Good Enough vs Dominance

Man Campbell has noted your advice and he said, "f*ck that, I'm Man Campbell dammit!"

Belichick used to run up the score and it didn't seem to prevent him from winning Super Bowls. It's been described as playing to a standard not playing down to an opponent. I am a believer in the idea of never taking your foot off the gas - I lost count years ago of how many times I'd watched teams take a big lead and then relax and let the other team back into it. And our Vikings have already done that this year. The Lions look like contenders in part because they play like contenders not "nice guys playing it cautious and safe."

At the same time I'm not getting into some Reignman -wet-your-pants about how many points you scored stuff. This team has a weak back end and that's it's achilles heel. It's getting more out of a guy at qb who's been sh*t on toast for 6 years than it has a right to, and making things work ok on offense despite an interior oline that is a marshmallow. The inability to run is going to be an issue come playoff time, along with that weak secondary. I don't see this team being strong enough to compete past the divisional round but it can win a wild card especially if it's against a team from the NFC South.

As for fans having expectations, well my pre-season expectation was 6-7 wins so this is all gravy. The team still has too many issues to be a serious contender so I don't have any expectations beyond enjoying the games every week.

When the topic of "Good Enough vs Dominance" comes up, the one statistic that we can point to for analytical/dicussion purposes is Point Differential. We've often had this discussion during the Cousins era - and especially in 2022 - regarding point differential and how much significance that statistic tells us about who will/won't compete for deep postseason runs. In 2022, the Vikings had a great Regular Season record at 13-4, but as we all know, they won a bunch of those games by a single possession and actually had a negative point differential of -3, which many of us argued was a clear indication that their record was inflated, and they weren't a contender - that ended up being the case when they lost to Daniel Jones and the Giants in Rd 1.

Point Differential - Super Bowl Precursor?
But is there any statistical evidence that point differential is any indication of contending / pretending teams? I would argue that "yes", there is.

Here is a table that lists the 20 teams involved in the last 10 Super Bowls with their point differential and rank for that season:



One thing that immediately stands out is that all 20 teams ranked in the Top 10 for that season. In fact, 15 of the 20 (75%) were in Top 5, and only the 2015 Broncos had a differential of less than +84. There were only 4 instances (20%) of teams making it to the Super Bowl with a differential of less than +100.

Looking at this, it's not unreasonable to suggest that "dominating" your opponents (ie, outscoring them by wide margins) and creating a large point differential does correlate to making deep postseason runs, including getting to the Super Bowl.

It's Not Good to be King
Another conclusion from the table is that the #1 ranked team in terms of point differential doesn't always get to the Super Bowl. In fact, there were only 4 teams (20%) that made it to the Super over the last 10 seasons that had the best point differential, and only 2 of them won it all (2016 Patriots and 2017 Eagles). The "sweet spot" seems to be anywhere between 3rd-5th best: dominating opponents, but not excessively...

...and that plays to Jor-El's last point about Campbell running up the score on outclassed opponents like the Jags. The Lions are ranked #1 in point differential thru Week 11 at +159 with the next team, Buffalo, at +106. Recent historical evidence suggests that if Detroit continues to run up scores and lead the NFL in point differential, they actually would only have a 1-in-5 chance to make it to the Super Bowl, so perhaps Campbell might want to stop biting kneecaps, and just nibble on them instead.

2024 Top 10 Point Differentials
So if being in the Top 10 - and really the Top 5 - in Regular Season point differential is a strong indication of which teams are contenders to reach the Super Bowl, where does everyone stand thru Week 11 of the 2024 season? Here is a table that lists out the Top 10 teams thru Week 11:



Many fans and pundits alike have suggested that the NFC (beyond Detroit) is "wide open", and this table also suggests that, as the NFC only has 4 of the Top 10 teams in point differential this season. 

And the Vikings? They are right there in the Top 5, which does suggest they could contend for a deep postseason run that results in an appearance in the Super Bowl, along with the Lions, Bills, Eagles and Chargers. 

Vikings and Bills in Super Bowl LIX in the Superdome? 0-4 vs 0-4? It's not as far-fetched as it may seem...

I like your take, though I was probably more around 8 wins. We all knew the defense would be good. Heck, I have a PPA on a top 5 defense, and I wasn't the only one. 

My problem though is that expectations HAVE changed (and after our start, that is reasonable). Yes I agree that Hooker should have seen some more reps. I said as much in the game thread. Campbell had someone hurt when that happened as well.  But, this isn't a question of how Detroit handles wins, it's weather or not we're playing to the right standard. The offense in particular has been lagging. I know some of that is on Darnold, but KOC deserves his fair share of criticism for that too. And the KOC stuff IS correctable.


