Vikings-Lions Preview: Three Big Storylines For Sunday's Game

Stopping the rushing attacks, led by Dalvin Cook and D'Andre Swift, will be key for both teams.

This isn't your typical Vikings-Lions matchup.

Usually, when these two teams face off, it can be penciled in as a victory for Minnesota. The Vikings had won eight straight in the series until their disastrous last-second loss in Detroit last season. Since 2000, they're 33-12 against the Lions, who are a perennial doormat that hasn't won a division title since 1993.

But this Lions team looks different. With Dan Campbell leading the way, they look as good as they've looked since the mid-2010s, when Matthew Stafford was the quarterback and Jim Caldwell was the head coach. The Lions appear to be a franchise on the rise behind Campbell, a good coaching staff, and young stars on both sides of the ball.

After a tough 38-35 loss to the Eagles in Week 1, Detroit cruised to a victory over the Commanders last weekend. They are a legitimately dangerous football team that has a lot of things working well right now, so the Vikings will need to play well to bounce back from Monday night's disappointing performance in Philadelphia with a victory.

Here are three big storylines heading into Sunday's important divisional game at U.S. Bank Stadium.

Can the Vikings get Dalvin Cook going to help their offense flow?

Until Monday night, when he carried the ball six times for 17 yards, Dalvin Cook had never seen fewer than nine carries in an NFL game that he was healthy for. The Vikings only handed it off nine times, total, on 61 offensive plays, in part because they quickly fell behind by multiple scores.

Even though the game script meant the Vikings needed to pass more, head coach Kevin O'Connell wishes he hadn't gotten away from the running game to the degree that he did.

"Didn’t run the football enough," he said after the game. "They kind of had some things schematically that got us into some different phases of our offense by just trying to get good plays off versus some good looks. That’s where I gotta do a better job. Make sure we stay true to what we are and what we want to be offensively."

If the Vikings can get Cook going early and often, it'll open up their entire playbook and make things easier on Kirk Cousins in the passing game. They need those early-down runs to be effective to stay on schedule with manageable distances on second and especially third down.

The Lions' defense can be run against, and the Vikings will try to exploit that. From there, they'll look to get the play-action game going and generate some explosive plays for Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, K.J. Osborn, and Irv Smith Jr. through the air.

"I think we’re all feeling a lot better when we’re rattling off four, five yards or more a carry," offensive coordinator Wes Phillips said. "It just puts you in better situations, shorter third-down situations or not facing third down at all, where a lot of teams — like this team — can get in some exotic-type pressures that really challenge you."

Will the Lions' running game rule the day?

Amon-Ra St. Brown and the Lions' passing game will pose challenges for the Vikings, especially with Harrison Smith ruled out with a concussion, but it's all going to come down to stopping the run when Detroit has the ball.

The Lions' run game has been utterly dominant to start the season. They lead the league by a significant margin in both yards before contact (3.8) and total yards per carry (7.2). They rank second in rushing DVOA and EPA per play, third in rushing yards per game, and third in explosive runs, and it's been a big reason why they've scored at least 35 points in both of their games.

Whereas many NFL teams, such as the Vikings, are leaning on the Shanahan/McVay outside zone rushing scheme, the Lions are dominating mostly with gap scheme runs, although they're diverse. So instead of their offensive line getting horizontal, they're pushing vertically and using lots of pulling action and double teams to create holes. As The Athletic's Ted Nguyen explained in an article this week, it's a great way to take advantage of the Vic Fangio style defenses that put fewer people in the box in an effort to limit big passing plays. 

The Vikings, under Ed Donatell, are one of the teams who run a Fangio-style defense. And so far, they haven't stopped the run at all. Minnesota ranks 32nd in run defense DVOA, 29th in EPA per rush, and 28th in yards per carry against. It looks like a major mismatch on paper.

"They have a really good offensive line, and they like to impose their will and be physical," Donatell said. "This team here has a diverse attack, so they have a real good mixture of zone schemes and what we call man schemes, where you'll see a lot of pullers. They're dedicated to it, they stick with it, and they've got a stable of backs. If you make a mistake, you're gonna pay for it. They're gonna challenge your fits all through the game."

O'Connell didn't say if the Vikings would adjust their scheme and put more defenders in the box, but he pointed out that execution will be key.

"I think with that gap scheme stuff, a lot of times you can have a lot of defenders in the box, but if you’re not able to at least fight a stalemate up front and take on those double teams — that’s really in gap schemes what’s going on. It’s not so much the zone game where one man, one gap truly matters. In the gap scheme, if they get movement of that front, it can be like a tidal wave coming downhill, and we know this team, they have a mental makeup that they want to establish that stuff. We have to be physical at the point, we need our backers to be able to be free and run, and then we need those DBs showing up in fits."

If the Lions can run all over the Vikings like the Eagles did, it could be a long afternoon for Minnesota.

How will the Vikings respond to their first taste of adversity?

It's easy to talk about a changed culture and how different things are during the offseason, as the Vikings did. It's also easy to do when a big season-opening win over the Packers seems to validate all of that talk.

But where culture really matters is when adversity hits, like it did for the Vikings on Monday night. They got punched in the mouth by the Eagles, and now they need to find a way to bounce back.

"I’m expecting our group to respond in the right kind of way," O'Connell said. "All the culture stuff that we talk about, this is when it gets tested."

The Vikings aren't panicking over one loss, especially a loss in a hostile road environment against an Eagles team that could be among the league's best this year. There's no finger-pointing. They're still confident in their talent and their approach and have spent the week trying to fix the things that went wrong in Philadelphia.

"It gave us more confidence when when we saw how guys reacted to a tough loss," Adam Thielen said on KFAN this week. "You didn’t see coaches yelling at players, you didn’t see any negativity after the game. It was just guys trying to figure out how to get better.

"You're going to have losses in this league," Thielen added on Wednesday. "It just is what it is. It's what kind of culture, what kind of people in leadership positions are going to step up and be able to handle some tough times. I think everybody's been extremely positive. It's exciting to have the culture that we have to handle that."

O'Connell placed the blame for the Eagles loss on himself and pledged to put his players in better positions to have success. Several players said this week that they need to be accountable, look in the mirror, and improve. The Vikings have the coaching and the players to bounce back this week, but it's not going to be easy against an improved Lions team.

We're going to learn a lot about the makeup of this Vikings team on Sunday.

Other notes

• O'Connell didn't say whether Josh Metellus or Lewis Cine would start at safety with Smith out. Metellus feels more likely, but both might play. "I see a lot of different roles depending on if it’s Metellus or Lewis. I would expect to see both those guys play. We’ve gotten those guys reps in there with the 1s, both those guys, throughout the past month or so. So kind of a seamless transition we’re hoping for."
• The Vikings have leaned on former Lions QB David Blough this week. He's worn No. 16 in practice, simulating Jared Goff on the scout team. Blough spent three full years with the Lions. “There definitely was some discussion just about his thoughts from an offensive perspective, obviously knowing that better, but also some of the things that he learned from their defense as well," Phillips said. "Quarterback’s usually the best guy to ask on some of that stuff."
  
• Cousins is 7-1 against the Lions as the Vikings' QB. Jefferson has exceeded 120 yards in three straight games against them. Cook has missed the teams' last three meetings, but he had 252 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns the last time he played the Lions. Danielle Hunter has 12 sacks in his last eight games against the Lions, including 7.5 sacks in the last three meetings at U.S. Bank Stadium.

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