Vikes Throw It Away In Cincinnati - Deflated Ball?

QB Sneaks Were Not Part of That Running Success

One important note, however – the Vikings offensive line couldn’t seem to win in power-only situations, like runs up the middle in short yardage. The Vikings were 3-of-8 when running the ball in short yardage, including the two failed sneaks in overtime.

They had difficulty getting significant push up front, particularly in the middle. The final sneak also involved a bobbled snap, which doesn’t help.

This has invited some questions about the Vikings’ approach to short yardage. These questions have ranged from their decision to sneak the ball, their decision to use the well-publicized “tush push” sneak, their decision to make Brandon Powell a pusher and so on.

In the abstract, a sneak is smart. It’s the highest-percentage play in that situation when compared to standard runs and any type of dropback pass. But there’s some significant selection bias at play. The data on quarterback sneaks can only, by the very nature of reality, represent plays the coaches and quarterbacks choose to sneak.


Data from Sports Info Solutions, 2015-2019 (pre-Tush Push)

Those plays are different from many other short-yardage situations in two key ways: first, in those situations, the line to gain is – often significantly – less than a yard to go. Second, the quarterback often has an open gap on one side of the center. Before the Tush Push gained popularity, teams would often give their quarterback the option to check into a sneak in those situations depending on the defensive front.

Now, often, the Tush Push is the play. When players line up behind the quarterback, the defense is alerted to fill all the gaps and also prepare to go over the top with a linebacker or a safety.

While the first condition, a shorter short-yardage play, was satisfied in both the Vikings’ overtime sneak attempts, the second was not. In both situations, even before Powell motioned in to push Mullens, both A gaps were occupied by Bengals defenders.

To the Vikings’ credit, they gained yardage on the first attempt. A repeat of that first attempt would have converted. That’s not what happened. Bengals defensive tackle Zach Carter timed his jump perfectly and was the first player on either side of the ball to get off the line, allowing him to get push on center Garrett Bradbury off the snap and disrupting the exchange.

Attempting to push the 210-pound Nick Mullens was 181-pound Brandon Powell, the second-lightest skill position player on the Vikings roster. As O’Connell said after the game, Powell was in that position because the Vikings were in “11 personnel”, or their three-receiver grouping.




The Vikings' quarterback sneaks on third and fourth down, respectively. Note the A Gaps

They didn’t want to substitute players because that would give the Bengals the right and opportunity to sub in a heavier defensive group. There are some problems with this explanation, at least from my view. The first is that the Vikings were running a three-receiver set into a base defense on third down, not a nickel defense.

The Bengals had four linemen (Myles Murphy, B.J. Hill, Zach Carter and Joseph Ossai) on the line of scrimmage, with linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither joining them. The two other linebackers (Logan Wilson and Germaine Pratt) were off the ball close to the line of scrimmage and Mike Hilton was moonlighting as a safety, as he often does. Dax Hill was the other safety while the two other defensive backs were Chidobe Awuzie and D.J. Turner II.

That already meant the Vikings were at a size and personnel disadvantage for the run. A second problem comes from the fact that one is not forced into putting Powell into that situation with that personnel on the field.

The Vikings were clearly attempting to surprise in some capacity with the sneak (in a situation that didn’t look likely to surprise given the stuffed A gaps), meaning they couldn’t put Hockenson behind Mullens or walk Chandler up to the quarterback. That’s overthinking things, but it would be better to put a much stronger and slightly larger Jefferson behind Mullens despite his star status.

The Bengals did substitute between third and fourth down, primarily to get their backup edge rushers off the field in favor of Hendrickson and Hubbard, so it’s not as if the Vikings were imitating a no-huddle, forcing the Bengals into the personnel they had already deployed onto the field.

It’s difficult to understand this line of thinking – the Vikings were already light against the Bengals based on personnel and didn’t want to substitute into a heavier package in case the Bengals counter-substituted. But in all likelihood, that exchange would have resulted in a neutral situation, rather than negative, in terms of matchups.

Having Powell attempt to match the push of a linebacker like Wilson seems fruitless. The comparison of quarterback sneaks to the Tush Push outside of the Eagles doesn’t make much sense either. In early November, CBS ran the numbers on the Tush Push when run by the other 31 NFL teams and found that it was successful on 72.7 percent of attempts.

