Category: 2022 Week 2 @ Philadelphia

WATCH: Ed Ingram pulverize Jordan Davis

The rookie second-round pick can move mountains

The highlights for the Minnesota Vikings against the Philadelphia Eagles were few and far between.

The days after was mostly spent being critical of the mistakes that the Vikings made against a really good Eagles team that beat their week three opponent the Detroit Lions in week 1.

Thankfully, there were still positives to come out of Monday night’s game. It wasn’t blatantly obvious until you turned on the all-22 but there were a lot of highlights especially in the trenches.

Rookie second-round pick Ed Ingram has had an interesting start. He has been really good in blocking running plays but struggled in pass blocking. He had an improved and more balanced game against the Eagles on Monday night and had some blocks like this beauty.

It’s not a secret that Ingram is a good run blocker but the ability to move a 6’6″ 341 lb defensive tackle over two gaps it’s beyond impressive.

The Vikings can take advantage of this moving forward in trying to spring Dalvin Cook on long runs.

Vikings defensive coordinator clears up coverage bust

Ed Donatell clarifies what went wrong on the 53-yard touchdown pass to Quez Watkins

The Minnesota Vikings didn’t have a lot go right on Monday night against the Philadelphia Eagles and a lot of that had to do with the secondary.

The Vikings had a massively blown coverage on the first play of the second quarter that resulted in a 53-yard touchdown by Eagles wide receiver Quez Watkins.

On this play, it is QQH (quarters on the nearside with cover-2 on the farside) and Dantzler is responsible for carrying Watkins deep. He doesn’t carry the receiver and it makes Bynum look bad on the broadcast when he played this correctly.

At his press conference on Thursday morning, Donatell confirmed that it was Dantzler’s fault.

Cody Alexander, who claims to have created match quarters coverage, broke down the play on his Twitter explaining why this is on Dantzler.

Later in the game, Dantzler did have another coverage bust that led to rookie fourth-round pick Akayleb Evans entering the game. Because of Evans’ performance on Monday, Donatell also hinted that he might be getting more playing time moving forward.

Outside of these two plays, Dantzler did have a good game but you can’t be making these kinds of coverage busts all season. They need to be cleaned up and quickly.

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Vikings Film Room: Breaking down Kirk Cousins’ 3 interceptions

Kirk Cousins’ 3 interceptions were a mixed bag on Monday night

After getting steamrolled by the Philadelphia Eagles 24-7 on Monday night, the Vikings are looking forward to the Lions on Sunday afternoon.

It was far from a banner day for starting quarterback Kirk Cousins who threw three interceptions and had 11 passes defended. He threw too many checkdowns and the whole game went completely pear shaped.

The interceptions that he threw were a true mixed bag. Lets break them down here.

Vikings Film Room: Understanding quarterback reads

Sometimes, the right read doesn’t always appear as such

The Minnesota Vikings lost a tough game to the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night by a score of 24-7.

Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins has received a lot of criticism for making improper reads and not hitting a wide-open receiver down the field. This has happened quite a bit during his tenure with the Vikings.

There are times where the criticism is warranted but other times it isn’t. The following clip is one of those times. Lets discuss it.

The Vikings have 11 personnel on the field. Two wide receivers to the top, a tight end to the nearside and both a running back and Justin Jefferson in the backfield. The idea of having Jefferson in the backfield is going to be as a decoy. It also will make an impact on film the more you utilize him out of the backfield.

The play sets up with clear-out routes from both receivers at the top and Johnny Mundt runs a 10-yard hook. Out of the backfield, Jefferson runs a wheel route which pairs well with the hitch (rub route) but isn’t meant to be a read. The screen pass is the only read here.

Seeing Jefferson that wide open on the wheel route is really frustrating but it’s not for nothing. The Vikings will be using this down the line with Jefferson or somebody else running that same route on a play-action or screen fake.

The Vikings defense is starting to show tendencies

The Vikings are showing trends on defense

Through two games, the Minnesota Vikings have had their share of ups and downs, especially on defense.

Against the Green Bay Packers, the defense was dominant. They forced two turnovers along with accumulating four sacks and 18 pressures on star quarterback Aaron Rodgers. They were consistent against the pass but were a little flawed against the run.

On Monday night versus the Eagles, it was a different story. They challenged Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts to beat them with a bunch of layups and he did just that. They amassed nearly 500 yards and made it look easy.

The defense itself is starting to show some tendencies as far as how they lineup. The Vikings defense is currently second in the NFL in how much they lineup in a Nickel defense.

There are some other tendencies that are worth noting that ESPN’s Kevin Seifert included in that thread. The Vikings are

  • Lowest in the NFL in man coverage at 7.7%
  • Highest in cover-2 usage at 46.2

These shouldn’t be a big surprise as defensive coordinator Ed Donatell runs a lot of cover-2 and quarters coverage to keep things in front of them. As things progress, mixing in more man coverage will likely occur as Donatell uses more blitzes to keep things interesting.

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Vikings Film Room: Kirk Cousins misses the mark

The pressure really got to Kirk Cousins inside the red zone

The Minnesota Vikings 24-7 loss to the Eagles left a lot of frustrations on the field for the purple and gold.

Most of those frustrations were on the offensive side of the field. Quarterback Kirk Cousins was the main culprit of those frustrations on offense.

