Minnesota Vikings – Masters of the Rebuild

Minnesota Vikings – Masters of the Rebuild

GuyWhoLikesSport

You’re not supposed to be good after losing your franchise quarterback to an Achilles injury.

You’re really not supposed to be good after you let the same guy walk in free agency, pick a new quarterback with the tenth pick of the first round, then lose the new quarterback in the preseason, forcing you to start the backup.

You’re especially not supposed to be good when you’re 16th in cash spending after making just three picks in the first five rounds of the last draft.

However, conventional wisdom doesn’t apply to the Minnesota Vikings, who are currently achieving Nirvana in a draft and salary cap league: the competitive (contending?) rebuild.

The Vikings are like the Coen Brothers. Even what are meant to be their throwaway seasons are elite.

The back half of last season and this season is like the Kevin O’Connell and Brian Flores version of The Big Lebowski.

A movie about an unemployed guy that likes bowling isn’t supposed to be a classic, and yet Kevin O’Connell is the dude, man.

Since Week 9 of the 2023 NFL season (the week after Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles), the Vikings are a top half of the league NFL offence by success rate and EPA/play and a top ten defence by the same metrics.

Just this season, the Vikings are 10-2 after eking another one out against the Cardinals.

They are the third best defence in the NFL by EPA/play, the second best by success rate and the best defence in the NFL by DVOA.

Defensive co-ordinator Brian Flores is like a leg spinner who has never bowled a leg break.

You have no idea who’s coming, who’s dropping, and what any of it means.

No team in the NFL has blitzed more than the Vikings, generated more hurries, or generated more pressures.

They send pressure and get home at a high rate, but that’s not the genius

The genius is that the five or six that come are always different and impossible to pick.

Nobody in the NFL drops defensive linemen at a higher rate, they always start with 7 on the line and there’s no rhyme or reason to who’s coming and who’s going.

It’s a mind-f**k.

But it is always sound.

It’s the opposite of a Nolan film.

It’s confusing but doesn’t have plot holes you could drive a train through (everyone tries to get thoughts into other people’s heads every day, it’s not that complicated and Inception has aged terribly).

To that end, the Vikings defence is sixth in the league in yards per offensive play while leading the league in turnovers.

They’re sound, stout, confusing, and explosive.

They make quarterbacks look like Alberto Falcone revealing his whole plan to Oz just before Oz shoots him in The Penguin – glazed eyed and confused.

But confusion doesn’t just reign down on passing games.

The Vikings are also stout against the run, sitting top of the league in rushing yards per attempt.

They give up the fewest scores per opponent drive.

It’s a bit like watching Walter yell at Donny.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense, the only person who ever even acknowledges Donny is Walter.

Donny probably isn’t really there.

And yet it is excellent.

But with Flores at the controls of the defence, and the personnel improvements they made with adding Jonathan Grenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, Shaq Griffin, and even Stephon Gilmore the defence was meant to be pretty good, if not quite this good.

The offence was meant to be a different story.

If the defence is like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, then the offence is like Tara Reid as Bunny: a pleasant surprise.

They drafted JJ McCarthy with pick 10 of the NFL draft and gave Sam Darnold one year for $9m as the stopgap until McCarthy, who was a bit of projection on draft night, was ready to go in-season.

However, McCarthy tore his meniscus in the preseason and the plan was ostensibly stuffed.

They were then forced into Darnold, who was one of the most accident prone quarterbacks in the league heading into the year, starting the whole season.

Over the first five weeks, it didn’t really matter.

In that period, the Vikings were ninth best in dropback success rate and Darnold was tenth in EPA/play as he utilised his athleticism and arm to make plays in and out of structure.

This wasn’t just on Darnold, obviously.

They have the best receiver in the NFL in Justin Jefferson, a top-10 running game led by Aaron Jones in a renaissance year, and an offensive playcaller in O’Connell who made life easy on his dumb but talented quarterback.

An elite left tackle in Christian Darrisaw also helped, though he is now hurt.

But make no mistake, Darnold made it go, he was the rug that tied the room together.

Since week six, however, Darnold’s season has gone almost as poorly as Tara Reid’s career since The Big Lebowski and American Pie.

In that period, the Vikings are 15th in offensive EPA and 14th in success rate because in large part of Darnold’s two year old-like propensity for accidents.

Darnold is the 26st best quarterback by EPA/play among quarterbacks who have had over 100 attempts, just ahead of Joe Flacco

The Vikings have turned the ball over the fourth most times this season with 19. Darnold himself counts for 10 picks.

While he’s been a little better since a three pick disaster against Jacksonville, throwing six touchdowns and no picks in his last three games, chances are the most turnover prone quarterback of my lifetime will regress to his mean.

Even still, it won’t matter.

The Vikings didn’t spend like they think they’re Super Bowl contenders because they don’t think that. Frankly, they shouldn’t think that.

They are not serious contenders despite their 10-2 record.

What they are is competitive, contending, as they rebuild the roster.

Irrespective of how the rest of this season goes, it’s already a triumph.

They have the pieces in place on both sides of the ball.

Assuming Brian Flores doesn’t get a head coaching job (which feels pretty safe), they also have elite playcalling on both sides of the ball.

To top it all off, they head into next year with the fifth most projected cap space in the league after having already paid Jefferson and Darrisaw.

While there is pressure on McCarthy to be the guy, there is almost no better infrastructure in the league to drop a quarterback into.

If McCarthy can play, I feel comfortable saying that the Vikings should soon be ready to turn their competitive rebuild into competing for the first championship in franchise history.

 

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