How To Improve The Offense in 2021 and Beyond

When a team hires a new offensive coordinator or offensive-minded head coach, there’s usually some buzz that goes along with the move. Could he be the one to take the offense to the next level? What creative ideas does he have? How can fix the errors of the past and get the most out of the group?

The Minnesota Vikings’ recent hire of Klint Kubiak, however, came with little fanfare, in part because he shares the same last name as the previous OC and otherwise because the head coach has been blunt about wanting to keep the train on the tracks rather than strap turbo engines to it.

It’s not hard to see why Mike Zimmer wants to remain on the same path. Kirk Cousins has his two best career seasons by QB rating in the last two years and keeping the same system and terminology benefits younger players like Justin Jefferson, Ezra Cleveland, Garrett Bradbury and Irv Smith Jr.

But Kubiak acknowledged in his first press conference that staying status quo won’t be good enough.

“I think if we don’t evolve then we’ll be left in the dust,” the Vikings’ new offensive coordinator said. “That’s every team in the NFL, always trying to find ways to evolve your scheme and trying to make yourself less predictable. And that goes, this time of year is a heavy self-scout time of year and studying other teams but certainly we don’t want to be rigid. We want to be open to growth just so we can produce on Sunday.”

So where can Kubiak improve the Vikings’ offense and what are the most modern offenses in the NFL doing to increase their scoring output? Purple Insider spoke with a PFF analyst, high school coach/author and XFL offensive coach about the ways in which the Vikings can become a modern offense with their new up-and-coming OC…

All interviews are also available on the Purple Insider Podcast, which you can find on Apple or Spotify

Run to set up the pass or pass to set up the run?
AJ Smith served as receivers coach and co-offensive coordinator for the XFL’s Houston Roughnecks, who were coached by run ‘n shoot legend June Jones. If you’re not familiar with Jones, he was Warren Moon’s QB coach with the Oilers, the early-90s Atlanta Falcons OC/HC and Colt Brennan’s coach when he was throwing for a zillion yards at Hawaii.

Jones was one of a handful of coaches back in the day along with Bill Walsh and Don Coryell to adopt a pass-first mentality. In six years as either Atlanta’s offensive coordinator or head coach, the Falcons ranked in the top 10 in passing yards every year.

“The pass to set up the run is basically saying: Our quarterback can be the best player on the field, we have high risk, high reward but we’re going to do this so much, no matter what coverage you run, our quarterback is always going to get it right,” Smith said.

This type of philosophy does not ignore the run game, Smith explained. Instead it forces opponents to take a defensive back out of the box and opens up potential big plays on the ground. Jones’s 90s Falcons teams never finished higher than 18th in rushing yards but also never below 16th in yards per attempt.

“You’re saying, ‘We’re going to pass no matter what, you can’t stop us, these are our best plays but when we decide to run the ball it’s going to be for chunks of yards,” Smith said. “Those types of teams will average — our draw play in the XFL averaged nine yards per carry. What we would say is, ‘We’re not going to run it more, we’re going to run it farther.’”

When the Vikings passed more in the second half, they also had a higher success rate in the run game.



Of course the potential drawback of being a pass-to-set-up-the-run offense is turnovers. Jones’s clubs ranked in the bottom third of the league in giveaways four of the six years he was in charge.

“It’s much easier to run the football than it is to pass,” Smith said. “You have to catch it, there has to be timing, it has to be blocked. When the quarterback is the best player on the field, that’s where you see the winners.”

The Vikings took the pass-first approach in 2018 and it started out mostly effective. Through seven games, Kirk Cousins threw 300 passes and produced 308 yards per game, 14 touchdowns, three interceptions and 7.2 yards per pass attempt in a 4-2-1 start.

But Zimmer was uncomfortable with that philosophy, in part because Cousins also had seven fumbles and 19 sacks during that span. Prior to 2018, the Vikings mostly ran to set up the pass (aside from 2016 when they were incapable of running effectively) and Cousins’s previous teams had operated off Shanahan-style systems.

