The Minnesota Vikings offense has already seen big changes.
After not prioritizing the passing game or using motion throughout the last three years with quarterback Kirk Cousins, new head coach Kevin O’Connell came to the organization to modernize the offense and try to get the best out of Kirk Cousins and the great wide receivers on the team.
The epitome of what the Vikings are trying to do is in this play which resulted in Jefferson’s second touchdown.
The concept that the Vikings are running is called the Wave concept.
Wave, Dino H Cross, Spear
-concepts that use variations of two posts with a crosser coming back
-some clips below pic.twitter.com/UIfq7ibN24— SyedSchemes (@syedschemes) February 8, 2022
On this play, the Vikings line up in a 1X3 look in 11 personnel before Irv Smith Jr. motions to the front side.
On the snap, they go play-action to Dalvin Cook with a shallow and deep crosser on the front side with a deep crosser and a post on the backside.
The shallow crosser and outlet route by Cook are designed to draw the linebackers forward to make fitting the ball to the deep crosser easier. The backside post is meant to clear the deep safety by forcing him to stay in the middle of the field to give Jefferson room to gain yards after the catch.
The Vikings catch the Packers in cover-3 and they don’t pass off Thielen once he crosses the hash mark leaving Jefferson streaking wide open and he works his way into the end zone.
Depending on the coverage, any of the three deep routes can be the priority. It also works really well if all three of the deeper routes are covered to have two shallow routes to fall back to.
Later in the game, they ran the same concept and hit it for a nice gain. With a better throw that leads him, Jefferson has an outside shot at scoring on this play.
Concepts like this will be utilized often for the Vikings. It’s a new era and it’s exciting.