So at this point, I think it's fair to hold this team to a higher standard. We didn't think they would be this good back in July, but they are... and with a few tweaks, a deep playoff run in what should have been a transition season is entirely possible.  Instead, it looks like we're getting worse as the season wears on. I don't have to be Reignman the immortal to say that I think that is unacceptable. 

Well I do bet on football so ... But my take was mostly about Darnold. I figured he'd mostly be Sam Dingbat but he's been Sam Darngood enough to make the season (and the message board) a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.

Great topic!

To me this comes down to Kevin O'Connell. In the macro he's awesome in that his Teams are very good at winning close games. Winning in a Sport designed for parity is tough. Perpetually doing it without having a consistently Top 10 QB is even tougher. Very Mike Tomlin-esque. That speaks to leadership, attention to detail and understanding situational football.

But we have to consider the micro also. How does O'Connell coach his Teams to wins? By hitting on enough explosive plays in the intermediate and deep level of the field. Almost exclusively via throwing the ball.

Explosives are highly correlated with winning. But they are a double edge sword. When you are too reliant on big plays you don't tend to have consistency with taking what the Defense gives you and methodically moving the ball down the field, which chews up the clock and keeps your Defense fresh.

Explosives also come with higher risk for negative plays, be it sacks, holds, interceptions or strip sacks.

Minnesota’s Offense disappears a lot when they don't hit on their explosive plays. And when they have negative plays. There are two antidotes for this: running the ball and Quick Game.

After 2 1/2 years, 4 RBs and numerous changes at Guard the Vikings still can't run the ball with any consistency. Even when they had their best 5 Run Blocking O-Linemen in. And especially on 3rd and 4th and Short distances. Despite cycling through every run blocking scheme known to man.

Quick Game helps. But Teams that can't run the ball with any consistency don't tend to be true Superbowl Contenders. The Chiefs lean much more into the run once the Playoffs start. The Bills turned their Offense around last year after switching OCs and running the ball more. The Eagles and Ravens are run-first Teams. The Lions can seemingly run the ball down anyone's throats. The 9ers have long been a Team predicated on a strong running game.

The Vikings can't blow anyone out because they can't run the ball and simply won't consistently stick with short passes to move the chains. Which leads to having too many empty drives and three and outs. And leads to close games even against inferior opponents.

But they win most of those games. A solid chunk of fans here don't get why a solid chunk of us aren't sunshine and rainbows about 8-2. They don't get that it's the how of Minnesota getting there that we're focused on. In the Playoffs good Defenses focus on taking away what you do best. Force you to play 'left handed' as it were. The Vikings are already overly dependent on plays that are very hit and miss. And when the explosives dry up and the Offense can't run the ball or remain disciplined enough to dink and dunk it down the field it will spell the end of a pretty damn fun ride.

This is not a true Contender. If McCarthy pans out they will be close. Kwesi and Kevin must figure out how to get the right personnel and the right scheme to establish an effective running game. Until they do I don't see this Team as a legit threat to win it all unless JJ quickly becomes a Top 5 QB.

Oh boy, this might be the only fan base in the entire NFL that doesn't understand something as simple as how margin of victory is correlated to success. It's almost embarrassing. There's so much wrong in this thread, and even from people who have played football past 3rd grade. There's some right too, so good on those guys for having above average pattern recognition ability. Lets fix some of the wrong shall we?

As I've been pointing out all over the place lately, statistically that's just not true. It's confirmation bias. The blowouts are boring and you forget them, the close games are exciting and more memorable. It might be "full of teams that win games by small margins", but do you know what we call those teams? Mediocre. And do you know what the handful of Super Bowl contenders are doing? Winning by larger margins, frequently. What's our goal here?

Percentage of wins:

       one score     10+        17+        20+
NFL      50.8%      23.8%      13.4%      10.0%         (since 2002)
KOC      78.6%      13.6%       4.5%       4.5%         <--- not championship caliber
KOC rank  #31         #22        #27        #25
best     20.0% SAF  54.5% SAF  36.4% SAF  29.5% BUF     (since 2022) Hey look, teams that are always in the Super Bowl conversation
worst    83.3% IND   6.7% IND   2.2% IND   0.0% 3 teams (since 2022) Hey look, dumpster fires

And how many of those one score games, NFL and KOC, were because the team that was down by double digits scored some garbage points at the end? The final score might suggest a lot of games are close, but anyone who has watched football for long enough should understand that the team with a big lead tends to coast in the 4th quarter with prevent defense, and run run run punt.