One of the biggest issues with Cousins was dealing with pressure. He only completed 5-of-13 passes with two interceptions while under pressure. That came up in a major way late in the game on Monday night.

The game was still somewhat in doubt mid-way through the fourth quarter. The defense hadn’t allowed a point in the second half and even gave the offense the ball in enemy territory twice. The major issue was the offense didn’t take advantage of that.

After the Jordan Hicks interception, the Vikings had a first and goal on the nine yard line. On both second and third down, they drew up plays for Justin Jefferson to get open on the outside. Both plays worked but Cousins threw the ball into harms way.

The Vikings run a shallow and deep concept on the front side to try and get Jefferson open. I believe this works if Jefferson runs more to the pile-on and Cousins puts this ball in a good spot. The long and the short of it is that the throw was atrocious from Cousins. He did have massive pressure in his face, but that’s no excuse for throwing a near-certain interception.

The next one is even worse.

On the outside, Jefferson lines up, gets a clean release and breaks it off cleanly for an open corner route. The issue on this play is the Eagles run cover 0 and send six at Cousins who is operating out of an empty set. The free rusher comes right at his face and he throws a duck up to Jefferson that ends up short and turns into a Darius Slay interception.

The biggest takeaway with these two plays is that they worked but the execution from the pass blocking and panic throws from Cousins hindered this from working.

There is hope moving forward but some things will need to be cleaned up.Th

Vikings Film Room: Garrett Bradbury stands up Jordan Davis

The fourth-year center was excellent in pass blocking on Monday night

The Minnesota Vikings didn’t have a lot of good happen in a 24-7 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

From the start, the Vikings offense struggled. They were missing blocks, quarterback Kirk Cousins wasn’t seeing the field well or making great decisions. Along with that, the receivers got beaten up by press coverage and got visibly frustrated on the field.

There were a few solid performances during the game and one of them was surprisingly center Garrett Bradbury.

With a PFF grade of 66.0 and one of the best pass-blocking grades of his career at 71.0, Bradbury showed up in a big way against the Philadelphia Eagles.

In the second quarter, Bradbury had one of the best pass blocking reps of his career when he stood up first-round pick DT Jordan Davis.

Davis is one of the most athletic players of all-time per Kent Lee Platte’s Relative Athletic Score. Ranking only behind Megatron Calvin Johnson, Davis ran a 4.78 40-yard dash at 6’6″ and 341 pounds. On this play, Bradbury did what we had wanted from him his entire tenure with the Vikings: anchoring in pass protection.

This wasn’t the only instance of Bradbury anchoring as he had a couple other instances in the game. If Bradbury can keep this up, it would be a huge benefit for the Vikings.

Kirk Cousins struggled against the blitz

Cousins crumbled under pressure on Monday night

The Minnesota Vikings got absolutely slaughtered on Monday night against the Philadelphia Eagles by a score of 24-7.

The catalyst of the Vikings loss was on the arm of Kirk Cousins who did not show up on a level that he is capable of.

In week one, Cousins was confident and calculated in his decision making, He made great reads and overcame plays with poor pass protection with throws down the field.

Against the Eagles, it wasn’t anywhere close to that. He struggled making reads down the field and threw the ball into bad situations that resulted in three interceptions and 11 pass breakups.

PFF charts and grades each pass attempt in four ways: pressured, not pressured, blitzed and not blitzed. Unfortunately, the pressured plays were the downfall for Cousins.

On pressured pass attempts, Cousins went 5-for-13 for 37 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. When being blitzed, he was 4-for-12 for 22 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.

The tough part is that quarterbacks aren’t usually good when being pressured but Cousins being really poor under pressure has been a constant with him and it ultimately cost the Vikings the game.

Lewis Cine makes NFL debut in odd fashion

The Vikings first-round pick barely made his debut on Monday night

The Minnesota Vikings had a tough night in Philadelphia on Monday night. They lost in tough fashion to the Eagles by a score of 24-7.

The highlights were few and far between with only a few players that had noteworthy positive performances. One of those players was rookie cornerback Akayleb Evans who played well on his 10 snaps Monday night.

Another rookie that ended up playing was first-round pick safety Lewis Cine. After missing the season opener, Cine made his debut on Monday night in one of the weirder debuts for a first round pick.

Why was it weird? He only played in one play. Yes, just one defensive play.

Even though he was listed ahead of Josh Metellus on the depth chart, he played in nine less snaps with Metellus playing in 10 on defense. He did play in 15 special teams snaps but the lack of time on defense especially with the safeties struggling is puzzling at best.

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The Vikings struggled to prevent separation on defense

The Vikings had an elephant size gap on the field Monday night

The Minnesota Vikings lost a brutal game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night by a score of 24-7.

There were a lot of reasons that the Vikings lost the game but arguably the main one was how the defense struggled in coverage.

The defense is designed to give the offense layups and making them beat you with those while not allowing the deep play. Unfortunately for the Vikings, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts was hitting them with ease only missing on five of his 31 pass attempts.

One of the reasons why things were so easy for Hurts was the separation they had from the defenders. The Vikings were an elephant away from the receiver. Yes, a literal elephant.

The increasingly frustrating part of it all was the fact that defensive coordinator Ed Donatell didn’t make any major adjustments to try and stop the Eagles passing game. Hopefully, next week will see some improvements.

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