Thoughts on the Vikings’ Win Over the Cardinals

The Minnesota Vikings squeaked out a narrow 23-22 comeback victory over the Cardinals on Sunday. It was a game that the Vikings trailed nearly the entire game, which has not been their modus operandi this season. And after a missed field goal and three-and-out followed by a Cardinals touchdown, putting Arizona up 19-6 late in the third quarter, it looked like it just wasn’t going to be the Vikings’ day.

But then Sam Darnold and the Vikings’ offense put the hammer down and rattled off a six-play touchdown drive in three minutes and twenty seconds before the end of the third quarter. And then the Vikings’ defense forced Kyler Murray into a bad decision resulting in an interception to begin the fourth quarter. The momentum had swung.

The Vikings kicked a field goal after a roughly three-and-a-half-minute drive to narrow it to a 3-point deficit, 19-16.

But then the Cardinals rallied, putting together a long, seven-and-a-half-minute drive, but stalled once again in the red zone. On fourth-and-goal from the four-yard line, the Cardinals opted for a field goal to go up six points rather than go for the touchdown which would’ve put the game out of reach for the Vikings with just over three minutes left and down two scores. But the Vikings had been tough on the Cardinals all afternoon in the red zone and Jonathan Gannon opted for the field goal and a six-point lead.

That gave the Vikings their marching orders: touchdown or bust. They marched seventy yards in just over two minutes, converting a fourth down in the process, for a touchdown with seventy-three seconds remaining, taking their first lead of the game, 23-22.

On the ensuing Cardinals drive, the Vikings defense gave up a five-yard completion, then sacked Kyler Murray, leading to a third down and thirteen. Murray dropped back but faced pressure and scrambled for three yards, leading to fourth and ten. Murray then threw up what amounted to a move-the-sticks hail mary, which was intercepted by Shaq Griffin, effectively ending the game and giving the Vikings the victory.

The Cardinals are a Good Team

The Cardinals entered the game at 6-5 and tied with the Seahawks for the lead in the NFC West. They’ve played the toughest schedule in the league through 13 weeks by DVOA, including the Bills, Rams, Lions, Commanders, 49ers, Packers, Chargers, Dolphins. Seahawks, and Vikings. They blew out the Bears and Jets.

But although the Cardinals don’t have a top record, from a Total DVOA standpoint the Cardinals rank 8th. And apart from the pre-snap penalties on offense (they were the least penalized team prior to the Vikings’ game), they played pretty well on both sides of the ball.

Kyler Murray, in Total QBR terms, is the best quarterback the Vikings have faced this season- he’s the top quarterback in the league by that measure after 13 weeks at 75.1, almost 17-18 points higher than Jordan Love and Jared Goff. Murray’s QBR for the game was 76.7. The Cardinals offense also has James Conner, 8th highest graded RB according to PFF, Trey McBride, 2nd highest graded TE, and Marvin Harrison Jr., the best rookie wide receiver. The Cardinals defense is also solid, ranking 11th in points allowed and 7th in red zone TD conversions allowed.

The Cardinals came into US Bank stadium with a good game plan. Offensively they moved the ball well, they just had trouble converting in the red zone- some of that being unforced errors in the form of presnap penalties. The Cardinals have all the weapons to be effective in the red zone- excellent back and quarterback, decent offensive line, top tight end, good receivers, but went just 1-6 on red zone opportunities against the Vikings.

Defensively they were very effective on 3rd down, particularly their blitzes. I’m not sure if their blitzes were more of an unscouted thing the Vikings weren’t expecting schematically, or they just did a good job disguising them, but they were very effective throughout most of the game and stalled several Vikings’ drives.

And yet, despite all of the above, the Vikings won.

Learning and Development

One of the things we learned about the Vikings from this game was how they would respond and play from behind. Early in the season, when the Vikings were always leading, the question posed by Bill Belichick about the Vikings is how they would respond to adversity and having to play from behind. The Vikings have trailed at times since then, but the 13-point deficit late in the third quarter was the worst one they’ve faced- and they trailed the whole game besides. But when the deficit became the largest was when they rallied back to win. No panic, they just stepped up and made plays on both sides of the ball against a good team. That’s a hallmark of a team that can go deep into the playoffs.

Sam Darnold once again showed that he can step up his game when the team needs it most to deliver a win. That ability will be key down the stretch and into the postseason. Darnold has proven he’s able to do so consistently this season- including against Arizona- in perhaps the most surprising aspect of his improvement this season.

Secondly, the Vikings opted to play man coverage on 51% of their snaps against Arizona, easily their highest percentage of any game this season. They had been playing some form of zone coverage about 80% of the time so far this season. But while the man coverage wasn’t as effective as it might have been in forcing incompletions, coverage sacks, turnovers and throw-aways, the Vikings’ secondary forced a lot of tight window throws and a few of the other things (including an intentional grounding that was effectively a sack in the red zone). It also forced a higher level of execution for Kyler Murray, who made a number of tight window/contested catch throws. Any less and more drives for the Cardinals would’ve stalled.

