offensively when you are up at home 17-0 at halftime. I'm not playing the blame game on that. 

Keep in mind a lot of things went RIGHT for New Orleans in the 2nd half: blocked punt, converted 4th and 10, horseshit INT. 

@"StickyBun" said: When you have an elite defense, I can understand the thought process of getting conservative offensively when you are up at home 17-0 at halftime. I'm not playing the blame game on that. 

Keep in mind a lot of things went RIGHT for New Orleans in the 2nd half: blocked punt, converted 4th and 10, horseshit INT. 

Agreed, but that missing pass rush needs to come back to life and fast.

I think they can and need to get more aggressive with Fowles. who'd have thunk the offense would have bailed the D out?  but its football and strange things happen. Brees carved these guys up good in the second half, but lets not forget how key that late 3/10 stop was. 

Minnesota will have to take more chances to win in Philly. If I'm Z, I just say fuck it: let's release the hounds and win this game. Let the chips fall where they may. If the weather holds and its 40+ degrees and dry at game time, that's big for Minnesota.

Go big or they'll go home, IMO. Don't hold anything back. The homefield advantage is so big for the Vikings and playing at US Bank, Vegas said that Minnesota would be favored against New England in the Superbowl. FAVORED.

Here's the thing, all DCs like to start the Game trying to get pressure with just the Front Four. You start blitzing from the get go you give the OC the chance to dial up some quick hitters that can have the potential to turn into TDs.

And if that happens early then Foles, who does have 1 pretty great season of performance under his belt, will start to gain confidence and poise.

Sticky, I'd like to see Zimmer use every fake blitz look he has. Double A Gap, Smith, Nickel DB, Barr at Griff's side, etc.

Give Foles a lot to think about pre-snap. Then rush four and see if all the eye candy causes him to make bad reads and struggle to move the ball through the air.

The longer that goes on the more he's going to overreact to the four man pass rush. You see it all the time with the lesser QBs. They can't diagnose the Defense and react to phantom pressure.

That also should help get him out of the rhythm o the RPO the Eagles starting finding success with against Atlanta.

I must have suppressed it on Sunday, but when I caught parts of the game again last night I was pretty depressed at just how awful our defense played in the last 16 or 17 minutes. I think with a minute or two left in the 3rd quarter, we were up 17-0. Shutting out one of the NFL's best offenses. And then we just collapse. I wish I could recall what I was feeling just before the Miracle. Storybook year over because of poor calls on Zimmer's part? That cannot happen again. 

At any rate, right now I'm not sure whether I should severely worried about that going into the NFCC or somewhat relieved because it's unlikely the league's #1 defense will allow that to happen again. 

Yea giving up the ball on your own 30 (Case - INT) and then on your own 40 (blocked punt - ST) usually is not good for your defensive stats.  This was Bree's and the number 2 offense in football and they got TD's instead of us holding them to FG's after giving them the ball in FG range.  

Hopefully the INT and ST block won't happen but even if we have a miscue we will need to have our defense hold the Eagles (far less potent offense but still good) to FG's.

The Eagles strength is running the ball behind a top notch OL so we need to force Foles into throwing.  

@"minny65" said: Yea giving up the ball on your own 30 (Case - INT) and then on your own 40 (blocked punt - ST) usually is not good for your defensive stats.  This was Bree's and the number 2 offense in football and they got TD's instead of us holding them to FG's after giving them the ball in FG range.  

Hopefully the INT and ST block won't happen but even if we have a miscue we will need to have our defense hold the Eagles (far less potent offense but still good) to FG's.

The Eagles strength is running the ball behind a top notch OL so we need to force Foles into throwing.  

One good sign is that, very predictably, Nick Foles was awful last week until he established a rhythm with RPOs. I would love it if someone could figure out how we've performed against RPOs, but I do know that two of the teams who used it lot this year (the Bengals and the Packers), we destroyed. 

@"MaroonBells" said:

@"minny65" said: Yea giving up the ball on your own 30 (Case - INT) and then on your own 40 (blocked punt - ST) usually is not good for your defensive stats.  This was Bree's and the number 2 offense in football and they got TD's instead of us holding them to FG's after giving them the ball in FG range.  

Hopefully the INT and ST block won't happen but even if we have a miscue we will need to have our defense hold the Eagles (far less potent offense but still good) to FG's.

The Eagles strength is running the ball behind a top notch OL so we need to force Foles into throwing.  