The Eagles, on the other hand, have converted over 90 percent of their quarterback push sneaks and one of their two failures was on 3rd and 2. With just one yard to go, they convert over 95 percent of their attempts.

The push has a lower success rate than a typical quarterback sneak, which converts at a rate of 82.8 percent – and tends to occur when the conditions above are satisfied. Faced with that lower success rate, the Vikings did not need to barrel in blindly with a play where they set themselves behind with their personnel and their execution.

As O’Connell explained after the game, “Any time you are inside of four or five inches, I don’t want to turn around and hand off the ball.”

There is some sense to that – though they should be a little more comfortable with that concept – but they shouldn’t overthink it. When everyone knows that a run is coming in, they should get into running personnel when they run the ball without the fear that the other team might do the same.

Regardless, it might be a bit much to spend this much time – and digital ink – on a pair of plays that should have been unnecessary.

To say that teams usually win the type of game that the Minnesota Vikings played against the Cincinnati Bengals would be a massive understatement. Per ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, the Vikings had won 84 straight games when leading by 14 points in the fourth quarter. Their last loss came in 1993 and overall they have won 97.7% of those games. On Saturday afternoon the Bengals trailed 17-3 when the fourth quarter began. When the dust settled, Cincinnati bucked history by winning 27-24 and delivered a roundhouse kick to the face to the Vikings’ playoff chances.

The most notable Oh No in Ohio moment came in overtime when the Vikings failed two straight QB sneaks on third and fourth down at the Cincinnati 42-yard line to give the ball back to the Bengals. Jake Browning then put the Vikings away with a 44-yard completion to receiver Tyler Boyd that set up the winning field goal.

Naturally the sneaks became the main focus of fans on social media following the game, so much so that we have to go through the layers. First, why head coach Kevin O’Connell did not elect to run the ball with Ty Chandler, who had a career game with 132 yards.

“I think anytime you're inside of a couple of feet, and then looking at about four or five inches there, we don't really want to have to turn around and extend the ball and hand off another ball,” O’Connell said after the crushing loss. “I trust our guys in that moment to execute with a push right there.”

Per CBS Sports, quarterback sneaks have been successful 85.9 percent of the time on third or fourth-and-1 since 2017, while all other plays have converted 69.1 percent of the time in those situations.

OK but the execution of the sneak was particularly odd. The Vikings used undersized receiver Brandon Powell to execute the “tush push” from behind quarterback Nick Mullens. O’Connell’s explanation was short but he seemed to indicate that Powell was out there to keep the opponent’s personnel grouping on the field. If they have lighter players i.e. corners/safeties then they can’t load up with big people to stop the push.

“We (were) trying to keep them out (there) if we could,” he said.

But wait, there’s more.

After the first push O’Connell was already preparing his first down call because he thought the sneak worked. In overtime the refs can automatically review plays, which the Vikings’ head coach was told they did despite a replay appearing that Mullens had crossed the first down line.

“I was told they did [review the first sneak],” O’Connell said. “I was getting some information from the guys up top. If they told me they didn't look at it. I was going to take the time out, but I was told that they did look at it. The guys upstairs were still saying it just would have come down to that point if there was the visual evidence. I think the guys up top were looking at their view of it looking down, and seeing Nick's (Mullens’) second effort there. I started calling a first-and-10 play, but the side judge on the other side must have had him short.”

And as such does, the failed tush push of 2023 will forever be remembered as the play that knocked the Vikings out of the playoff race as if Nate Poole had come a few weeks early. Or it will be completely forgotten because they make the postseason. We’ll see what happens there. Either way, Saturday’s Queen City Calamity gets thrown on the pile of absolutely shocking losses at the end of games this season.

Let’s start with the quarterback sneak.

Facing a third-and-1 or fourth-and-1, NFL teams have tried the play 175 times this season, according to TruMedia. It has been successful 80 percent of the time.

This season, the Minnesota Vikings had tried QB sneaks eight times on third- or fourth-and-1 before Saturday afternoon. Their conversion rate was 87.5 percent, higher than the league average.

“We’ve been pretty successful with the sneak play,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said Monday, “and pretty successful in those short-yardage situations this year.”

The numbers, though, do not lessen the sting of Saturday’s loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Especially given Minnesota’s final two offensive plays in overtime.