So after a stretch of three losses in four games, Zimmer fired OC John DeFilippo and turned to Gary Kubiak and Kevin Stefanski to focus on highlighting Dalvin Cook in a run-first approach and shots downfield off play fakes.

In 2019, the Vikings’ play-action rate shot up and Cousins’s efficiency did as well. He turned the ball over less and got sacked fewer times just by proxy of dropping back less often and the Vikings focused on hitting on deep shots. Over the last two years, the Vikings have ranked fifth and sixth in net yards per pass attempt and 30th and 27th in attempts. Meanwhile the Vikings’ rushing game excelled.

And they’re hardly the only ones succeeding with running to set up the pass.

“I think the team doing it better than anybody is Tennessee — and they are run to set up the pass,” Smith said. “We’re going to run power at you, we’re going to run iso at you, we’re going to get three yards and there’s nothing you can do to stop us but when we throw it it’s going to be for a touchdown.”

Tennessee scored the fourth most points in the NFL this year and ranked 30th in pass attempt. The Browns and Packers also had similar systems to the Vikings and finished in the bottom 10 in pass attempts.

So why does it still feel like the Vikings’ offense didn’t quite maximize its potential?

One reason is the order of operations. Of Cousins’s 35 touchdowns, 25 came when the Vikings were losing. With a struggling defense, the focus on the run game (and issues with turnovers) put them behind the eight ball often in 2020 and ironically the Vikings were forced into becoming a pass-first team in the second halves of games. Ironically, it often worked to be pass-first in the second stanza. Cousins in the second half had a 114.1 rating compared to 94.3 in the first half.

Tennessee’s Ryan Tannehill, in comparison, did a lot of his damage early in games to get Tennessee ahead, posting a 123.0 first quarter rating and he had 22 of his 33 TDs when his team was leading or tied.

Picking it apart even more, we see that getting into third down situations by running too often, allowing opponents to freely rush Cousins. The Vikings’ QB lost 106 yards to sacks on third downs on just 133 dropbacks compared to 142 yards lost on 408 drop backs on first or second down.

The Vikings ran the ball at a higher rate than anyone in the NFL on second downs with seven or more yards to go and only had a 32% success rate (per SharpFootballStats) but their passing success rate was 11% higher. They ranked 20th in total success rate on second-and-long and on third-and-long, the Vikings had a 28% success rate, dead on league average.

The two teams in the Super Bowl, by the way, had the No. 2 and 3 highest pass rates on second-and-long.

*success rate determines a play successful when it gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on first down, 60% of yards-to-go on second down and 100% of yards-to-go on third or fourth down.*

Runs on early downs were effective at times but they also played a role in Cousins only ranking 11th in play-action percentage. The Vikings passed 49% of the time on first down (17th) but they were tied for the best success rate in the NFL on those throws (62%).

“With all the money they’ve put into Cousins, you’d think it would be [pass-first],” Smith said. “He’s getting paid to be the best and he’s not being given the opportunity to do it.”

Being modern for the Vikings doesn’t have to mean switching to June Jones’s pass-first style. It could just mean passing when it’s most efficient to do so.

Playmakers and Personnel
The Vikings have top-notch playmakers. Those playmakers produced fantastic seasons in 2020. Rookie Justin Jefferson had the third most yards receiving, Adam Thielen finished third in touchdowns and Dalvin Cook ranked second in rushing yards and third in touchdowns.

So why does it still feel like the Vikings’ offense didn’t quite maximize its potential?

Part of it might be that we saw long stretches in games in which the Vikings’ go-to players and plays were taken away. Jefferson, for example, had just 35 receptions for 482 yards in the first half and 53 for 918 yards in the second half.

Incidences of these slow downs came in their Week 2 loss against the Colts, the second half against Tennessee, the first half versus Atlanta, a good portion of the 19-13 win over Chicago, the first halves of wins over Carolina and Jacksonville and the loss to Tampa Bay.

Certainly every offense will have its blips but here’s another way to think of it: The Vikings’ offense had an Expected Points Added (performance vs. what’s expected based on situation) that was either average or below average five times this season, per Pro-Football Reference. Green Bay did that only twice.

