Giants vs. Vikings Week 1: What to expect when the Vikings have the ball

What can we expect from the Giants’ new defense against the Vikings’ offense?

The 2024 NFL season is here, and we’re starting off the year with a matchup between the New York Giants and the Minnesota Vikings.

These two teams appeal to be pretty evenly matched heading into the regular season. Both teams have fallen back to Earth hard after playoff campaigns in 2022. And both teams are also very different from the teams that met in the playoffs that year. On the Giants’ side, they’ve completely changed their scheme and philosophy under new defensive coordinator Shane Bowen. On the Vikings side of things, they’re moving on from veteran qurterback Kirk Cousins and going forward this year with Sam Darnold.

We have a hard task this week as we try to forecast what to expect from the Giants’ new-look defense against a Darnold-helmed Vikings offense.

Stats that matter

Note 1: Defensive EPA refers to the average EPA allowed to the other team, so the more negative, the better. A positive defensive EPA means they let the other team be more efficient. Pass and Run Win Rate refers to the win rates for Pass Rush and Pass Block, and Run Stop and Run Block, respectively.

Note 2: These are 2023 stats and have limited value. We need to understand that both of these teams have changed tremendously since January. This data will be more useful and accurate as we go this year.

Pressure Sam Darnold

If there’s one axis around which this game will pivot, it’s that the winner will be whichever team more effectively pressures their opponent into making a mistake.

That places a significant amount of onus on the Giants’ defensive front. Shane Bowen will rely on the Giants’ four-man front to generate pressure on Sam Darnold and do so quickly enough that his secondary doesn’t have to cover for too long. Darnold has a reputation as a quarterback who is significantly affected by pressure, with a high career pressure-to-sack (P2S) rate of 18.2%. He also has a tendency to make bad decisions under pressure, with a high rate of turnover-worthy plays.

The Vikings had one of the best pass protecting offensive lines in the NFL last year, which, when combined with head coach Kevin O’Connell’s play design, could help Darnold. Darnold has historically performed much better outside of the pocket and on play-action than as a traditional drop-back passer. Play-action and half-field reads will likely form the basis to the Vikings’ offensive game plan.

While Darnold has consistently been praised for his arm strength and athleticism as a passer, coaches have quietly questioned his mental processing. They’ve noted that he doesn’t always process the game quickly enough, which can lead to him missing defenders or making bad decisions when stressed. The Vikings will almost certainly try to play to his strengths and limit his exposure to the kind of pressure that will force him to speed up his process.

In response to that, the Giants can’t afford to bite too hard on play-action, while also disguising their coverages well enough to muddy Darnold’s reads.

If they can do that, we’ll likely see the Vikings’ offense spin its wheels and fail to get traction. We could also see “Bad Sam” who holds the ball and gives the Giants’ pass rush plenty of time to get home. Few — if any — teams have invested as heavily in their defensive fronts as the Giants have over the last couple years.

They’ll need that unit to play up to the level of investment to get their season off on the right foot.

The three-headed monster on offense?

The Giants caught something of a break as the Vikings will be without tight end T.J. Hockenson. However, Minnesota remains well-stocked on offense and still boast a three-headed monster. Justin Jefferson has a strong case to be the best receiver in football and demands the defense’s attention at all times. In the backfield is former Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones. Jones is a solid runner as well as a reliable pass catcher out of the backfield.

The big question here will be the health and availability of second-year receiver Jordan Addison, who is looking to build on a productive rookie season. However, Addison is currently (as of this writing) listed as questionable with an ankle injury. He returned to practice this week, but it remains to be seen just how healthy he will be come game time.

Kevin O’Connell will almost certainly look to use his available weapons to create match-ups. Much of his offense is predicated on motion and using play design to create the looks he wants.

We should probably expect the Vikings to probe the Giants’ defense early, testing out Deonte Banks, Dru Phillips, their safeties and linebackers, and whichever cornerback aligns across from Banks.

The Giants’ young secondary will need to have its communication on point. There isn’t really any tape on the Giants’ secondary right now — not only do they have multiple new pieces, but nobody has seen them in Shawn Bowen’s defense. But that’s potentially a double-edged sword, as the Giants have little in Bowen’s defense in live game situations.

As mentioned above, O’Connell will almost certainly look to create quick, easy reads for Sam Darnold. We should expect to see a lot of play-action with Aaron Jones and crossing routes at various levels of the field. The attention (rightfully) paid to Justin Jefferson could create voids elsewhere to be exploited by Addison, Jalen Nailor (though he too is dealing with an ankle injury), or Aaron Jones. Putting defenders in conflict, creating traffic, or scheming numbers advantages on the play side will likely be O’Connell’s preferred methods of attack.

One of the keys to the game will be keeping the ball in Darnold’s hand long enough for the Giants’ front four to beat the Vikings’ pass protection. That’s an obvious observation, but the Giants will need to avoid having to play catch-up in this game. That’ll be easier said than done if the Vikings are able to get one — or more — of their options not named “Justin Jefferson” going.

Eyes on alignment

Kevin O’Connell grew up as a coach under Jay Gruden and Sean McVay and it shows in his play design.

The Vikings might not play with motion, alignment, and spacing quite as much as teams like the Los Angeles Rams, Miami Dolphins, or San Francisco 49ers, but they do understand how those aspects of play design can be weaponized.

They frequently used pre-snap motion in 2023 to help expose disguised coverages, blitz intentions, or overall coverage scheme. The Vikings would place tight ends, backfield players, or receivers in motion for a variety of effects. Most interesting was when they’d use early pre-snap motion to draw a defender out of position on the play side, or late motion to put an extra offensive player on the play side without giving the defense time to adjust.

We haven’t seen a Shane Bowen defense play against the O’Connell Vikings, however 2021 did give us the Titans against Rams. We can’t draw too many conclusions from that game, but there might be some useful trends.

To start, the Rams made heavy use of condensed formations against the Titans’ TITE fronts. Condensed offensive formations are useful in passing situations because they can limit the size of interior gaps as well as create traffic at the second and third levels of the defense.

As mentioned above, we should expect to see O’Connell make use of play design to isolate Giants’ defenders. Using condensed offensive formation as well as bunch formations appear to be go-to tools for the McVay tree to create separation for receivers. We also saw the Vikings make use of 12-personnel packages, allowing them to use either a tight end or running back as an extra pass protector while also allowing an athletic mismatch in the middle of the field for easy completions.

The injury to Hockenson and the Giants’ athletic linebacking corps will help defend against those tactics. However, using condensed formations and heavy personnel sets force defenders to respect their run fits. That could make play-action passes to Aaron Jones particularly dangerous if he releases into a route after faking the hand-off on play-action.

It will be very interesting too see how the Vikings deploy their offensive weapons and sequence their plays. Likewise, it’ll be interesting to see how Bowen and the Giants new-look defense respond to the Vikings’ offensive looks.