Rushing is back in vogue and the Vikings have some catching up to do
EAGAN — There is number of different ways you can phrase what’s been going on with the decline of offenses around the NFL this year.
Tom Brady said it this way: “There’s a lot of bad football.”
Kirk Cousins put it like this: “I don’t know if I have a great answer right now.”
Either way, it isn’t your imagination. Last year through Week 7, there were 20 teams with at least a 90 passer rating and 10 teams with 100+ passer ratings. This season there’s only 13 clubs with at least 90 and four with over 100. The difference in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (which factors interceptions and sacks) demonstrates how passing games have gone off a cliff even more. There were 17 teams over 7.0 ANY/A at this time in 2021. Now? Five. The league leader in ANY/A was 1.1 yards per attempt ahead of this year’s No. 1 team.
Wild stuff, right?
“Defenses are evolving, I think what some teams are doing is newer or different,” Cousins said.
There are some noticeable trends, with the most easily spotted being that teams seem to have gone away from the Seattle-style Cover-3 defenses with a single deep safety and moved toward the Vic Fangio type of two-deep safety coverage.
“When teams do play deep to short with two [deep] safeties what you’re sacrificing is the potential ability to stop the run, but if you’re stopping the run you might as well play that and try to prevent some big plays in the passing game from happening,” Cousins said.
The Vikings’ QB noted that some teams have been effective in matching patterns, which is a relatively fresh response to bunch formations. Plus there’s lots of stunts, twists and simulated pressures that defenses are fighting back with as well.
But let’s focus on the two-deep part because statistically teams are running the football more effectively this season than in 2021 with more safeties playing in the parking lot. There are currently 17 teams gaining 4.5 yards per attempt or more and nine clubs over 5.0 YPA. Last year there were 12 and five, respectively.
The increase in rushing success isn’t as profound as the decrease in passing success but it exists and some of the surprise teams in the NFC have benefitted from great running attacks. The Seahawks average 5.5 yards per attempt, the Giants are No. 2 in Expected Points Added on the ground, the Eagles are sixth and the Falcons sit seventh in EPA.
In a down passing environment, the Vikings’ rollercoaster air attack ranks 10th in EPA (and fourth in the NFC). Their running game is 15th in EPA, 20th in yards per attempt and 25th in yards per game.
Interestingly, the Vikings rank fourth in PFF run blocking grade. You might say that indicates Dalvin Cook may have lost his fastball but in terms of the NFL NextGEN stat Rushing Yards Over Expected, he’s at -0.01 per run. That’s down from previous years but still indicates Cook should be getting the yardage that’s available for him.
Even the team’s rushing success rate is solid at 44.3%, which is ahead of the Giants.
What gives?
The issue appears to be a lack of explosive runs. Cook’s 53-yard touchdown is the Vikings’ only run this season over 20 yards, which makes them one of only five teams with one or fewer 20+ runs. The league-leading Browns have 12 runs of 20 or more yards.
“I felt like every game that we’ve lined up I’ve been one man away,” Cook said. “That’s the hump, what we was trying to get over. I think the Miami game kind of put it to bed but we are still hunting for explosives, the 30s, the 20s. We know what the ground game is. It’s a 3-yard, 4-yard fest and then everything comes to light. But when those big plays hit we try to take advantage of them.”
Backup Alex Mattison is also only averaging 3.2 yards per carry, a number that is slanted a little because five of his 30 carries have come inside the 10 yard line. Still, in an explosive-less running game, it might be worth considering the blazing Kene Nwangwu from time to time.
Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said the team’s offensive staff looked during the bye week at which types of runs were successful.
“A lot of it is looking at schemes and how were we productive within schemes,” Phillips said. “Not necessarily a specific play but tight zones, our mid-zone game, our wide-zone game, our gap-scheme runs. What kinds of runs were hitting? What kinds of runs were our various backs productive?…You hope to have a base of, ‘Hey, we’re a zone team and we mix in these plays,’ but is that really showing up?”
It’s also possible that more explosive runs will come along with more attempts. The Vikings have the sixth highest percentage of total plays being passes. They are ahead of Buffalo, Cincinnati and Kansas City. While circumstances and game situation does impact those numbers, it doesn’t make much sense to have Cousins throwing more often than Josh Allen, Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes. The Vikings’ QB has to make use of favorable passing situations, unlike the aliens of the league who can thrive no matter the spot.
“If we can be efficient on first down and second down staying out of second-and-long and third-and-long, then we’d be putting the wind at our back,” Cousins said.
Setting up favorable play-action situations is one of the benefits that comes along with running effectively and, despite the overall downturn in passing, the play-action game is still winning in the NFL. There are 13 QBs with 100+ QB ratings when using play-action, including Cousins, who ranks sixth in play-action rating. The effectiveness of the running game might not always dictate play-action usage, but tracking data has shown that linebackers tend to move more on play-fakes against successful running backs.
The Vikings haven’t scared opponents into playing an extra man in the box yet this year but if they can improve on the running game after the bye week, their odds of putting together an elite offense (at least in the NFC) will increase. In a normal year that might not be the case, but 2022 has not been normal.