While the Vikings’ current Kubiak/Shanahan style scheme is succeeding around the league, one of the issues that can crop up is that opponents can find answers for its staples.

“The play-action stuff off the wide zone off the boot, there’s only like two things you can do,” said Pro Football Focus analyst Seth Galina. “It’s corner route, there’s an intermediate runner and there’s a flat guy. We can find a way on defense to take away those three routes and doing that by playing two-high safety stuff — which teams are going to slowly start to get into.”

One potential response (which the Kansas City Chiefs oddly overlooked in the Super Bowl) to opponents preparing for deep throws is by sprinkling in more quick game to get the ball in the hands of playmakers. Galina explained that finding ways to create one-on-one matchups using the running back can be an effective counter.

“The Saints do this all the time: They spread you out, they don’t play with a running back in the backfield, so now you’re creating space via width,” Galina said. “Now one individual has to go cover an eligible receiver so that creates space between two defenders. So they’re maximizing their playmaker… whether it’s….Darren Sproles, Reggie Bush or now Alvin Kamara, getting him on the short side of the field one-on-one with a linebacker — sometimes it’s a safety — and running off everybody and letting him pick where the open space is.”

The Vikings only have so much cap space to give to extra playmakers who would have given them a quick-game option outside of Jefferson or Cook but last year 18 teams spent more on the receiver position than the Vikings. The only additions onto the 2019 unit came when they signed Tajae Sharpe and drafted fifth-round punt returner KJ Osborn. During the season they opted for Bisi Johnson and Chad Beebe as the No. 3 and 4 receivers. Smith Jr. essentially became the team’s third option with 30 receptions as the Vikings played the lowest amount of three-receiver sets in the NFL, per SharpFootballStats.

Adding even one more speedster might give the Vikings an opportunity to be more versatile in their personnel groupings and the mix between wide zone play-actions and quick game throws. During Mike Zimmer’s tenure, the best year for third receivers came in 2016 when Patterson grabbed 52 passes. Since then, third receivers have totaled 20 (Treadwell), 35 (Treadwell), 31 (Johnson) and 20 (Beebe) receptions.

There’s also the matter of the offensive line.

Under pressure last season Cousins was pressured fourth most in the NFL and had a 72.0 rating, 17th. The Vikings’ pass protection graded 29th by Pro Football Focus.

While some of Cousins’s pressures and sacks belong on his shoulders (Cousins had the sixth most sacks in which he held the ball for more than 2.5 seconds), the Vikings also did not build their offensive line with Cousins’s shortcomings in mind.

Way back when Gary Kubiak was an offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos, they famously had an undersized, athletic line that dominated the trenches in front of Terrell Davis. The Vikings have gone the undersized, athletic route in recent years and struggled to protect their quarterback.

“We’ve always thought of zone offenses and you need a little more nimble [offensive line], they have to move, they have to reach and stuff like that, well you talk about the Broncos offensive line but look at the quarterback they had… what type of player was he?” Galina said. “If you got interior pressure, John Elway is an athlete man. That’s not the case with Cousins. It’s not the case with any of these guys they’re putting in this offense these days.”

The majority of the pressure in recent years has come up the middle.



Again that’s partly on the lack of investment at guard and partly the fact that Cousins does not escape very often. They are making things harder on each other. But one of those things can be changed and the other cannot.

Galina again uses a Saints comparison.

“The quarterback is not set up for not having those type of people inside,” he said. “Look at Sean Payton in the early years and how they built that team with two guards, Jahri Evans and Carl Nicks, two big guards…that was the whole plan early in [Brees’s Saints] career is that we’re not going to allow interior pressure because we’re not going to have a tall quarterback, we’re not going to have someone who’s very mobile. That has not been the case for Minnesota because they allow interior pressure. You’re seeing the results.”

In turn, when things are rolling for the Vikings in the run game, they can use play-action rollouts to help the offensive line but when Cook has been stifled, the pressure comes and they simply aren’t as effective.

“If it’s not there and you’re dropping back 100 times a game, you’ve got problems man,” Galina said.