I counted just two passes from Murray that weren’t dump offs/quick underneath targets that weren’t closely contested- one was to Trey McBride in the red zone which Cam Bynum gave at least ten yards of cushion off the snap- giving away the reception- and the second was an out route to Marvin Harrison Jr. later in the game. The point here is that while it may have been more gameplan specific that the Vikings played more man coverage against the Cardinals, they did a pretty good job overall and having more reps in man coverage will be useful down the road and mixing in more man coverage schemes will also help to keep opposing offenses guessing. Especially when Brian Flores had been relying increasingly on zone coverages.

Third, the Vikings were able to give some more reps to non-starters that may prove beneficial in improving depth and developing rotational players.

Defensively, Shaq Griffin got twice as many reps as he has been over the past several games and the most he’s had in any game this season. He responded with his best PFF grade of the season.

Fabian Moreau replaced Stephon Gilmore in the second half after Gilmore went out with a hamstring injury. He had mixed results, including two defensive pass interference penalties (one of which was legit), but also had tight coverage when he was targeted. Even his coverage of Marvin Harrison Jr. on the touchdown was good, it was just a better catch and ball placement.

Jalen Redmond also had one of his higher rep games and was the highest graded Vikings’ defender, picking up two TFLs on nine run blocking snaps and a QB hurry on six pass blocking snaps. Developing a quality rotation among defensive tackles will help keep them fresh in the trench warfare that goes with the postseason.

Dallas Turner also got his most reps since week nine and while he wasn’t particularly impactful (just one hurry credited), hopefully he will benefit from the additional reps and become more impactful down the road.

Even safety Theo Jackson and newcomer Jamin Davis got a few reps.

Offensively, the Vikings only rushed 11 times (not including Darnold) but Cam Akers proved to be productive with the carries he had, averaging 5.5 yards and also having the most yards over expected and after contact.

Dalton Risner in his third game as starting right guard had his best pass blocking game and was the highest graded pass blocker of all offensive linemen according to PFF, with an 88.0 grade and no credited pressures allowed.

Most of this is minor development, but nevertheless a positive to see non-starters contribute when called upon and a recent starter at right guard in Risner begin to get settled at his new position.

Other positive takeaways from this game includes the Vikings ability to stop the Cardinals five of their six trips to the red zone, allowing either a field goal or no points in those five trips.

Negative takeaways include getting a better read, either through preparation or in-game reads, on blitz packages and being more effective in countering them, and defensively better contain of mobile quarterbacks.

Preparing for the Postseason

The Vikings have a 99% probability of making the playoffs and with a win over the Falcons will secure a playoff spot. Given that, preparing for the playoffs is warranted as the Vikings make a run to secure the highest seed.

Teams that do well in the playoffs are usually teams that can beat opponents multiple ways offensively and can take away what you do best defensively.

With that in mind, the biggest to-do item for the Vikings is to figure out how to run the ball more effectively on offense. It may help to get Josh Oliver back and use him and T.J. Hockenson more on the field together at full strength to improve results in the running game, particularly in the red zone, and maybe play calling is a factor that needs to improve, but whatever the case, being able to run the ball better to the point where opposing defenses need to focus on that more would be beneficial all around.

Defensively, the Vikings continue to have the best run defense in the league by a wide margin in EPA/rush allowed terms at -0.23. Second-best is -0.13. It wasn’t as good against the Cardinals largely due to Kyler Murray, but they held James Connor to negative EPA/rush. But the Vikings also missed Ivan Pace Jr. a bit in this game.

Being able to improve pass defense and continue to improve red zone defense are the biggest things to improve defensively. Being more effective in man coverage, at least on key downs, would be killer with Brian Flores’ blitz packages.

Lastly, and most importantly, staying healthy is the best preparation for the playoffs. Injuries are mostly unavoidable but giving some extra snaps off to some starters on occasion, especially among older players, where quality backups are available makes sense in the right situations to mitigate injury risk a bit.

It may also play out where the Vikings’ week 18 matchup against the Lions proves to be a rest game for starters if the Lions don’t lose a game between now and then, in which case they would clinch the division in advance of week 18. That wouldn’t leave much for the Vikings to play for other than potentially which wild card seed they get. That may not be enough to risk injury to key starters for the playoffs. The Lions could potentially have something to play for in that scenario, if a loss would give the first seed to the Eagles.

Otherwise, if the Lions game proves to be for the division title and most likely the first seed as well, the Vikings would need to win it to get a week off during the wild card round.

Stay tuned.

Follow me on X and Bluesky @wludford

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