The Minnesota Vikings Are Elite, and It Makes Zero Sense
The Minnesota Vikings' offense struggled for much of their Week 7 matchup against the Indianapolis Colts. In fact, the Vikings entered the fourth quarter trailing 10–6, once again relying on their defense to keep them in the game.
With just over a minute remaining, the Colts trailed 16–10 and were driving down the field in search of a game-winning touchdown. But just as Indianapolis threatened to spoil Minnesota's undefeated season, the Vikings' defense delivered yet again. Veteran safety Harrison Smith intercepted Daniel Jones, sealing the victory and preserving Minnesota's perfect record.
Through six games, the Vikings have scored 25 or more points just once and have been held below 20 points three times. Despite their offensive struggles, Minnesota is 6–0 and sits atop the NFC standings.
So how has a team with one of the NFL's least productive offenses managed to remain undefeated? The answer lies in a dominant defense and an exceptional special teams unit that have consistently compensated for the offense's shortcomings.
Severe Offensive Struggles
The Vikings' offense is currently averaging 20.8 PPG. That ranks 23rd out of 32 teams and is 2.3 points below league average. Some teams in this ballpark are above .500 like the Steelers and Broncos; however, no team in the bottom third of the NFL in PPG is close to being undefeated.
The Vikings' offensive woes are historically rare for a team that has had such a good start to a season. Per ESPN, they have the second-fewest points of any team to start 6-0 since 1940 and the fewest touchdowns by a 6-0 team since the 1933 Chicago Bears.
Why is their offense struggling so much?
The biggest problem is that the Kyler Murray signing has not worked out like the front office and coaching staff expected. To be blunt, Murray has been kind of a disaster in Kevin O'Connell's offense because he's inaccurate, he isn't pushing the ball down the field very often, and he is taking sacks way too often. This has led the Vikings to rank 30th in dropback success rate with a mark of 38.6%.
Pro Football Reference has a useful way of comparing quarterbacks to the rest of the NFL across several statistics, including CMP%, TD%, SK%, etc. Each statistic is measured on a scale where 100 represents the league average (like OPS+ in baseball), making it easy to see how a quarterback stacks up against his peers. For example, Kyler Murray has a TD%+ of 75 and a SK%+ of 86. That means he's throwing touchdowns at a rate 25% below the league average and performing 14% worse than average at avoiding sacks.
I would also argue that accuracy has been a major issue for Murray too. You can point to his completion percentage or his completion percentage above expectation as evidence that he's actually been very accurate this year. However, when you look at film-based tracking metrics, you'll see that his accuracy has been worse than his CMP% would lead you to believe.
Below is a passing chart from Fantasy Points that shows how accurate Murray has been throwing to every part of the field. His accuracy rate has been subpar everywhere in the intermediate area, and he has zero zones in which he's above average.
On top of this, the Vikings have one of the worst run games in the NFL right now, ranking near the bottom of the league in both EPA/rush and rushing success rate. Not only can they not throw the ball, they can't run it either!
Is this an offensive line problem, or is this a running back problem? Honestly, it's a little bit of both.
Here's why I say that. A simple way to understand why a team's rushing attack is struggling is to look at how well they generate yards after contact and how well they limit defenders from stuffing runs at or behind the line of scrimmage. The former is something running backs control, while the latter is on the offensive line.
The Vikings average just 2.3 YAC/ATT (30th), and they have allowed a stuff rate of 23.2% (24th). This means they aren't gaining extra yards, and defenses are able to penetrate their run blocking too easily.
Being this bad offensively should make it really difficult for the Vikings to be competitive, but thankfully they are handling their business on defense and special teams.
Will Reichard for MVP?
It's hilarious how big of a role kicker Will Reichard has played in the Vikings' scoring this season. He has made 18 field goals and 9 extra points, scoring 63 points in the process. This means he has accounted for 50.4% of the Vikings' 125 points. It's uncommon for kickers to account for such a high share of their team's points.
Per Football Kicking Stats, no kicker in recent memory has gotten close to accounting for 50% of their team's points. Texans' kicker, Ka'imi Fairbairn, has the highest point share among kickers in recent years, with a mark of 45.5%.
Brian Flores' Psychotic Defense
The biggest reason why the Vikings are such a dominant team is that their defense is crushing opposing offenses in a unique and borderline reckless fashion.
Defensive coordinator Brian Flores is calling games like a psychopath as he blitzes on 71% of his opponents' dropbacks, the highest rate in the league. Who's second? The Commanders, who have a blitz rate of 45.5%. Let that sink in...
This allows the Vikings to generate pressure and record sacks at a significant rate. They lead the league in pressure rate and sack rate with marks of 39.1% and 10.1%, respectively.
Edge Rusher Dallas Turner is enjoying a breakout season, and he's been incredibly influential in the Vikings' dominant pass rush as he leads all edge rushers in pressure rate with a mark of 21.1%. He also ranks top four at the position in sack rate.
To fully understand how big of a role the Vikings' defense is playing in the team's success, let's look at a metric from Pro Football Reference called "Simple Rating System" or "SRS." This metric looks at each team's average margin of victory and adjusts it for each team's strength of schedule. This metric tells us what each team's expected margin of victory would be against an average team.
The Vikings currently have an SRS of 8.9, the second-best mark in the league behind the Jaguars. Pro Football Reference splits up each team's SRS between their offensive output and their defensive output so we can see how each team is performing on each side of the ball. The Vikings' O-SRS is -2.7, tied with the Giants for the third-worst mark in the NFC, ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles. However, their D-SRS is 11.9, by far the best D-SRS of any team in the NFL. The second-highest D-SRS belongs to the Patriots, who have a D-SRS of 5.4.
Everyone is wondering if the Vikings can keep winning with this playstyle, and it's fascinating to think about. It's hard to imagine a team succeeding when their offense is this bad, but the Vikings have the coaching, defense, and special teams to make up for their lackluster offense.
I think the Vikings can continue to do well in the regular season because their defense is just so freaking good. Brian Flores, the mad scientist, is doing some absurdly good work with that group. However, I do wonder if these offensive struggles will hold the Vikings back in the playoffs when they face tougher opponents every week.
For now, we should just sit back and enjoy one of the weirdest elite teams we've seen in the history of the NFL.
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