The Vikings will have options at guard this year. They may elect to keep Ezra Cleveland inside. They could spend in free agency or draft another offensive lineman. Whatever the approach, focusing on run blocking and quickness at the position is asking for the same pressure-filled results.

Building on what they have
Even if the Vikings do not throw to Dalvin Cook more, add a playmaking No. 3 receiver or get better guard play, there are still ways to push the boundaries with the quick game.

When the Vikings did get the ball out fast, they were downright terrific. Cousins had a 116.5 rating when throwing in under 2.5 seconds (per PFF), which was only behind Aaron Rodgers, Ryan Tannehill and Patrick Mahomes. But he ranked 23rd of 29 QBs with at least 350 dropbacks in percentage of throws under 2.5 seconds.

“When I think of modern, efficient NFL offenses, specifically with the pass game, is the ability for the quarterback to throw the ball on time at the top of his drop to the first or second read in his progression,” said Bobby Peters, a high school coach in the Chicago area and author of multiple books studying recent NFL offenses. “The successful ones are able to get the ball out to the first or second read in the progression, limit the thinking for the quarterback, limit the amount of time the offensive line has to pass protect.”

While the system does call for bootlegs and rollouts that sometimes take three or four seconds, Ryan Tannehill and 49ers QB Nick Mullens were both in the top 10 in throws under 2.5 seconds. In 2019, Jimmy Garoppolo had the third highest rate of such passes.

Peters points to the additions Matt LaFleur and the Packers made to the traditionally-successful Kubiak offense. LaFleur was a QBs coach under Gary Kubiak in Houston. He wasn’t shy about finding clever ways to push the ball to star receiver Davante Adams, who was targeted 149 times in just 14 games.

“What they do in the dropback game to create easy reads for a Hall of Fame quarterback has been pretty fun to study,” Peters said. “One of the ways they do it is they run a ‘lookie option’ route. Imagine a 2x2 formation, the inside receiver that will almost always be Davante Adams, he’s running the ‘lookie’ route.”

In throwing to Jefferson on passes that traveled less than 10 yards, Cousins completed 82% of his throws for 7.6 yards per attempt.

One of the areas that an improved quick game in dropback situations can benefit the Vikings is on third downs, especially when opponents plan to take away Jefferson and Thielen.

Peters says that your favorite broadcaster who loses his mind after a third down pass is caught short of the sticks probably isn’t justified — in fact throwing short of the sticks works. However, that’s only if the throws are going to routes that are designed to gain yards after catch not to checkdowns because nobody is open. Setting up plays that focus on third down YAC can be a great way to get your best player the ball against defenses that are guarding against deeper routes.

“A common theme going back to when I started studying offenses, one of my biggest takeaways is that third-and-medium, even third-and-8 or third-and-10, the ability for a quick-game concept like double slants or ‘lookie’ can be efficient,” Peters says.

“A lot of coaches think ‘OK it’s third down, I have to max protect, push the ball downfield, I have to run dagger and do these different things to get the ball downfield,’ when in reality the quick game is very efficient on those down and distances….you’re minimizing the pass rush, you’re taking away thinking from your quarterback and he doesn’t have to hold onto the ball and even the great NFL quarterbacks, the longer they hold the ball the more likely they are to make a mistake.”

The Vikings were 16th in third down percentage last year and only converted one-third of third downs with more than seven yards to go. If you already guessed that the final four teams playing on championship weekend were in the top 10, you’re right. Improving that mark should be a top priority for Kubiak.

The bottom line
If you felt like the Vikings had a very good offense last season but there was room for improvement, it appears you were right. But the problems were not unsolvable. Using the passing game to set up the run more often, improving personnel at guard/WR3 and emphasizing quick game passes that isolate playmakers one-on-one with defenders would each appear to add percentage points to the Vikings’ odds of being a great offense without fundamentally changing what they do best. So the path is there for Klint Kubiak to do exactly what he said and avoid being rigid.

