My thoughts on the offense as a whole

[mondry]

I've done some digging around on other forums, sites like reddit, and looked at the stats / data to better figure out what is really going on with this passing game, how Adrian plays in, and what's up with Mike Wallace. Unless otherwise stated, the stats are from PFF.

Offensive line

By now it's no secret that our offensive line is horrible. TB is pressured on 47.8% of his drop backs which is worst in the league. Russell Wilson is pressured on 44% which is second worst for comparisons sake. The blame goes on the offensive line though when you look at how Teddy's sack rates compare to other QB's. Teddy is only sacked on 16.5% of drop backs while Wilson is sacked 20.7% of the time. Drew Brees is pressured on 28.6% of drop backs which is far less than Teddy but he has a sack rate of 19.8%. BRUTAL!

Mike Wallace

I've seen a lot of hatred directed towards Mike Wallace but I can't really find anything to back it up. I've seen claims that he's mailing it in, not happy with his role, not giving enough effort (i've even made some of those myself!) but when you look deeper I couldn't find anything to support the lack of production as Mike Wallace's fault. Do we really think Mike Zimmer would allow someone to half #### it?

What you'll notice is Mike Wallace IS getting open but Teddy isn't able to connect on the deep balls that make Wallace $$$. The obvious place to look for why is Teddy Bridgewater and on the shallow end of things you'd be absolutely right. But Wallace being ineffective goes deeper than that imo, he's more than just a go route special.

We know throwing deep is not Teddy's strength but there has to be another way to use Wallace where his speed is still effective and it's horizontally across the field. Just like you can run away from coverage going deep you can use your speed to run away from coverage across the field. This would sync up better with Teddy's strengths while still keeping wallace's speed as a factor. It's on norv to not let Wallace fall into a "one trick pony" trap.

Teddy Bridgewater

Teddy is the 2nd most accurate QB this year due to an insanely high completion % and a lot of his incomplete passes are throw away's to avoid pressure / sacks. Teddy was also #1 in this stat last year.

Last year Teddy had a 97.3 QB rating out of the shotgun while this year he has a 85 QB rating under center. Why does this matter? Well Peterson is a much better runner out of formations that put the QB under center, probably because he can line up 8 yards deep and build up a head of steam before he meets defenders. That's especially important this year as we're allowing a LOT of tackles for a loss in the running game.

Essentially at the bye the coaches decided to become a power running team with only about 1/3rd of our snaps coming out of the shotgun now. That sucks for Teddy since he prefers the shotgun but clearly the coaches decided to try and cover up this poor run blocking and Adrian's ineffectiveness out of the gun by maximizing what Peterson can do under center.

Teddy's 85 QBR under center this year may not look that impressive considering his 97.3 QBR from the gun last year, but he had a QBR of 53.9 under center last year. While Teddy hasn't been great and a lot of people think he's regressed, he's actually improved his play from under center (which we use 67% of the time now, THANKS AD!) this year as he learns how to do that. Expect some more growing pains but hopefully steady improvement as the year closes out, it takes a while for a young QB to get use to turning his back to the defense and figuring out the different 3 and 5 step drops.

Teddy's stats in the 8 wins - 63.6% completion rate, 185.5 avg yards passing, 82.3 QBR.
Teddy's stats in the 3 losses - 68.2% completion rate, 265.3 avg yards passing, 91.3 QBR

This tells me that when they NEED Teddy to pass, he's quite capable but they keep him limited to avoid exposing our over matched offensive line. My guess is they also use the shotgun more since you can't afford to run anyway when you're behind and that also means Peterson comes off the field, but more on that later.

Norv Turner

One of our biggest problems this year and going forward is that Teddy is essentially miscast in this offense. He wasn't very good under center in college and his deep ball accuracy was a noted problem during the draft process and yet that's what norv is asking him to do. I'd be really curious to know why they liked Teddy enough to pick him over Carr who looks like the better fit for Norv's system.

With that said, Teddy's our guy now so they're going to have to do everything they can to help him succeed and adapt the system to his strengths. I have to give norv some credit though for realizing how bad the o-line is and moving to a power running formation. Yes it hurts Teddy in the short term but it's the only way to cover up our O-line and Peterson in the passing game.

Rudolph is one guy who's benefited big time from the change as he was practically invisible before the BYE.

Adrian Peterson

What can I say? He's beasting again and it was probably wise for Norv to dedicate the offense to him. But for this post I want to focus on the negative that comes with AD. PFF has him rated as the #16 overall RB and it's because his scores in pass blocking and receiving are so low. Don't get me wrong I love AD but man does he make it hard to have a good passing attack. He is so ineffective running out of the shotgun that anytime we use it we now have a tell that we're going to pass.

