The First Game is Unusual

[CalVike]

I saw it brought up in a thread that Jimmy Johnson gave an opinion that strange things happen the first week. I heard two former Vikings players (Ed McDaniel, Mike Morris) comment on a radio show this week (Tom Barnard's new sports show on 105 The Ticket) that Dennis Green would play his starters into the fourth quarter in the 4th preseason game because he wanted them ready for game action. Practice just does not cut it. With the preseason now a joke and the new CBA that minimizes contact in practice, it seems to me the quality of play is lower by far in early weeks compared to years ago. Agree/disagree?


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[PacificNorseWest]

Been saying this ad nausea on another forum.

I've been watching football long enough to have seen that teams that look amazing in week 1 can still completely flame out the rest of the season and vice versa. It's always extremely tough to guage what's real and what isn't in the first week.

Take it for what it's worth, but I mainly notice it because I'm a betting man. Week 1 is hard, but week 2 is harder. I've NEVER had success on week 2 because teams have such dramatic turn arounds that you're dumbfounded with how quickly they've changed.

[Bearsareback]

Agreed, good point. It always feel like a back alley beatdown. Either poor play, or curb stompings.

[Xqed]

Part of it too is that teams haven't tipped their hands in the preseason of course. So there's no film yet showing the weaknesses of the new things they're doing. You give it a couple of weeks to collect film and time for opposing coaches to analyze it, and all of a sudden the good teams assert themselves and the pretenders fade away.

Vikes still played like crap in the first game and have major issues to deal with, but I suspect the Lions will run into some difficulties in the next few weeks.

[VikingLord]

I think there is some merit in the notion that teams can fall back after early success or improve after some early shakiness, but if we're talking about what is likely to happen with the 2013 version of the Minnesota Vikings, based on what I saw I wouldn't hold my breath too much. The offensive line is probably going to improve, and the defensive secondary will improve as well provided they stay healthy.

What is less likely to change at this point is the overall offensive philosophy, and I think what we saw from the Lions as to how to attack that is what we're going to see from everyone else going forward. The Vikings were still in their bunch formations on a large percentage of snaps against the Lions. As noted by others, this compresses the field both horizontally and vertically at the snap and allows the defense to bring 10 guys whithin 5 yards of the LOS at the snap. I'm sure the Vikings think this is good as if everyone gets a hat on a hat, and AD being who he is, they have a good chance to break AD into the secondary quickly and get some big running plays. And that formation worked well for them most of last year as I don't think defensive coordinators had figured out the Vikings had no intention of throwing much out of those formations, or using them to try to get some big passing plays over the top.

I think now, however, that slight threat of using the formation to lull the defense to sleep and hit them over the top is gone. It's not gone because the formation doesn't work for that (it should). It's not gone because the Vikings lack the receivers to pull it off (they have them). It's not gone because teams don't have to respect the very real threat of an actual run (they do).

It's gone because they know Ponder isn't a real threat to pull it off. In fact, the Lions just flooded the gaps on these types of formations until they had the lead to protect late. They just flooded them with all of those guys that were close to the line. While I don't think the offensive line had a great game by any means, and Line missed his share of blocks, the Lions made it impossible for the numbers to add up for the Vikings to legitimately run out of those formations save for the first play. The lanes were flooded with guys coming into the backfield unnimpeded, but that didn't stop Musgrave from calling those plays, nor did it stop Frazier and Ponder from blaming the blocking for their woes.

The answer is simple - the passing game generally, and Ponder more specifically, has to force the defense to pay for this approach. If they don't want to see what amounts to a zero blitz on every possible running play, they are going to have to do the following:

- Spread the offense out at the snap. If they want to run, run out of spread formations where 2 or 3 WRs are truly wide at the snap. At a minimum this will take 3 defensive players out of the "box" pre-snap, and should force another deeper to guard the field vertically. It might even force the defense to put another DB on the field, which should favor AD if he does run. AD is a lot more likely to break the tackle of a DB than an LB.
- Motion the TE pre-snap if possible. This will tell Ponder clearly if the cover is man or not and should make his pre-snap reads easier.
- Ponder has to be more aggressive down the field. He took a few shots in the game against the Lions, but defenses are essentially daring him to go deeper on them. There is a lot of single coverage in the secondary and Ponder has to be willing to take a few chances. More mid-range and deep completions are going to result in the LBs thinking twice before committing to attack the LOS.

Seems simple enough, but I bet it takes the Vikings a few more beatings before they adjust.