The extremes of the Vikings’ offense have been well-documented. Since Gary Kubiak started helping Kevin Stefanski craft the team’s offense in 2019, the Vikings have used three-wide-receiver sets less than 30% of the time. For reference, only six teams last season were below 50%, and the Vikings were in last by 9% — 116 fewer snaps than Tennessee, who came in 31st. (One of those six teams was the Arizona Cardinals, who were only low on 3-WR sets because they ran 4-WR sets so often.)

Among non-playoff teams — aka, teams without the luxury of sitting on many fourth-quarter leads — only the Cardinals and Patriots rushed the ball more than the Vikings, and they had mobile quarterbacks that carried it over 130 times each. Minnesota rushed it the most in the league on second-and-short and the fifth-most on second-and-long instead of taking shots with their two elite receivers. Dalvin Cook ended the year with more touches per game than Derrick Henry.

It was hard to complain about the Vikings’ methodology in 2019 when they had a better defense and won 10 games, but it was frustrating to see little adaptation in 2020 as losses mounted. For what it’s worth, Kubiak has worked on coaching staffs outside of his father’s influence for more years than he’s worked with him. He learned the Air Raid offense during his time in the Big 12 with Texas A&M and later Kansas. He also picked up Norv Turner’s Air Coryell in 2014 during his first stint with the Vikings.

Four offensive systems outside the family playbook. An 0-12 season at Kansas. An interception off Case Keenum, kept alive today in Cleveland by Kevin Stefanski.

We also know that Mike Zimmer loves the current scheme and believes it behooves Cousins to emphasize the run game and play-action opportunities. So no, the Vikings aren’t becoming an Air Raid team under Klint Kubiak, and his close relationship with his father will almost ensure some level of continuity to what the Vikings have been running.

The most sensible adjustment is a higher frequency of three-receiver sets that puts more downfield weapons at Cousins’ disposal and gives the offense more explosive potential. Let’s take a look at how this realistic tweak could play out.

Opening the field on second and third down

The league average for three-receivers sets was 60% last season, and the Vikings were the clear outlier at 29%. Climbing halfway to the league average would put them about where Kevin Stefanski had the Browns last year at 44%, and it’s safe to say things worked out nicely for Cleveland. That’s also the same percentage as Kyle Shanahan with the 49ers, who made the Super Bowl with a wide zone scheme the year prior.

The best way for the Vikings to recalibrate the percentages would be to steal from their “12” personnel sets last year (one back, two tight ends), which Minnesota ran 22% of the time. It would be preferable to pull from that grouping rather than “21” (two backs, one tight end) because good things happened last year when C.J. Ham was on the field. The Vikings passed it 2.6 yards further per attempt (10.5 vs. 7.9) in “21” versus “12,” and they rushed it a full yard better (5.2 versus 4.2).

Moving to more “11” personnel this season means less Tyler Conklin, more whoever-your-WR3-is. That could be a Keelan Cole-type player in free agency, a mid-round draft pick or a first-round splash. Who knows. No offense to Conklin, but there will be more big-play possibilities with a true receiver on the field in those instances.

Even on third down last year, the Vikings used three wide receivers 20% below the league average at 56%. Getting to the league average of 76% would only require about three additional plays per game. Achieving league average “11” personnel on second down — which the Vikings rarely did last year — would require an extra five plays per game with a third receiver. Total, we’ve added eight more plays per game with three receivers.

Got all that?

If the Vikings stick to their normal 60ish% pass rate in those situations and throw it five out of those eight times per game, that gives them 80 more throws over the course of the season where Jefferson, Thielen or third-receiver-du-jour are all available options. That doesn’t necessarily mean 80 additional passes than last year — just 80 more passes with better athletes at Cousins’ disposal.

If that third wide receiver is Chad Beebe again, the Vikings would seemingly be limiting their offensive ceiling. Naturally, more passing to more receivers becomes more appealing if the Vikings’ select a receiver high in the draft; someone like Devonta Smith, who analyst Daniel Jeremiah mocked to the Vikings. Chris Trapasso joined Matthew Coller on Monday’s Purple Insider Podcast and laid out what a game-changer Smith could be.