If we try to pass from under center then Teddy's put at a major disadvantage so either way someone has to suffer and right now the coaches are choosing for that to be Teddy. Again I can't blame norv for that, could you imagine the backlash if it was the other way around and he was reducing Peterson's roll to help Teddy in the passing game? We'd all have our pitchforks sharpened and ready for blood!

It kinda sucks though because at this point in Peterson's career you can't really expect him to learn how to run out of the shotgun and you can't expect him to improve as a pass catcher or a pass blocker. If Teddy can get comfortable passing from under center then we're all good but right now you can tell he's hesitant and doesn't have a lot of confidence. Still, since we don't expect AD to change it's up to Teddy.

With all that said he's our best bet to win right now. If we have to pass more than 40 times Teddy's going to get destroyed. So for now, let's see how far he can take us, we are 8-3 after all.

[Mothman]

It's funny, Adrian Peterson didn't make it hard to have a good passing attack when Brett Favre was the Vikings QB.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have very little confidence in PFF's stats and assessments so it's hard to comment on a lot of the other stuff you posted. However, I agree that Bridgewater is miscast in Norv's offense. I'm not sure why they thought that pairing made sense.

I also have to say that from what I've seen, Wallace isn't just being used as a "one trick pony". He's run everything from end arounds to crossing routes to go routes. I think Norv is trying to find different ways to get the ball to him. It's just not working out..

[mosscarter]

my thoughts on the offense as a whole is that it a complete and shameful disgrace. one of the best, if not the best rb's of all time and we have this garbage??? peterson playing behind ponder and now bridgewater, two horrible quarterbacks. the most fun of all seasons i've had other than 98 was with favre, because he was an actual LEADER. bridgewater is an emotionless drone who produces nothing. anyone can complete 65 or 70 percent of their passes when they are all under 15 yards. high school qb's throw for more td's than bridgewater. give it up people; our coach and defense are that good. maybe even great, but we won't go anywhere because our qb is a joke.

[UKno1VIKING]

This is one of the best post's i've seen regarding the offence. Everyone seems to have their opinion on why its struggling. This is a good balanced review, and you've put your point accross very well.
For me you've hit Wallace right on the head. I wasnt a big fan of us signing him, he'd had previous behaviour issues and i'm used to my vikings being blessed with some talent but big hearts. He seemed the opposite. But you can see his frustrations clearly on the field, i dont think he's playing very well at all, but i don't believe he's half a###ing it. The way he reacted with Zimmer after the win, big smiles and hugs. For me he's keen and wants to play. My view is TB and Wallace have no chemistry at all. Hopefully they'll find it.
Has Teddy gone forward like we wanted? Of course not, but i imagine most second year QB's trying to find thier feet in the NFL would struggle with the amount of pressure and hits he's receiving. I think he's done some very good things, especially his evasion when the pocket collapses. This i feel rivals some of the best in the league, and he keeps plays going when others wouldn't.
He hasnt been solely responsible for the losses this year, unlike previous QB's we've had. In fact, in the Green Bay game, he was probably the only player who turned up. This year i expect him to dink and dunk while he has minimal time to make a play, then hopefully he'll get a proper line next year, who will give him a chance to hit some deeper stuff. Until then, i'm certainly not giving up on him. I think he is a very good QB in the making.
One final point, in '12 Peterson carried the team into the playoffs. "the team". A useless QB, an average O-line, average receivers and a below average defence.
Peterson is in the same form for me as he was then. Now he has a much better QB, decent set of receivers, and an excellent defence to help him. Only the O-line is a downgrade.
If Norv can keep Teddy upright, give him chances to help AD move the Vikings up the field, then i'm still very hopeful for this offence. Sunday will be the first real test of this. the Offence now has an identity, and its playing a top defence. This is the Acid test for me on how far we will progress in the playoffs.

[autobon7]

I point to OL health (lack of) and Turner. I too am confused why the Viks thought TB was a better fit for Norv than Carr. I point to Turner for not creating ways to get the ball into the hands of Wallace and Patterson. Even Wright does not see the ball that much. And what about Johnson? It just seems like Turner does not know how to blend these players in since AP is back. We all know that our offense could use more TD's and it's so frustrating to see the lack of use of these players and lack of creativity from our OC. I lay most of the blame on Turner.

[mansquatch]

I've spent a lot of time wondering why they are not using more of a traditional "west coast" style O with short and medium crossing routes that leverage the speed we have at WR. This teams seems particularly well built for that sort of attack.

[losperros]

I point to OL health (lack of) and Turner. I too am confused why the Viks thought TB was a better fit for Norv than Carr. I point to Turner for not creating ways to get the ball into the hands of Wallace and Patterson. Even Wright does not see the ball that much. And what about Johnson? It just seems like Turner does not know how to blend these players in since AP is back. We all know that our offense could use more TD's and it's so frustrating to see the lack of use of these players and lack of creativity from our OC. I lay most of the blame on Turner.