Honestly, in looking at the preseason performance of the offense, they just looked overwhelmed against everyone, and I think their famous bunched formations are a big reason why. Defenses know Ponder isn't going to hurt them. He's not going to hit his hot read or even find his hot read, so there is very little risk in just flooding the lanes and forcing the issue, and pretty much every defense the Vikings first team offense has faced so far, including the preseason, has done the same thing. I expect the Bears to do it too.

[mondry]

I think there is some merit in the notion that teams can fall back after early success or improve after some early shakiness, but if we're talking about what is likely to happen with the 2013 version of the Minnesota Vikings, based on what I saw I wouldn't hold my breath too much. The offensive line is probably going to improve, and the defensive secondary will improve as well provided they stay healthy.

What is less likely to change at this point is the overall offensive philosophy, and I think what we saw from the Lions as to how to attack that is what we're going to see from everyone else going forward. The Vikings were still in their bunch formations on a large percentage of snaps against the Lions. As noted by others, this compresses the field both horizontally and vertically at the snap and allows the defense to bring 10 guys whithin 5 yards of the LOS at the snap. I'm sure the Vikings think this is good as if everyone gets a hat on a hat, and AD being who he is, they have a good chance to break AD into the secondary quickly and get some big running plays. And that formation worked well for them most of last year as I don't think defensive coordinators had figured out the Vikings had no intention of throwing much out of those formations, or using them to try to get some big passing plays over the top.

I think now, however, that slight threat of using the formation to lull the defense to sleep and hit them over the top is gone. It's not gone because the formation doesn't work for that (it should). It's not gone because the Vikings lack the receivers to pull it off (they have them). It's not gone because teams don't have to respect the very real threat of an actual run (they do).

It's gone because they know Ponder isn't a real threat to pull it off. In fact, the Lions just flooded the gaps on these types of formations until they had the lead to protect late. They just flooded them with all of those guys that were close to the line. While I don't think the offensive line had a great game by any means, and Line missed his share of blocks, the Lions made it impossible for the numbers to add up for the Vikings to legitimately run out of those formations save for the first play. The lanes were flooded with guys coming into the backfield unnimpeded, but that didn't stop Musgrave from calling those plays, nor did it stop Frazier and Ponder from blaming the blocking for their woes.

The answer is simple - the passing game generally, and Ponder more specifically, has to force the defense to pay for this approach. If they don't want to see what amounts to a zero blitz on every possible running play, they are going to have to do the following:

- Spread the offense out at the snap. If they want to run, run out of spread formations where 2 or 3 WRs are truly wide at the snap. At a minimum this will take 3 defensive players out of the "box" pre-snap, and should force another deeper to guard the field vertically. It might even force the defense to put another DB on the field, which should favor AD if he does run. AD is a lot more likely to break the tackle of a DB than an LB.
- Motion the TE pre-snap if possible. This will tell Ponder clearly if the cover is man or not and should make his pre-snap reads easier.
- Ponder has to be more aggressive down the field. He took a few shots in the game against the Lions, but defenses are essentially daring him to go deeper on them. There is a lot of single coverage in the secondary and Ponder has to be willing to take a few chances. More mid-range and deep completions are going to result in the LBs thinking twice before committing to attack the LOS.

Seems simple enough, but I bet it takes the Vikings a few more beatings before they adjust.

Honestly, in looking at the preseason performance of the offense, they just looked overwhelmed against everyone, and I think their famous bunched formations are a big reason why. Defenses know Ponder isn't going to hurt them. He's not going to hit his hot read or even find his hot read, so there is very little risk in just flooding the lanes and forcing the issue, and pretty much every defense the Vikings first team offense has faced so far, including the preseason, has done the same thing. I expect the Bears to do it too.

Nice post, I really like / agree with a lot of what you said. I'm not so sure the formation is that "good" for hitting them over the top (deep) though. If you put 10 in the box, and we have one WR, you can still play Man on him with an 11th guy, the safety, over the top. That still leaves you with 9 guys COMPLETELY dedicated to the run blitz although one of them needs to see if Rudolph tries to release or not.

We shall see though, these formations may be more of a gimmick than something that can be relied upon. Sure if we perfectly block 9 guys with Peterson it has big play potential but as we saw, the odds of them blocking perfectly and AD making 3 guys miss is some what rare and the downside of it not working isn't a 3-8 yard run, it's a -3.

[NDVikeFan]

I think playing the Lions in week 1 was a bad draw for the Vikings. They had absolutely no idea how the Lions were going to use Bush. The Lions pretty much knew what the Vikings were going to do, that being run Peterson and have Ponder throw when he had to.