“I think DeVonta Smith would move the needle more than any other Vikings draft pick in 2021, 2022, 2023,” Trapasso said. “You could draft Vera-Tucker, you’d have a good guard and maybe Dalvin Cook is happy but.. a lot of the good offenses have a litany of weapons. You could say let’s wait until the third or fourth round for a wide receiver but a first-round receiver in DeVonta Smith would be more impactful on a week-to-week basis and a yearly basis for the Vikings than any edge rusher and any interior blocker or offensive tackle.”

More dropbacks with subpar protection

There’s potentially a negative side to this change that could leave Cousins more vulnerable than he already is to pressure.

Cousins’ sack rate, in Captain Obvious fashion, correlates strongly with how good his offensive line is at pass blocking. In 2015-16 — his first two years as a starter — Washington had lines that ranked seventh and 15th in pass blocking, per Pro Football Focus, and Cousins had a pleasantly low sack rate of 4.1%. In the four years since, his lines have graded 26th of worse in pass blocking, and his sack rate has risen to 6.6% in those seasons. Despite an uptick in mobility last year, Cousins still succumbed to sacks at the 12th-highest rate in the league.

Without marked improvement in protection, more Cousins dropbacks could yield more sacks and a greater risk of fumbles, which remains Cousins’ kryptonite. There is no evidence, though, to suggest that Cousins would suddenly become a reckless thrower of interceptions with greater volume. In his first four seasons as a starter when he had over 540 passes per year, Cousins threw between 10-13 interceptions with a 2.0% interception rate. That’s the same interception rate he posted each of the last two seasons with many fewer throws. Adding another 50 throws to Cousins’ total would translate to one extra interception, three sacks, maybe an extra fumble and 45 throws to your robust receiving corps. At 8.3 yards per attempt, that’s almost 400 yards of offense.




If recent history has shown us anything about Cousins, it’s that trying to handle him with kid gloves isn’t necessarily the way to go, and if anything it makes him play more hesitantly. Cousins is imperfect, but giving him more responsibility will not cause him to short-circuit and should not prevent the Vikings from running an effective play-action game.

Klint Kubiak was one of the primary coaches credited with extracting the extra mobility from Cousins in 2020. If that trend continues under Kubiak’s watch in 2021, we could see more improvisation from the quarterback if he receives more dropbacks.

The disconnect is still the offensive line, which has proven over and over to not be equipped to handle a heavy pass-blocking load. Zimmer and Kubiak loved the run game the last two years, don’t get me wrong, but the Vikings’ decision to lean so heavily on Cook is also a symptom of their blockers’ inability to pass protect.

Opening up the passing game may hang the offensive line, as presently constructed, out to dry. It’s incumbent on the front office to improve it, but also on the coaching staff to recognize that Cousins is A) Accurate under pressure, B) Improving in his mobility, and C) Durable. May as well take the training wheels off the (checks notes) 32-year-old quarterback to try and capitalize on Prime Thielen and Cheap Jefferson. If Cousins can’t handle it, that tells you all you need to know.

Fewer reps for Dalvin

Skewing more toward the passing game will inevitably take the ball out of Cook’s hands, yes. But that shouldn’t be thought of negatively. In a story I wrote at Zone Coverage in January, I broke down Cook’s performance in the second halves of the last two seasons. His yards per carry dropped from 5.6 in first halves to 3.9 in second halves, in large part because of nagging injuries he tried to play through. Furthermore, he became just the eighth running back in a decade to get 310+ rushes and 40+ catches in a season. All of the previous seven either suffered injuries or precipitous declines the following year.

Taking more off Cook’s plate in September and October should keep him fresher for November and December. The best way to do that is rotating in Alexander Mattison more than they did in 2020, when he strangely saw a decrease in reps, but the other best way is to reduce the hits Cook takes when he’s on the field.

Giving Cook an Aaron Jones-like workload might be more sustainable than asking him to touch the ball 25 times per game again. Jones never received more than 20 carries in a game last year but was hyper-efficient when he got the ball at 5.5 yards per carry. He ended the year with 201 carries and over 1,100 yards. Cook will probably get more work than that, but getting his carry count closer to 200 than 300 might be a smart choice in Klint Kubiak’s first year.