Trevon Diggs Brings Historic Interception Streak into Matchup With Kirk Cousins, Vikings
The Vikings know a thing or two about a player named Diggs making headlines for his ability to catch the football.
Stefon Diggs spent his first five NFL seasons in Minnesota, going from overlooked fifth-round pick to star receiver and household name after the Minneapolis Miracle and multiple 1,000-yard seasons. Stefon's younger brother Trevon also began his career as a receiver, but moved to cornerback while at Alabama. One month after the Vikings traded Stefon to the Buffalo Bills for a haul of draft picks, including a first-rounder that became Justin Jefferson, Trevon entered the league as a second-round pick by the Cowboys.
Now, as the Vikings welcome Dallas to U.S. Bank Stadium for a huge Sunday night matchup, they'll face off against the younger Diggs for the first time — and hope to be the team that can end his incredible interception streak.
Diggs showed promise as a rookie, recording three interceptions and 14 passes defended. But he was on injured reserve when the Cowboys came to U.S. Bank Stadium in Week 11, so he wasn't part of that 31-28 Dallas win. Jefferson and Adam Thielen combined for 209 receiving yards and three touchdowns against a cornerback group led by Chidobe Awuzie (who is now with the Bengals) and Anthony Brown.
This year, Diggs has been a man on a mission. I doubt anyone thought much of it when he picked off a screen pass that went off Leonard Fournette's hands in the season opener. But then he did it again the next week. And again, and again, and again. Diggs has at least once interception in all six of the Cowboys' games to start this season, with seven total and two pick-sixes.
That six-game INT streak ties Diggs with seven other players, including former Vikings safety Brian Russell, for the longest in the Super Bowl era. Before this year, no one had picked off a pass in six consecutive games since Russell in 2003. If Diggs can get one against Kirk Cousins, who has thrown just two picks in six games, he'll sit alone atop the record books with a seven-game streak.
The Vikings would like to avoid that.
"We’ve got to watch a lot of tape on him to see how he’s getting his production," offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak said. "I think the great corners, they guess and they guess right a lot. I think he’s playing at the highest level of anyone we’ve played this year. Just got to be aware of his ability to sit on routes, squat on routes, and go the other way with it."
Diggs has become a somewhat polarizing player this year. He has the seven picks, two going for touchdowns, and 11 total pass breakups. That production makes him by far the best defensive player in the league in terms of targeted EPA (expected points added), with his -37.7 mark being more than double the next-best player. But Diggs also has a PFF grade of just 61.9, which ranks 61st out of 112 qualified cornerbacks.
PFF grades players on every single snap, so huge plays like interceptions don't carry a ton of weight. They've charged him with allowing 419 yards in coverage this season, fourth-most in the league. He's gotten burned at times, struggling against shifty Giants rookie Kadarius Toney a couple weeks ago and following up his huge pick-six against the Patriots by watching his man catch a 75-yard touchdown on the ensuing play (although it was arguably the safety's fault).
In other words, Jefferson and Thielen are going to have opportunities to make Diggs pay for his style of play. If they can get him with things like double moves or creative route concepts when he's trying to anticipate and break on the ball, there could be big plays to be had.
Still, what Diggs is doing can't be ignored. He's been in the right place at the right time all season and has capitalized on just about every opportunity he's had to create a turnover. Only two of Diggs' picks have come on tipped balls. What makes him special are his ball skills, which stem from his past as a receiver. He's not unlike Stefon in his ability to track the ball in the air and go get it.
"The thing with him is you don’t know where he’s always going to be, number one, and then the thing that I’ve been impressed with with him is when the ball is in the air, he goes and gets it," Mike Zimmer said. "If a receiver is running a crossing route and then the receiver slows down a little bit, he doesn’t slow down. He’s going to try to get in front of him to intercept it. He’s got great hands, but he accelerates to the ball very well."
"You can tell he used to be a receiver," Vikings co-defensive coordinator Andre Patterson said. "He’s not a DB trying to go up and knock the ball down or hoping they catch it. When the ball is in the air, it’s like he’s still a receiver and the quarterback threw the ball to him. I think that’s the reason why he’s got so many interceptions."
Interceptions tend to be difficult to predict or sustain, particularly in the modern NFL, which is what makes Diggs' streak so remarkable. Harrison Smith, whose 28 interceptions since 2012 rank third among all players in that time span, doesn't have any picks this year. He cited rule changes and the improvement of quarterbacks as reasons why interceptions are down in today's game.
"They keep writing the rules against us," Smith said. "I mean, it’s just the reality of it. And I think quarterbacks have become more efficient over time. ... I was pretty young back in the day when you could hold a little more, so I wasn’t around for that. But you can’t get away with much on defense anymore, so it’s hard to always play the ball if you can’t touch anybody, you can’t hit anybody."
How Kubiak, Cousins, Jefferson, and Thielen approach this matchup with Diggs is going to be one of the most fascinating subplots of Sunday night's game. Will Diggs' presence affect the way Kubiak calls the game or the way Cousins makes decisions while going through his reads? The Vikings are obviously aware of the dangers he poses, but they can't let the possibility of interceptions take away from their aggressiveness. Cousins still has to trust that Jefferson and Thielen can win on their routes and make big plays with Diggs guarding them.
Then, when the ball is in the air, they have to be the ones who go get it.
"Getting to the ball before he does," said Jefferson when asked what the key is for a receiver against a guy like Diggs. "Getting the ball at the highest point, body control, making sure you have a better leverage on him. Just being a football player."
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