After an emotional win against the Atlanta Falcons, the Minnesota Vikings will stay in the NFC South as they face the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
New Orleans is coming off of escaping the Chicago Bears behind a great showing from their defense. But their offense was able to do just enough to squeak by with the 24-17 victory.
This offense for New Orleans has had their bad days, but they are also capable to go off for 500+ yards and almost 40 points like they did against Indianapolis.
During this four-game win streak, Minnesota is sixth in the NFL in EPA/play allowed. Brian Flores has this defense playing at a high level, and will need for it to continue if they want to have a shot at the postseason.
Before talking playoffs, there is the task at hand of beating the Saints on Sunday. To do that, they will need to follow these four keys to success on the defensive side of the ball.
Rally to the football
Brian Flores has still been sending his usual pressure at quarterbacks and the Vikings lead the league in blitzes sent by a heavy margin.
However, these last few weeks, Flores has gotten more comfortable being able to drop into coverage behind the pass rush. There were more than a few instances where Flores trusted three pass-rushers/down linemen to get to the quarterback and drop eight into coverage.
This week, however, Flores will probably be sending the house to continue to discombobulate a Saints passing attack that has had trouble getting on the same page this season. Even in one of their best outings production-wise, against Indianapolis, there were obvious miscommunications between Carr and his receivers.
The unique pressure packages from Flores and this aggressive Minnesota front can only help to frustrate this offense further.
All eyes on Olave & Kamara
Alvin Kamara and Chris Olave’s 1,181 combined yards from scrimmage make up over 36% of the offense’s production between the two of them.
That’s even more impressive when you consider that Kamara was suspended for the first three games of this season, and still leads the team with 618 yards from scrimmage.
Olave has firmly supplanted Michael Thomas as the primary target in the passing game this season, even though he and Carr are sometimes not on the same page. His 58.8% catch percentage is 11th-worst among receivers with 50 or more targets.
Even with that, the ball will still be force-fed to these two as the offense looks to find its identity outside Taysom Hill and his wildcat ways.
Stopping this offense starts with forcing the ball away from the hands of Olave and Kamara.
Limit vertical shots/explosives
Derek Carr is content with driving the ball down the field using the short to intermediate game. But, like any quarterback, he wants the long ball. His 8.5 intended air yards per attempt ranks sixth in the NFL.
He has grown to enjoy finding 2nd-year wide receiver Rasheed Shaheed streaking past the defense with his speed. They like lining up Kamara and Olave both in the slot and on the outside to find the best matchup to exploit deep.
Being able to limit Carr’s vertical threats and forcing him to hold it when he wants to take shots down the field will allow the pass-rush to get home.
Keep doing what you're doing
Alec Lewis of the Athletic wrote a great piece on Flores’ effect on Minnesota’s defense.
He wrote it mostly through the lens of nose tackle Harrison Phillips, who stated that playing in the center of the trenches is akin to being “the fire hydrant at the dog show.”
That is an exact quote.
Flores may be the perfect coach for this current iteration of the Vikings.
They don’t look sexy, and they don’t want to. They don’t want to grab headlines, that’s for the offense to do.
They just want to play good football. And they have.
Minnesota has allowed an average of 17 points per game during this win streak. They have caused nine turnovers, good to tie for second-best in the league in that span (ironically, tied with New Orleans).
There is nothing special that these Vikings need to do. Just keep doing what they’re doing. Keep playing for the guy next to you.
It’s worked pretty well so far.
