Despite Dominant Finish, Vikings Defense Knows It Must Start Faster

The defense responded well to an early onslaught, but it was already too late.

The Vikings' star-studded defense doesn't bear the brunt of of the responsibility for Sunday's gut-check loss to the Packers.

That weight falls squarely on Kirk Cousins' shoulders.

Still, this defense is an extremely prideful one, especially among the core players who have been part of elite defenses for the past three seasons. It's a group that is frustrated with the way it played early in the game, even if it completely flipped the switch after the first quarter.

“We gotta do it out of the gate," Harrison Smith said Monday. "There’s no warm-up period. We’ve gotta start faster."

The slow start Smith referred to spanned the first three Packers possessions of the game. It began with a 4-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that put Green Bay up 7-0 in the blink of an eye. Then a more methodical 11-play, 63-yard touchdown drive. And to cap it off, a 4-play, 33-yard touchdown drive against a short field following a Cousins fumble.

Less than a minute into the second quarter, the Vikings trailed 21-0 and it looked like an ugly blowout was in full swing. In total, the Packers averaged an even 9 yards per play on those three drives, gashing the Vikings both on the ground and through the air without a hint of resistance.

What went wrong? Anthony Harris, the NFC Defensive Player of the Week in Week 1, said the defense's slow start wasn't due to the Packers throwing new looks at them.

“I don’t think there were any crazy wrinkles," Harris said. "We just kind of individually took turns not really executing what we needed to get done.”

Smith agrees that the issues can be traced to execution and not "playing how we're coached to play." In his Monday press conference, Mike Zimmer attributed the slow start to mistakes on the back end and in the running game. "We'll get that fixed," he said.

The encouraging thing for the Vikings is that they didn't have to wait until this week of practice to fix their defensive struggles. They did so during the game.

After sailing through those first three drives, the Packers went their final 11 possessions without scoring a single point. They started 3-for-3 on third down, then converted just 2 of 12 the rest of the way. The Vikings forced two fumbles, stuffed a run on fourth down, and sacked Rodgers twice.

It was, for almost a full three quarters, a nearly flawless performance that showed how terrifying this defense can be when everything is clicking.

“We started reading our keys," Smith said. "Playing sound football, running to the ball, being violent, tackling as a team.”

The switch flipped by the defense kept the Vikings in it until the end. Were it not for a dreadful day from Cousins, it would've been enough to win. That's not satisfying to someone like Smith.

"At the end of the day, we lost," Smith said. "We start faster, we’ve got a better chance. That’s all that matters."

The Vikings missed out on a big opportunity in Green Bay, but the season remains young. Moving forward, the defense will try to bring a high level of execution and intensity from the first play of the game, like it did against the Falcons. 

If that happens consistently, it'll be on Cousins to make the improvements necessary to help this team reach its ceiling in 2019.