After a much-needed bye in Week 8, the Detroit Lions came out flat in all three phases against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 9, leading to a disappointing 27-24 loss at home. Detroit had their issues in all three phases of the game, but particularly struggled on the offensive side of the ball, where consistent pressure on quarterback Jared Goff had them out of rhythm for the majority of the afternoon.
Per Next Gen Stats, Minnesota’s defense generated 15 quick pressures against the Lions, while logging a 35.7% quick pressure rate for the game—the highest rate allowed by Detroit’s offensive line since Week 12 of the 2022 season. Vikings’ defensive coordinator Brian Flores had a plan to slow down a Detroit offense that has given him a lot of issues over the last few years, and his players executed to near-perfection.
In this week’s film study, we will be diving into the All-22 to see how the Vikings’ defense was able to slow the Lions’ offense down before it could ever really get rolling.
Tough day in pass protection for Gibbs
Coming into Week 9, most teams had not experienced a ton of success when blitzing Goff in 2025. At this point in his career, the veteran quarterback has seen pretty much everything and understands where the ball needs to go when he is facing extra rushers. With that said, the aforementioned plan from Flores and the Vikings was a simple one, but when executed well, has the potential to disrupt even the most explosive offense.
Over and over again, Flores had his linebackers walking down near the line of scrimmage, oftentimes standing in both A-gaps prior to the ball being snapped. Doing this accomplished two things against the Lions—it had the interior offensive line mixed up pre-snap, and kept Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs in to block instead of allowing him to release into the flat or middle of the field.
“There are things that we can do better and that we can get to,” said Campbell of the issues in pass protection against the Vikings. “We don’t want to have Gibby do a full game of it. Now he’s better than that, too. I’ve seen him, we all know him, he can protect. He had a little bit of an off day in some of that, too. But no, we don’t want him to have to go hammerhead for 12 plays. That’s not – I don’t want either of those backs having to do that. But that was the plan to keep him in, that was kudos to them to keep him in, not let him release on some of that stuff. We turned the protection a couple of times, but they forced our hand. You either go there, or you’re going to put him on a big. Yeah, we’ve got to adjust a little quicker.”
In our first clip below, Minnesota has three down linemen pre-snap, with linebackers standing in a wide alignment outside of either tackle. Once the ball is snapped, the two outside linebackers drop off into coverage, while the two inside linebackers add to the rush. Watch as Vikings defensive tackle Jonathan Allen (93) takes a wide angle against right guard Tate Ratledge, giving linebackers Blake Cashman and Ivan Pace Jr. the space they need to execute the game the run on the interior.
Gibbs gets a hat on Pace, but Cashman gets home, resulting in a sack for the Vikings’ defense.
Next up we have another instance where Flores did a nice job of manufacturing a one-on-one with Gibbs in pass protection. Minnesota initially sends four after the quarterback, with Pace adding from his off-ball spot pre-snap. Both defensive tackles work towards the outside shoulder of either guard, leading to a wide open alley for Pace to run down. By the time Goff executes the playfake, Pace is essentially already on top of Gibbs, who runs through the block attempt, and forces Goff off of his spot prior to the attempted pass to tight end Sam LaPorta.
Pass protection is one of the most improved facets of Gibbs’ game since entering the league in 2023, but his showing against Minnesota certainly left us wanting more. Even if he was routinely put in tough spots as it pertains to picking up blitzing linebackers.
Moving to the very next snap after the one above, we get another tough rep from Gibbs, while also seeing Graham Glasgow get beat with Minnesota using a similar concept from the first clip in the study. Cashman crashes inside, with linebacker Eric Wilson running off his hip. Glasgow appears to get caught flat-footed for a moment, and that is all Wilson needs to get underneath him and get to Goff for the sack.
Jumping to the last clip of this section and it brings us to late in the third quarter. With the Lions operating in the red zone. It’s third-and-6 and you guessed it—Minnesota gets another one-on-one with Gibbs in pass pro. This time, he simply doesn’t square up his assignment well, leading to yet another sack for the Vikings’ defense.
Communication issues
We haven’t heard as much about communication issues along the offensive line lately, but some of those problems popped back up for the Lions in the Week 9 loss to the Vikings. Sure, Minnesota made things more difficult with some of their pre-snap looks where they routinely mugged-up the line of scrimmage. Still, Detroit’s offensive line is better than they showed on Sunday.
In our first clip below, Minnesota runs a pretty routine game while working against Lions left tackle Taylor Decker and left guard Christian Mahogany. The second-year guard takes one too many steps to his left, and in turn, is late to react to Vikings outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard looping inside. Luckily for them, Goff channels his inner-Houdini, and escapes Greenard before finding running back David Montgomery for a first down.
There was another rep that was similar to this one from later in the game, but it was also the play where Mahogany got injured, and I don’t want you all to look at that play anymore than you already have.
Next up we have both coordinators playing a bit of on-field chess. On several occasions against Minnesota, Gibbs was sent in motion only to return to the backfield prior to the ball being snapped. We don’t know for sure, but I am assuming Lions offensive coordinator John Morton was using this as a man-coverage indicator.
Initially, Vikings safety Josh Metellus travels with Gibbs outside, before returning to the line of scrimmage once Gibbs gets back to the backfield. You can see Goff check into something pre-snap, and at that point, you can see the confusion that Minnesota was causing with their alignment. In the picture below, the Vikings have four defenders lined up to the right of guard Tate Ratledge, purposely overloading one side of the offensive line with the Lions facing a third-and-11 on their own 38-yard line.
Once snapped, the Vikings rush six while having Metellus drop back into coverage from the B-gap. He sells the rush well, causing Gibbs to work that way in order to pick up the would-be blitzer. Lions right tackle Penei Sewell picks up Vikings linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel prior to him also dropping into coverage (43), causing Harrison Smith to be a free runner. Goff senses the pressure off of the edge, and hurries his throw in the process.
For our last clip of this section we are jumping to the middle of the fourth-quarter, where the Lions are once again facing a third-and-long. Minnesota shows six players along the line of scrimmage pre-snap, with Smith dropping into coverage at the last second. On the other side of the line, Van Ginkel sells like he is also going to drop, before adding to the rush late.
At that point, Sewell already has his eyes inside with the thought of helping reserve guard Kayode Awosika with his assignment. Once Van Ginkel puts his foot in the ground, Sewell sees him late and attempts to flip his hips to try and get a piece of the linebacker as he presses the edge. Combine that pressure with Mahogany losing his rep to Allen, and the result is another hurried throw from Goff.
Losing 1-on-1s
While there were plenty of communication issues in the loss, there were also instances of players simply losing their one-on-ones, too. It was a particularly tough day for Mahogany, who routinely got worked over by Allen prior to exiting the game with the aforementioned leg injury. In the clip below he drops his head while the veteran defensive tackle easily defeats his initial punch.
And lastly, you know it isn’t your day when your All-Pro right tackle is having reps like the one below. To Sewell’s credit, this clip is from later in the third quarter, where the fifth-year tackle is dealing with both an eye and shoulder injury. He tries to execute a quick-set to try and get hands on Greenard before he can get going, but he takes a poor angle, allowing Greenard to work under him and get the edge. Sewell is able to re-engage and push him past his quarterback, but the rush forces Goff to step up into more trouble, resulting in a sack for the Vikings.
Overall, I am going to chalk this performance from the offense up as an anomaly. Flores and the rest of the Vikings defensive staff had their guys ready to play for a divisional game that they really needed to win, and the Lions were too slow to counter. With that said, I trust Lions coach Dan Campbell and this staff to get this fixed before the games really begin to matter later in the season.
Onto Washington.
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