That was Phil, who has become a bit of a KOC-stan recently. It wasn't that long ago when even Phil was complaining about the lack of blowouts. And he's wrong about the fans being dissatisfied about the Vikings not blowing teams out every week, it's the fact that they can't even do it once in awhile. Until the opener against the Giants when we won 28-3, a well known fact was how the Vikings hadn't beaten anyone by 17+ since 2019, and was in fact the longest drought in the NFL. The other 31 teams, even the bad ones, all had at least 2 in that time period. How many playoff games did the Vikings win in that span?

Not really. We've now only had 2 17+ point wins since 2019, and we've played some really bad teams lately.

I disagree. I think it's good for the Lions. Dan understands the city he's coaching in. You have to remember, the Lions have been NFL doormats for how many decades? They were laughing stocks when they went 0-16 in 2008. They've set all kinds of records for losing, and went a long time without winning a playoff game. Dan is merely exercising some demons for Detroit. Ain't nobody laughing now. To be fair, KOC also understands the city he's coaching in. A city that's content with mediocrity, and a fan base that's literally arguing AGAINST blowing teams out. A fan base that has seen a lot of last second losses and heartbreak. I mean FFS people. How can this fan base, of all fan bases, argue in favor of close games? Can't lose heartbreakers when you're blowing someone out.

Maybe, but Dan is sending a message to his players and the rest of the league. They're not screwing around this year, they're taking care of business. They had a big lead in the NFCCG and they took their foot off the gas. They're setting the mindset that that isn't going to happen again. They're also getting inside the heads of opponents before they play them. The Colts are crapping their pants right now more than they would if they were playing anyone else. How many games did the '85 Bears win before they even took the field? Exactly!

Well we can't all be championship mindset material.

Sounds like more evidence to me ... b-b-but the 2007 Giants!

Well most of the #1 point differential teams that didn't make it to the Super Bowl were eliminated by a top 5 team lol. None of them were eliminated by Jacksonville or Carolina. Daniel Jones wasn't even eliminated by the Vikings and their -3 point differential. Remember that year? B-b-but it doesn't matter how much you win by.

And which direction are they trending? Since week 4 they're 5-2 with just a +19 differential, which is just 13th in that time frame. The Lions are #1 with 150, which is 76 points higher than #2 Washington. If you polled NFL fans, which team would they say is more likely to win the Super Bowl, Lions or Vikings? And what clue do you think makes them lean heavily in that direction? Yeah probably point differential, and why? Because they're blowing teams out.



Is he though? I think you're just looking at the final scores, and not the context of how they got to the close game. When you think about that 31-29 Packers game, it was only a close game because KOC couldn't finish it. And that Bears game last year comes to mind, where we just need one first down to ice it, but he runs Mattison up the middle twice, punts it back, and gets daggered by Justin Fields. I'm constantly asking in game threads, has KOC ever closed out a game on offense? I remember a lot of 3-n-outs, and all the close games coming down to Flores making a stop. I might do a deeper dive on this.



My goodness man, I haven't seen someone self own themselves this often since Kamala ran for president. And that's remarkable when you consider how often legendsofthenorth and vikingpwr post.

First of all, nobody said you can't win on defense. The argument was about the correlation between the offense picking up first downs, moving the chains, and winning the TOP battle as a means to help your defense. This doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to understand. It's common sense. It doesn't matter how good your defense is if they're on the field 40 minutes a game. If they're only on the field 20 minutes a game, statistically, even a bad defense is going to look good by the sheer lack of attempts the opposing offense is going to get to score. Do I need to show the chart once again?

When NE was averaging 26.1 PPG, what was their avg TOP? What was their 3rd down conversion rate? Average number of first downs? I bet they were all top 5. So lets say Tom Brady was going 3-n-out more often, or not picking up those 1st downs, and as a result they only averaged 23.1 PPG. Do you think the defense is still going to only give up 18.8? Think McFly, think! With the offense not being on the field as much, the defense is going to have more of an opportunity to give up yards and points. See how that works? Simple. It's not baseball where each team gets a fair number of at-bats, there's only a finite amount of time in football.

The first two years I think the dominance cocern was valid for KOC.
This year though? The Vikings are have an average lead of 5.8 points every time they get the ball on offense and increase that lead to 8.3 when turning it over to the D. Both of those numbers are 2nd best behind the Lions.

Seems pretty dominant to me.