Stefanski, Kubiak aim to ‘marry’ Vikings run and pass attacks

When Zimmer turned things over to Kevin Stefanski for the final three weeks of the season, running back Dalvin Cook rushed 46 times and averaged 5.4 yards per carry and the Vikings increased their use of play-action with quarterback Kirk Cousins.

On Thursday, Stefanski, now the full-time offensive coordinator, made it clear there’s more where that came from.
The Vikings introduced assistant coach/offensive adviser Gary Kubiak at TCO Performance Center. In his introductory comments, Stefanski talked about studying Kubiak’s highly successful offenses from afar. He pointed to Kubiak’s ability to combine run and pass success.
“Coach Kub is somebody that as a young coach, years ago, and still young coach I hope, sat down and watched his offense and really just admired what the guy did with the offensive football team,” Stefanski said. “Marrying the run and the pass game, which is a big part of who we are right now, and I remember sitting there and trying to watch and understand how he is handing those keepers back then. So now I have the guy in the room with us.”
Kubiak comes to Minnesota with 22 years as an offensive coordinator or head coach. In 14 of those years his teams ranked in the top 10 in rushing yards and 12 times ranked in the top 10 in yards per rush attempt.
Rushing success doesn’t always equal offensive success. Three of the top four teams in yards per attempt missed the playoffs this season. But the Kubiak offense is predicated on the rush complimenting the pass and vice versa.
They may end up looking more like the Los Angeles Rams, who rarely ran with eight men in the box and used play-action passes on 35 percent of their drop backs. Cousins only used play-action on 20 percent last season. Zimmer talked during the season at length about the different ways play-action stresses a defense.
“Where we want to help our quarterback is… we want to be unpredictable,” Stefanski said. “We want to be a run team. We want to be a pass team. We want there to be that marriage between the run and the pass game and that is something that Coach has hung his hat on over the years and that is going all the way back to his days- It’s pretty cool when you’re telling stories and they’re linking all the way back to Bill Walsh is pretty cool.
”https://www.skornorth.com/vikings-2/2019/02/stefanski-kubiak-aim-to-marry-vikings-run-and-pass-attacks/