“It means absolutely nothing when you don’t get it done in that moment,” O’Connell said. “Inevitably, it’s on me.”

A fair sentiment. And, for a head coach in the NFL, the right one. This result does, though, raise a question that has become the subject of much discussion: How many of the Vikings’ recent losses are really on O’Connell?

That the question even exists is a testament to what this Vikings team, flawed from the beginning, has accomplished.

Let’s briefly revisit the team’s preseason outlook. Factoring in the challenging schedule, the hiring of defensive coordinator Brian Flores and a more experienced offense under O’Connell, an optimistic viewpoint formed: This Vikings team should be better than last year’s, but the record might not show it.

Minnesota’s brass did not double down on aging veterans. It did not review its 13-4 record from 2022, featuring 11 one-score victories, and think: Add a little seasoning, and we’ll be on our way. Instead, continuing its “competitive rebuild” roster-building approach, which has always had its eyes on 2024 and beyond, the Vikings believed in reshuffling the deck and relying on youth. Logically, it felt as if the Vikings could vie for an NFC North title and still have a puncher’s chance in the playoffs.

Then superstar wide receiver Justin Jefferson strained his hamstring. At the time, the Vikings were 1-4. Two weeks later, quarterback Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles. Arguably the team’s two best players would be absent. Hopes and expectations for the season went down the toilet, as evidenced by the dejected locker room in Green Bay following the victory.

Having relevant divisional games to end the season? Making the playoffs? These felt like pipe dreams...

O’Connell also had a legitimate rationale for his lack of aggressiveness late in the fourth quarter against the Chicago Bears in Week 12, as well as his decision to use tempo on the Vikings’ final drive in Week 3 against the Los Angeles Chargers. A lack of trust in Dobbs played a role in the former amid Dobbs’ four-interception outing, and eliminating the chance for the Chargers to substitute personnel factored into the latter. In general, the Vikings average more air yards per attempt (a signal of downfield aggression) in the fourth quarter than in any other quarter in the game.

This is not to say that O’Connell cannot grow from Saturday’s experience. After the Vikings’ Week 12 loss at home, O’Connell talked about “fighting that battle” between being aggressive and reckless. Following the Week 3 loss, he admitted the finish was “purely on me trying to be too aggressive in that moment.”

Just like winning papers over problems, losses magnify these decisions. Playing with a backup quarterback decreases the overall margin for error. Even if you’re 7-7 in a season where 7-7 seemed possible at full strength. Even if two failed conversions, on high-probability calls, occur in a game where a Nick Mullens-led offense finishes as the third most successful down-to-down offensive performance that week.

At the start of the fourth quarter of the Minnesota Vikings’ Week 15 game against the Cincinnati Bengals, the NFL Network broadcast displayed the ultimate curse for Minnesota’s defense. They put up a graphic announcing that the defense hadn’t allowed a TD in 166 minutes. So, of course, the Vikings proceeded to allow a TD immediately as we all learned that:



Tee Higgins‘ score opened the floodgates, and the Bengals scored TDs on each of their final three drives in regulation to tie the game before winning on a field goal in overtime.

It should be noted that the Vikings held the Bengals to just three points in the opening three quarters, so the defensive performance was not all bad. But the failures in the fourth quarter and overtime can provide some valuable information. Hopefully, the Vikings use that to button up some issues in the defense before facing the Detroit Lions this week.

Let’s go to the tape to see how the Bengals were able to have success.

CONCLUSION

The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Minnesota Vikings from a talent and scheme perspective in Week 15. Cincinnati found an exploit in Minnesota’s generally very good pass coverage by throwing dig routes, and Browning processed excellently to find open receivers through underneath zones.

Talent also shone through on the Bengals side, with no better example than Higgins’ incredible catch to tie the game. Mixon also outplayed Pace and Metellus, stonewalling them in pass protection and running over Pace for a TD. Finally, an unlikely hero, Browning, played an excellent game in the win.

The Vikings will need to work to shore up weaknesses in their zone coverages, and the talent on the field will need to work to improve as well. In particular, jump balls appear to have been an issue for the Vikings secondary, especially in the New Orleans Saints, Denver Broncos, and Bengals games. At this point in the season, that issue might be something that needs to wait for growth from young players or additional talent over the offseason.