The Minnesota Vikings came into Week 17 controlling their destiny and entered Week 18 needing a miracle, With both the Green Bay Packers and Vikings having equal to play for, you’d never tell by the performances on the field.
Minnesota Vikings Sunday Night Blunder Drops Playoff Odds
The Packers Offense – Moving the Ball at Will
The Green Bay offense and Jordan Love moved the ball with very little resistance all game long. Love finished with 256 yards, completed about 73% of his passes, and had four total touchdowns.
Love finished with 0.4 EPA per play. To put that into perspective, if he were to continue that level of play throughout the entire NFL season, that would be leading the league. They had everything working on offense. When they saw a look they liked, they took a deep shot, which more often than not would be open. (Some due to good play design, other times due to blown coverages.)
When they saw pressure looks, they had short routes to the flat all game long. Tucker Kraft had multiple catches with nobody around him, and the YAC opportunity was something the Packers took advantage of all game.
“If the Vikings got torched this bad through the air, there’s no way it could’ve been this bad through the run!” A thought most rational fans would have, but nope! It was just as effective the entire game.
Aaron Jones averaged six yards per carry on 20 carries equaling 120 yards. There were multiple plays where he got through the first line of defense completely untouched. The guys in purple were getting blown off the line of scrimmage far too often as Aaron Jones cruised through the defense with little restraint.
The Vikings Offense – Turning the Ball Over at Will
Heading into week 17 the Packers were 25th in defensive EPA per play and 28th in success rate. If you had only watched this team once, and it was this game, you’d think they were the ‘85 Bears. The Packers defense got pressure with four, they got pressure blitzing, they doubled Justin Jefferson and put Jaren Hall in a spot where he had to make tough throws to move the ball.
Jaren Hall is going to get a lot of heat for this game, and while he deserves some portion of the blame, it was a tough spot to be put in. That being said, his performance is best summed up by three plays.
Why Jaren Hall Was Benched
The first was his first turnover, an interception by cornerback Corey Ballentine that was behind and tipped up by Johnny Mundt. As poorly as the Vikings played, they get a couple of sympathy points for all the injuries. In their biggest game of the season, a massive play this game was the fourth-string quarterback throwing a pick to a backup tight end because they didn’t have any chemistry.
Tipped and picked by the @packers!
📺: #GBvsMIN on NBC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/cOt1Gy93Av pic.twitter.com/AKgc0t3ePI— NFL (@NFL) January 1, 2024
It was a mesh concept with Mundt coming over the middle on a drag route. Hall thinks Mundt is going to sit down on the route while Mundt sort of sits down, but also kind of keeps running his route. An indecisive decision from Hall, an indecisive route from Mundt and it cost them seven points. The second play was the third and sixteen throw to Jordan Addison that was a duck the second it came out of his hands.
Reminiscent of the Nick Mullens throw last week to seal the game against Detroit, where the ball just softly flutters into no man’s land. Luckily for Hall, it wasn’t an interception, but he had Addison open, and it would’ve been close to a first down if it’s an accurate throw. The third play, the one that got him benched for good, was the strip sack with less than a minute until halftime. The Vikings ran a lot of deep dropbacks and time-consuming play-action plays, which isn’t a bad thing, but it sure is when the offensive line can’t hold up. Star left tackle Christian Darrisaw gets beat by Preston Smith and strips the ball from Hall (no rhyme intended)
The pressure Hall faced in this play wasn’t a one-time thing. According to NextGenStats, the Vikings were pressured on 50% of their dropbacks tonight. That’s the third highest in a game all year, and they had 13 different players record a pressure, tied for the most all year.
The Packers pressured Vikings passers on 50.0% of dropbacks tonight, their 3rd-highest single-game rate in 2023.
The Packers had 13 players cause at least one pressure tonight, tied for the most players to do so on one team in a game this season (IND, Week 2).
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— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) January 1, 2024
Where to go from Here?
Heading into next week, the Vikings have a 3% chance of making the playoffs and will once again decide on which quarterback they’ll start from the ever-changing carousel. It could’ve been Kirk Cousins back there, there was no chance the Vikings were winning that game. This was a microcosm of every loss this season. Turnovers, penalties, injuries, and not enough playmakers on either side of the ball.
Odds are by this time next week, all talk will be about this being the biggest offseason the Vikings have had in years. This year’s roster was a clear step back from the 2022 roster and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has a chance to build on his vision with a fresh roster full of new additions. With lots of questions to be answered contract-wise and through the draft, this offseason will define the Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell tenure for years to come.
Main Photo: Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel-USA TODAY NETWORK
