Vikings' Liability Heading Into The Postseason?

The miracle season that seems to be Case Keenum’s 2017 could form the basis for the Vikings’ strong performances this year. Ranking seventh in passer rating, eighth in adjusted net yards per attempt and second in ESPN’s QBR, Keenum seems like the major driver to success for an offense that ranks ninth in points per drive this year.

With a top-10 offense and a top-two defense, the Vikings are poised to cause damage in the postseason and possibly be the first team to play the Super Bowl in their home stadium. Historically, it’s not absolutely necessary to carry a top-tier quarterback to win a Super Bowl, but it’s the strongest indicator of success.

Unfortunately for the Vikings, their quarterback may be a paper tiger. There are a lot of signs that his play may not be sustainable and as of late, relies on luck and one-dimensional tactics that can be exploited in the playoffs.

On one hand, it may seem absurd that a quarterback can go an entire season — over 400 passing attempts — with a consistent level of statistical performance and still be fluky. After all, they have to go through a gamut of opponents in a variety of situations, and 400 passes certainly seems like a large enough sample size to iron out any kinks.

Generally, that’s pretty true. Quarterbacks who perform well in the regular season tend to perform well in the postseason and in following years.

But that’s not always the case, and there are signs that Keenum may be another example of a fluke year from a quarterback.

There aren’t a lot of things surface-level statistics will tell us about Keenum’s season that gives us real insight into sustainability. The best indicators of sustainability, like ESPN’s QBR and net yards per attempt (which counts sacks as attempts and sack yardage as negative passing yardage) both like him — in QBR’s case, quite a bit.

But over the final stretch of the season, he’s been playing in a way that should raise eyebrows when digging into deeper statistics.

Excluding the Bears game, his final stretch (since Week 12) has him relying on receivers an inordinate amount for yardage, with 45.5 percent of his yards coming after the catch — 26th of 30 qualifying quarterbacks.

He’s been somewhat reticent to pass the ball deep (ranking 19th in deep passing percentage, per Pro Football Focus) and has been inaccurate when doing so, only hitting his intended target 29.4 percent of the time (ranking 20th).

For reference, Bridgewater – who has long been criticized for his mediocre ability to throw the ball deep — was accurate on 37.5 percent of deep passes in 2015 and hit 40.6 percent of his deep passes in 2014. Keenum’s recent stretch of play includes deep passing that has been worse than what many consider to be the biggest weakness of his backup.

Those two statistics line up with the change in his average depth of target, which has dropped to well below league average. He averaged 7.37 intended air yards since Week 12 (per PFF) while the league average is 8.45 and ranks about 37th of 40 quarterbacks.

Not only that, Keenum’s performance under pressure has dropped, and he ranks 20th in net yards per attempt when under pressure — he had ranked second in the NFL prior to Week 12.

A number of these changes in performance are likely due to regression to the mean, particularly when it comes to performance under pressure. Keenum was leading the league in sack avoidance, with only 4.2 percent of dropbacks under pressure resulting in a sack — twice as good as second place (Philip Rivers) and three times as good as third place (Blake Bortles).

But over the final stretch, he’s fallen below average, ranking 23rd in sack avoidance in snaps under pressure. While it’s true that he has been getting pressured more often, it’s not by an enormous amount; he ranked sixth in pressure rate before Week 12 and second after Week 12. The increase in sacks is largely due to that pressure finally converting, something that was very likely to drop off.

He’s also struggled to throw the ball in the intermediate range. For passes intended to go between 10-19 yards downfield, he’s been averaging 6.08 yards per attempt compared to a league-wide average of 9.86 —a huge dropoff.

Without the ability to complete passes deep or generate yards on intermediate throws, he’s been overly reliant on short passing and after-catch work from stellar receivers in order to get things done.

A YAC-heavy offense isn’t necessarily doom-and-gloom for a team heading to the playoffs. While the three most YAC-dependent offenses lost in the first round of the playoffs last year, the fourth-most YAC-dependent team won the Super Bowl.

Instead, the reliance on after-catch performance is more important because it tells us that the Vikings are no longer relying on Keenum to make explosive plays. The Vikings have had 52 passing plays gain 20-plus yards this year.

Before Week 12, half of the explosive passing plays the Vikings made were on passes traveling 20 yards or more through the air. Only 19.4 percent came on short throws turned into big gains from yards-after-the-catch.

After Week 12, only 25 percent of explosive passing plays came from deep passes — and the other 75 percent came exclusively on short passes that receivers turned into big gains after catching the ball. Unlike in the beginning of the year, there were no intermediate passes that turned into big plays.

Put another way, the Vikings used to rely on deep passes to get big yards. Now, they rely on short passes and after-catch work to get the same yards.

The issue is that Keenum very often will misdiagnose who is open — throwing to receivers well covered instead of open players — or misdiagnose who his first read should be. Very often, he will throw to a route designed to beat man coverage when the defense shows zone — even though the other side of the field has routes meant to beat that coverage. That’s the precise problem with his near-interception against the Bengals up above as well as the final Green Bay example.

There are a number of very good defenses in the NFC playoffs, and four of the Vikings’ five potential opponents are top eight in Football Outsiders’ defensive DVOA. These defenses are unlikely to make the kinds of mistakes that allow quarterbacks to get away with missing finite opportunities or turnover-worthy throws.

The Vikings have a better defense than any of those opponents, so they might be able to weather the storm even if Keenum does have a bad day. Not only that, Keenum is a genuinely better quarterback than his price tag — currently a $1.9 million cap hit — and looks to be a better investment than Foles, who has had to take over for Wentz in Philadelphia.

None of this means the Vikings will fail in the postseason, it just means the path could be more difficult than the surface numbers imply.