Week 12 - Pats @ Vikes Support Group

Key matchup on offense

Trent Brown and Yodny Cajuste versus Danielle Hunter and Za’Darius Smith.

This is a bad time for the Patriots, who have Marcus Cannon on IR, to have concerns at offensive tackle. The Pats are up against the league’s best pass-rushing duo, one that has combined for 96 pressures this season and the only pair that has topped Matthew Judon and Deatrich Wise’s total of 94.

To make matters worse, New England’s Mac Jones has been the worst quarterback in the league this season when pressured, per expected points added. If he constantly has Hunter and Smith in his face, that would be a bad sign for an offense that is already disjointed. The Patriots surrendered six sacks to the Jets last week and now face an even better pass rush.

Key matchup on defense

Judon and Wise versus Blake Brandel and Brian O’Neill.

Maybe it would be more fun to examine how the Pats will try to cover Justin Jefferson. But this feels like a game that’s going to be won in the trenches, so we’re sticking with the same positional matchups on the other side of the ball.

The Vikings offensive line had been playing great on the outside with O’Neill and left tackle Christian Darrisaw. But after Darrisaw suffered a concussion, the Vikings will face Brandel, a sixth-round pick in 2020 who will be making his first start. That’s an opportunity for Judon to feast.

Minnesota quarterback Kirk Cousins doesn’t get the ball out quickly. He ranks 31st in the percentage of throws that take less than 2.5 seconds (43 percent). Based on EPA per play and yards per attempt, he’s having the worst season of his Minnesota tenure.

But one thing he’s gotten good at is avoiding sacks. The Vikings have allowed the fourth-most pressures in the NFL but surrendered sacks on only 6 percent of dropbacks, a bit better than the league average.

X-factor

Something has to give when the Patriots cross their opponent’s 20. So far this season, they’ve been the second-worst team in the league at scoring touchdowns in the red zone, doing so only 43 percent of the time. But they catch a break this week. The Vikings rank last in the league in red zone defense, surrendering touchdowns 71 percent of the time.

If the Patriots don’t have more red zone success against this team, it could be a long second half of the season.

Stat of the week

33 — The number of negative plays the Patriots have run in the last three games, an astounding feat of futility. And that doesn’t include penalties. Against the Jets, the Patriots had 10 negative plays — six sacks and four running plays that lost yardage. It’s hard to have a successful offense when you’re moving backward that often.

Best-case scenario

The Patriots defense has been great, but its play is easy to discount because the competition has been so bad the last three weeks. It’s near impossible to dominate an offense as much as the Pats did against the Jets last week, but they keep up their success, harassing and frustrating Cousins. The New England offense isn’t good, but Minnesota has a below-average passing defense, and Jones builds off an efficient performance against the Jets. While playing from behind, Cousins makes a boneheaded play, and the Pats sneak out of Minneapolis with a win. The Patriots dance on the plane ride home with a shirtless Jones wearing a bunch of chains.

Worst-case scenario

The nation gets a taste of this Patriots offense before watching them three more times in the next three weeks. And it doesn’t taste very good. Jones is under constant harassment and lives up to his reputation as the league’s worst passer under pressure. The Vikings get out to an early lead (they’re really good on their opening drive), and Jones feels like he has to press to compensate, leading to an interception from Harrison Smith. Meanwhile, the Patriots defense does a lot right, but Jefferson is good enough to make enough plays that it doesn’t matter. Adam Thielen makes a third-down catch to effectively ice the game, then yells at Belichick again, this time celebrating a Thanksgiving night win.