I'm with you on this. Yes, there are a slew of problems with the offense but no doubt Norv's questionable logic is part of it.

[Mothman]

I've spent a lot of time wondering why they are not using more of a traditional "west coast" style O with short and medium crossing routes that leverage the speed we have at WR. This teams seems particularly well built for that sort of attack.

They actually run those short and intermediate crossing routes fairly often.

[Cliff]

It's funny, Adrian Peterson didn't make it hard to have a good passing attack when Brett Favre was the Vikings QB.

It seems like he said the passing attack suffers because of Teddy's/Oline shortcomings mostly. Teddy's not as good behind center and we're having to be in that formation to make up for offensive line deficiencies. Peterson is only a factor insomuch as he didn't have enough success out of the shotgun to enable to play to Teddy's strength (playing out of shotgun). If the offensive line wasn't terrible we might have a decent passing attack as Teddy could play out of the shotgun if the oline could open up proper running lanes out of the shotgun. Peterson's pass blocking does make it a bit more difficult in the passing game though. He isn't great at that.

I don't necessarily consider Peterson's pass-catching ability as a negative. He's only got 1 dropped pass this season so far. With 28 targets he's caught 82% of passing going his way (23/28). His drop percentage is 3.6% which 28th fewest drops among RB's with at least 20 targets.

If you're interested Mike Wallace has the most on the team with 4 (out of 52 targets). That's only 30th in the league but if you look at targets/drops he drops 7.7% which is 8th in the league for WR's targeted 40 times or more. He's catching only 53.8% of his passes (28/52). Compare that to Cole Beasley (DAL) who has caught 75% of his passes (39/52) while being thrown to by QB's with worse QBR. (Romo - 79.4, Cassel - 78.8, Teddy - 85.4).

Of course conditions are different from team to team and player to player. For example, they use Wallace for a lot of long throws which Teddy isn't very strong at. Though Wallace's average yards per catch is 11.1 and Beasley's is 10.1. Overall I think Wallace is underperforming (especially for his salary). Some of that lies with Teddy, but a decent chunk lies with Wallace too.

Top droppers; Leonard Hankerson (ATL) drops 17.4%, Ted Ginn Jr. drops 10.6%. Some of the better numbers; Larry Fitzgerald has 1 drop out of 111 targets, DeAndre Hopkins has 3 drops out of 143 targets, Julio Jones has 4 drops out of 141 targets.

I'm not sure why they thought that pairing made sense.

I think the plan from the beginning was to run the offense primarily out of the shotgun. When that didn't work out it made Teddy less effective than he might have been otherwise and less of a fit for the offense.

[Mothman]

It seems like he said the passing attack suffers because of Teddy's/Oline shortcomings mostly.

I was responding to this particular line:

Don't get me wrong I love AD but man does he make it hard to have a good passing attack.

It's a line of thinking I don't buy.

[mansquatch]

I think it is worth noting that most of the league runs their QBs out of pistol and shotgun quite a bit. Brady, Rodger, Manning all seem throw out shotgun formations quite a bit. So it isn't like Teddy is a lonely. A lot has been made of this topic this season with what has been transpiring in Denver.

When you think about it, you are probably giving the QB double the time to survey the field given how fast an NFL rush is when throwing out of the gun vs. under center.

That being said, MN is in a situation where it has a special talent at RB and thus the under center snaps make a lot more sense.

I'm not sure what the answer is here aside from reps.

[fiestavike]

It seems like he said the passing attack suffers because of Teddy's/Oline shortcomings mostly. Teddy's not as good behind center and we're having to be in that formation to make up for offensive line deficiencies. Peterson is only a factor insomuch as he didn't have enough success out of the shotgun to enable to play to Teddy's strength (playing out of shotgun). If the offensive line wasn't terrible we might have a decent passing attack as Teddy could play out of the shotgun if the oline could open up proper running lanes out of the shotgun. Peterson's pass blocking does make it a bit more difficult in the passing game though. He isn't great at that.

I don't necessarily consider Peterson's pass-catching ability as a negative. He's only got 1 dropped pass this season so far. With 28 targets he's caught 82% of passing going his way (23/28). His drop percentage is 3.6% which 28th fewest drops among RB's with at least 20 targets.

If you're interested Mike Wallace has the most on the team with 4 (out of 52 targets). That's only 30th in the league but if you look at targets/drops he drops 7.7% which is 8th in the league for WR's targeted 40 times or more. He's catching only 53.8% of his passes (28/52). Compare that to Cole Beasley (DAL) who has caught 75% of his passes (39/52) while being thrown to by QB's with worse QBR. (Romo - 79.4, Cassel - 78.8, Teddy - 85.4).

