Why running more -- and more effectively -- is a 'main goal' for Kevin O'Connell
INDIANAPOLIS — Football is a fickle game. Every time we think that we have it all figured out, something changes and then it’s back to the drawing board. Nobody knows that better than Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, who is making a point this offseason to reflect on every aspect of his coaching last season and anticipate where he needs to be better next season.
“There’s a lot of phases to it,” O’Connell said in his sit-down with beat reporters at the NFL Combine. “I tried to break them down individually, spend a little time with each one and as we got into some of the scheme evaluation, using it to evaluate players, scheme and then my role with it as well, both with how I was teaching things to how our players received and executed that information.”
As far as the scheme goes, O’Connell implemented massive changes from what the Vikings had previously done under Kevin Stefanski/Gary Kubiak/Klint Kubiak. Rather than centering the offense around the run game and hitting deep shots off play-actions, the Vikings turned into one of the most pass-heavy teams in the NFL. Only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Chargers called a higher percentage of passing plays in 2022.
The results, overall, were good. The Vikings ranked seventh in total Expected Points Added through the air and scored the eighth most points. But O’Connell wasn’t totally thrilled with his pass-obsessed offensive philosophy.
“A main goal of mine is to have some improvement in our running game,” O’Connell said.
Before you think O’Connell wants to toss his analytics handbook into the Mississippi River, have a look at the numbers. The NFL is getting more efficient when running the football on the whole. Since 2020, the average team has been on the positive side of Expected Points Added when running the ball, which is a huge difference from even five years ago where the average club was bleeding points by rushing.
Here’s a look at how the league’s rushing efficiency has improved since 2012 (and how the Vikings performed in comparison):
Why are running games more effective than in the recent past? There’s a few possible explanations. One is that teams know when to run. Running on second-and-10 has been proven to be largely inefficient, whereas short yardage carries (and QB sneaks) are often successful plays.
There’s also the adaptation in how defenses play. There has been a sea change from single-high safety systems like the Legion of Boom Seahawks teams to the Vic Fangio-inspired two-deep. The latter basically dares the opponent to beat them with the run game by running out six or seven-man boxes rather than the old eight-man boxes that Adrian Peterson used to see 10 years ago.
“This organization saw a shift in how we were defended from previous years to this year,” O’Connell said. “No greater example than getting nearly 65-percent shell coverage over our last six games, which was almost 20 percent higher than any other team in our league, so you’ve got to ask yourself the question… how do we use that information to our advantage moving forward while still staying true to who we want to be offensively?”
The increase in running quarterbacks makes a difference too. This season Daniel Jones ran for more first downs than Dalvin Cook.
“Analytics looks at a lot of things, they don’t always know who carried the football or the scheme of leaving players unblocked and reading players and all of those things,” O’Connell said of the increasing EPA of running. “Then you’ve got the RPO onslaught that’s kind of figured out its way, where does it fit in the league, where does it not.”
QB runs are impacting the numbers but that doesn’t exonerate the Vikings from their struggles. Cook’s 4.4 yards per carry ranked 22nd in the NFL among RBs, coincidentally tied with former Viking Latavius Murray. Cook also ranked 28th of 31 qualifying RBs by PFF grade. He was a boom-or-bust runner, gaining 10-plus yards on 30 carries (eighth most) and leading the NFL with 62 carries of either zero or negative yards.
“To me, it comes down to efficiency, that’s the word,” O’Connell said. “I think the home runs and the long ones are great, but as a play caller, I would love to be second-and-5. I think the number one rushing team in the league averaged over five yards a carry and if you tell me I’m in second-and-5, here we go. We’re in a position to do a lot of different things, regardless of field position, score in the game, the personnel groupings.
“Second-and-5 is a really great place to be for an offense like ours with the type of personnel we have, so what hurts is second-and-10, second-and-11, second-and-12 into a third-and-8 on the road with crowd noise and trying to use your versatile personnel, but you’ve got to get back to 11 personnel at the very least to attack that third down, so then you find yourself slowing down your process, and the play calls and you try to be perfect at that point.”
Marrying the run and pass game is something that all play callers dream about because defenses are left guessing. Last year the Vikings weren’t able to do that particularly often. They ranked 19th in second downs with five or fewer yards to go. The Vikings still ran play-action 29% of the time, on par with previous years but it was not as explosive as with the Kubiaks or Stefanski, only gaining 7.0 yards per attempt, fourth lowest in the NFL.
“It’s one thing to want to call more runs, but what do those runs look like when you call them and what is the attempt? What are we trying to get accomplished schematically?” O’Connell said. “How are we using our players to do the things they do well while sticking to the philosophy of marrying the run and the pass, and ultimately, how are we coaching the smallest of the details that matter so much when it comes to trying to gain literally inches of advantage over the course of a season means a lot.”
“When we run the football better we can give ourselves a lot more friendly circumstances to try to attack,” he added.
O’Connell said that part of his self-scout process would be trying to “hone in” on what worked and what didn’t work with the run game. Two interesting statistical details that point toward the struggles being connected more the running back than the running scheme: PFF graded the Vikings’ run blocking third best in the league last year only behind Atlanta and Baltimore and Cook’s average Rushing Yards Over Expected per carry (which compares how many yards a runner is expected to gain based on blocking) was eighth lowest in the NFL in 2022. In simpler terms: Cook did not gain the yards that were there for him.
How significant is the RYOE for Cook? Two years ago he gained 0.81 yards over expected per carry — meaning he was getting nearly a yard more than you’d expect based on blocking every time he touched the ball. This year that number sunk to minus-0.16 per run.
So as the Vikings face a decision on Cook, who is set to carry a $14 million cap hit and reaching an age traditionally associated with decline for running backs, they have to decide whether a different running back could produce better results or whether it was something schematic or connected with blocking that caused their issues last season. No longer can we look at the running game from an analytical perspective and call it inefficient as the best rushing teams in the league are gaining a big edge offensively over clubs like the 2022 Vikings.
“I think we’ve got to really hone in on what we did well and try to figure out the areas where we didn’t meet the expectation or what we view as hopefully a championship standard,” O’Connell said. “We’ve got to try to do those things and then more importantly than even evaluating it is then making a plan that coincides with fixing some of those things.”
