Vikings Offense vs. Panthers Defense
Oct 16, 2021 21:35:46 GMT -6
Funkytown, suncoastvike, and 1 more like this
Post by MidwinterViking on Oct 16, 2021 21:35:46 GMT -6
I’ve been trying to sort out how the Vikings offense will fare against the Carolina Defense. The Vikings offensive prospects have been interesting because I think the solution to the Panthers offense is clear: confuse Darnold or cover DJ Moore for more than 3 seconds and we’ll be fine on D (both things I think we’re capable of).
To try and figure out this matchup, I looked at two questions:
To clarify what I was looking at, I was only curious about the last 1st down. So a 10 play drive that resulted in a punt, I only cared about play 7-10 because plays 1-6 were successful in getting 1st downs to continue a drive. So on that 1st – 3rd of 4th down that failed, what went wrong? I went back and looked at each drive to try and figure out what caused each drive to go odd schedule and assigned a reason that the drive ended. My rule was: whatever got the drive off schedule was at fault. So a sack on 1st down followed by a penalty on 2nd down would be a drive killed by a sack. Since everything after that was trying to catch up. Options were:
- Success: Drive ended in a TD (or FG at the end of a half, or a successful 1st down to end the game)
- Penalty
- Negative Run
- Outplayed: (Nothing really went wrong, the other team just played better and stopped the plays)
- Sack
- Turnover
- Bad Passes: (This includes multiple incompletions and / or pass plays for negative yards)
- Clock: Out of time
- Missed FG: (Only if it would have been a success – i.e. vs. Arizona)
- Short Yardage Fail
- Bad Play: (Fumbled snaps or something off the rails).
So what stopped the Vikings offense vs. how did the panthers Defense get stops?
This seems pretty cut and dry, just like everybody expected. Vikings are killing themselves with penalties, Carolina D Line can’t be stopped. End of story. Just for kicks, I’m going to break this down into a game by game chart for both team. Vikings offense first
Here you see the Vikings drive killing penalties are heavily influenced by the 1st game. This changes the narrative quite a lot in my opinion. It tells me the Vikings have cleaned up the big things and are working on littler things now. The negative run rate ticks up a bit, but it’s hard to say if that’s the Brown’s defense or Cooks injury. Carolina’s game by game chart makes it even more interesting:
The Panther’s ability to stop drives fell off a cliff after the 1st three weeks. They ran up a massive number of sacks vs. the Jets and Texans laying new QBs and a very uncharacteristic game on the part of the Saints. And the huge spike in drive killed with bad passes? It’s fair to ask if that’s the Panther’s defense or Jalen Hurts not being able to hit a receiver. Finally, if the Panther’s pass rush isn’t elite, then will they be able to get to Cousins? Looking at the Vikings drives, they haven’t had many killed by sacks (due to a low sack total and the ability to overcome a few of them).
Finally one more for the road. I haven’t decided myself how much this matters. I wanted to split the Panther’s season into with Jaycee Horn and without him.
This is astounding. The opponents’ success rate on drives doubles and the pass rush doesn’t get home. I want to look at this and say the Panther's secondary doesn't have the depth they need without Horn. Or it’s just that the Cowboys offense ran up the score, I can’t decide.
Looking at all of this moved my confidence needs up a bit for the Panther’s game. I don’t think the Panther’s D matches up as well as I did before I started looking at this. The Panthers have only played one game this year (vs. the Saints) that I think would be good enough defensively to slow down the Vikings.
To try and figure out this matchup, I looked at two questions:
- What caused Vikings drives to fail?
- How did Carolina stop their opponents’ drives?
To clarify what I was looking at, I was only curious about the last 1st down. So a 10 play drive that resulted in a punt, I only cared about play 7-10 because plays 1-6 were successful in getting 1st downs to continue a drive. So on that 1st – 3rd of 4th down that failed, what went wrong? I went back and looked at each drive to try and figure out what caused each drive to go odd schedule and assigned a reason that the drive ended. My rule was: whatever got the drive off schedule was at fault. So a sack on 1st down followed by a penalty on 2nd down would be a drive killed by a sack. Since everything after that was trying to catch up. Options were:
- Success: Drive ended in a TD (or FG at the end of a half, or a successful 1st down to end the game)
- Penalty
- Negative Run
- Outplayed: (Nothing really went wrong, the other team just played better and stopped the plays)
- Sack
- Turnover
- Bad Passes: (This includes multiple incompletions and / or pass plays for negative yards)
- Clock: Out of time
- Missed FG: (Only if it would have been a success – i.e. vs. Arizona)
- Short Yardage Fail
- Bad Play: (Fumbled snaps or something off the rails).
So what stopped the Vikings offense vs. how did the panthers Defense get stops?
This seems pretty cut and dry, just like everybody expected. Vikings are killing themselves with penalties, Carolina D Line can’t be stopped. End of story. Just for kicks, I’m going to break this down into a game by game chart for both team. Vikings offense first
Here you see the Vikings drive killing penalties are heavily influenced by the 1st game. This changes the narrative quite a lot in my opinion. It tells me the Vikings have cleaned up the big things and are working on littler things now. The negative run rate ticks up a bit, but it’s hard to say if that’s the Brown’s defense or Cooks injury. Carolina’s game by game chart makes it even more interesting:
The Panther’s ability to stop drives fell off a cliff after the 1st three weeks. They ran up a massive number of sacks vs. the Jets and Texans laying new QBs and a very uncharacteristic game on the part of the Saints. And the huge spike in drive killed with bad passes? It’s fair to ask if that’s the Panther’s defense or Jalen Hurts not being able to hit a receiver. Finally, if the Panther’s pass rush isn’t elite, then will they be able to get to Cousins? Looking at the Vikings drives, they haven’t had many killed by sacks (due to a low sack total and the ability to overcome a few of them).
Finally one more for the road. I haven’t decided myself how much this matters. I wanted to split the Panther’s season into with Jaycee Horn and without him.
This is astounding. The opponents’ success rate on drives doubles and the pass rush doesn’t get home. I want to look at this and say the Panther's secondary doesn't have the depth they need without Horn. Or it’s just that the Cowboys offense ran up the score, I can’t decide.
Looking at all of this moved my confidence needs up a bit for the Panther’s game. I don’t think the Panther’s D matches up as well as I did before I started looking at this. The Panthers have only played one game this year (vs. the Saints) that I think would be good enough defensively to slow down the Vikings.
... and neither is this Chris guy.