Of course conditions are different from team to team and player to player. For example, they use Wallace for a lot of long throws which Teddy isn't very strong at. Though Wallace's average yards per catch is 11.1 and Beasley's is 10.1. Overall I think Wallace is underperforming (especially for his salary). Some of that lies with Teddy, but a decent chunk lies with Wallace too.

Top droppers; Leonard Hankerson (ATL) drops 17.4%, Ted Ginn Jr. drops 10.6%. Some of the better numbers; Larry Fitzgerald has 1 drop out of 111 targets, DeAndre Hopkins has 3 drops out of 143 targets, Julio Jones has 4 drops out of 141 targets.
I think the plan from the beginning was to run the offense primarily out of the shotgun. When that didn't work out it made Teddy less effective than he might have been otherwise and less of a fit for the offense.

I agree with all these observations, although Wallace has dropped more than 4 and dogged a couple others. I'm not sure who the official stat keepers are but I don't agree with their number.

Anyway, that quibble aside I think you've nailed whats happening and the dynamic between the line, Teddy, and Peterson. Plan A certainly hasn't worked, and we're on to plans B and C. At this point, as Zimmer says, this is who we are.

It will be very interesting to me to see what they do with regard to Peterson/Teddy fitting within the plan A offense next year. Will they focus on the line and hope that provides enough time for Teddy to do better from under center? If it comes down to a system that works for AD or for Teddy, I think the organization will choose Teddy and build plan A around him. If so, what will they do with Peterson?

[dead_poet]

It will be very interesting to me to see what they do with regard to Peterson/Teddy fitting within the plan A offense next year. Will they focus on the line and hope that provides enough time for Teddy to do better from under center? If it comes down to a system that works for AD or for Teddy, I think the organization will choose Teddy and build plan A around him. If so, what will they do with Peterson?

I don't know. They're going to continue to do what gives the team the best opportunity to win games week-in and week-out. When you have Adrian Peterson on your team (one of the best offensive players in the league) you probably continue to feed him until it's clear he's no longer your best option to win. That's not to say they're not going to upgrade the offense, but I'll be firmly in the camp that AD needs to be the focal point and do whatever you can to put him in the best position until proven the offense can be more productive by other means. Ideally Teddy and the receivers/O-line MATCH what AD can do (by raising their game play not AD being less productive) and legitimately have a "pick your poison" offense. Time will tell if they can get there next year or before AD is out of gas.

[fiestavike]

I don't know. They're going to continue to do what gives the team the best opportunity to win games week-in and week-out. When you have Adrian Peterson on your team (one of the best offensive players in the league) you probably continue to feed him until it's clear he's no longer your best option to win. That's not to say they're not going to upgrade the offense, but I'll be firmly in the camp that AD needs to be the focal point and do whatever you can to put him in the best position until proven the offense can be more productive by other means. Ideally Teddy and the receivers/O-line MATCH what AD can do (by raising their game play not AD being less productive) and legitimately have a "pick your poison" offense. Time will tell if they can get there next year or before AD is out of gas.

Within the season I agree with you, and I would say its a demonstrable fact that this is the course they've chosen this year. In the offseason, when making decisions about FAs, draft picks, how to allocate salary cap dollars, things can go in another direction. I think this franchise knows that long term its Teddy or back to the drawing board, and they'll need to build an offense that suits his skill set heading into next season. Unless Teddy improves a lot from under Center, its hard to see that future involving Peterson.

[dead_poet]

Within the season I agree with you, and I would say its a demonstrable fact that this is the course they've chosen this year. In the offseason, when making decisions about FAs, draft picks, how to allocate salary cap dollars, things can go in another direction. I think this franchise knows that long term its Teddy or back to the drawing board, and they'll need to build an offense that suits his skill set heading into next season. Unless Teddy improves a lot from under Center, its hard to see that future involving Peterson.

It's not like he can't operate under center. He's actually improving in that area. And under center also takes longer to get into drops vs. shotgun, so he's at a disadvantage again with the pass protection. If that's shored up during the offseason (which it'd had better be) there's no reason why AD can't continue to be the focal point while also having a functional passing offense. And it's not as if the Vikings aren't doing anything to help Teddy recently, either. Trading for Wallace, signing Pruitt & Diggs, resigning Wright & Rudolph and heck, even deciding to KEEP AD are all things that could be said are a benefit to Teddy. Now they just need to get some better protection around him and potentially another effective/dangerous wideout.

"Building an offense to suit his skill set" probably also means tweaking Norv's system (as Norv has somewhat done) to be less vertical, especially given the limitations of the O-line.