One good sign is that, very predictably, Nick Foles was awful last week until he established a rhythm with RPOs. I would love it if someone could figure out how we've performed against RPOs, but I do know that two of the teams who used it lot this year (the Bengals and the Packers), we destroyed. 

As poorly as our defense played at times, I watched the replay last night and realized how many times we had self inflicted wounds that took away scoring opportunities vs. New Orleans taking the game away from us. 

-How about the opening drive in the second half where we give up a crucial sack to knock us out of field goal range?
That could have been another 3 points for us. 

-When we had the ball late in the 4th quarter with a 6 point lead and were putting together a nice drive to get into scoring position again only to have Rudolph get a block in the back penalty that erased a beautiful catch and run by Diggs and put us in a 2nd and long situation that we couldn't recover from. That was also the same drive where Latimore interfered with Thielen on the 3rd and long by hitting his arms before the ball arrived but the ref refused to call it. Even Pereira admitted it was Pass Interference but said it was a good "no-call". What bullshit. 

There are many more mistakes we made besides the obvious interception and blocked punt, but if we can clean up those mistakes we should be in a good position vs. the Eagles. 

@"minny65" said: Yea giving up the ball on your own 30 (Case - INT) and then on your own 40 (blocked punt - ST) usually is not good for your defensive stats.  This was Bree's and the number 2 offense in football and they got TD's instead of us holding them to FG's after giving them the ball in FG range.  

Hopefully the INT and ST block won't happen but even if we have a miscue we will need to have our defense hold the Eagles (far less potent offense but still good) to FG's.

The Eagles strength is running the ball behind a top notch OL so we need to force Foles into throwing.  

So NO had 2 long drives that I recall.  The first ended with Griff's tip and Barr INT.  The second was their first TD.  So the first drive of the second half was their first TD and I think it was actually almost in the 4th quarter.  Offense had been struggling for a while and then that INT followed by the block punt really swung the game.  We took away the deep strikes and made NO have long drives and they weren't doing it for the most part. 

Then in the midst of all that, the cheap shot on Sendejo got Rhodes off his game and he gave up the crosser to Thomas.

The TD to Kamara was just a great throw and amazing catch by a RB. 

It was a dogfight and I think they went after Sendojo intentionally because they knew they had to find a chink in the armor.  But they have a great QB and skill players.  The coaches adjusted well at halftime.  If this weren't a playoff game, the other team probably would have let up. 

Our team was probably a bit flat in the second half after the adrenaline rush of the home playoff game wore off.

NO made some great halftime adjustments,  moving the pocket and giving Brees more time. INT and punt block were big killers (that's 14 points right there). We need our Offense to keep the throttle on high against playoff teams. 

...but in the end, they still made a play on 3rd & 1 on the 25 with :33 left which gave us a chance for that last drive. Give up a 1st there and the game is over. After they gave up the 4th and 10 a few plays before I thought they were done and had lost all of their mojo - but they didn't :)

@"kmillard" said:

@"StickyBun" said: When you have an elite defense, I can understand the thought process of getting conservative offensively when you are up at home 17-0 at halftime. I'm not playing the blame game on that. 

Keep in mind a lot of things went RIGHT for New Orleans in the 2nd half: blocked punt, converted 4th and 10, horseshit INT. 

Agreed, but that missing pass rush needs to come back to life and fast.

The lack of pressure on the 4th and 10 play was the worst thing Zimmer did (or didn't do) all game. It was playing afraid and hoping Brees would screw up - without pressuring him. That is poor coaching.  That is coaching scared.
Brees had just tried 3 times to go after Rhodes and failed all 3 times. I felt there was no way he was going to do that again. The obvious target was Mac. I thought it made sense to blitz from Mac's side, have Mac play tight, and give him safety help over the top. If the blitz forces Brees to roll the other way to avoid the sack, perfect.  Otherwise he will try to force it in to Mac's receiver, while under pressure, and with Mac in tight coverage. If Brees can succeed there, God bless him.

It is the playoffs. Things are happening fast on the field. Most of our players have little or no playoff experience. These guys are going to make some mistakes. To say that if we had played an error-free game we would not have needed the miracle play is just burying your head in the sand. It's never going to be perfect. Hell, any of us can coach this team if every player is going to be perfect.
Force the other team to make a great play to beat you. Don't just hope they are going to screw up, especially if "they" are Brees, Brady, Rodgers, or a few other guys.
Zimmer likes Case because, as he says, Case has big balls. Zimmer needs to coach like he has big balls, too.