Third quarter
The Lions come out stacking the line with four DL and playing some zone coverage behind it. After Trey Flowers blows up two runs, Cousins takes to the air and finds Diggs easily running away from Coleman on a crossing route.
Cousins and the play-action are continually flummoxing the Lions LBs. It’s keeping open the middle of the field where they would normally drop and Cousins is in great rhythm against no pressure from the 4-man rush at all. Quandre Diggs continues to stay too deep in the high safety spot, even in the red zone. He’s visibly mad after several of the snaps on the Vikings’ too-easy, well-balanced TD drive to open the half. Vikings go up 28-21 when Cousins finds the fullback Ham beating Walker in coverage on a play with four crossing routes befuddling the Lions off-man coverage.
The big difference in defensive coaching philosophy is on display on the LIons ensuing drive. When Detroit goes empty backfield, the Vikings still bring five against the 5-man line. Stafford has to quickly dump to Jones instead of getting time to take a shot because both Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow get badly beaten in 1-on-1 blocks.
On that note: the Vikings defensive line does a great job of always attacking at a good angle. Very little bull-rushing, very active hand usage, lots of coordinated movement between the linemen. It’s starkly different from the Lions typical methods.
Detroit does try out an exotic look on a 3rd-and-10 later in the quarter. Devon Kennard and Davis line up on the line inside of Okwara and Flowers, who both deploy in a Wide-9 alignment. Tracy Walker is close enough to the line he can touch Okwara pre-snap. It works. Cousins rushes a throw that sails high over Johnson, who was well-covered by Mike Ford in trail technique. Miles Killebrew nearly blocks the punt, too.
The first play of the next drive is infuriating. A handoff with a 2-way go designed for Ty Johnson gets blown up completely when Glasgow flat-out whiffs on his block. Johnson has time and space to do something but instead runs straight into LB Kendricks and flops backward for a loss. This looks like bad middle school football from Detroit.
Stafford finally gets it rolling with a dime to Marvin Hall, a “turkey hole” shot some 45 yards downfield off his best play-action fake of the game. It’s the first time Harris bit on the play-fake all game and it gives Hall time to get space on the corner route. Perfect throw, nice bucket catch in traffic by Hall too.
A coverage sack–Stafford had over 4 seconds to find someone but both Golladay and Jones were smothered and double-covered on a 2-man route–stalls the drive and the Lions settle for a 47-yard Prater field goal attempt. It just sneaks inside the right upright but would have been good from 67, and the ball was snapped just after the play clock had expired too. Vikings up 28-24.
The quarter ends with Tavai missing a tackle on 3rd-and-1 two yards past the conversion line. A’Shawn Robinson continues to be complete feast/famine in run defense. Earlier in the drive he split a double-team and dropped Mattison for a loss. On this play, he popped straight up and allowed the hole way too easily.
Fourth quarter
The Lions dodge a bullet when Cousins can’t connect with Diggs in the end zone. He had a step on Coleman in man coverage and the throw was catchable, poor effort from the Vikings wideout. One play earlier Quandre Diggs had TE Kyle Rudolph completely locked down in man coverage and forced an incompletion. Vikings kicker Dan Bailey yaks the field goal attempt wide left, another one nearly blocked by Ford. Still 28-24.
Random note: for the second time in the game, the FOX broadcast crew mistakenly identifies Danny Amendola as T.J. Hockenson. It comes on a 3rd-and-18 where Amendola catches the ball a yard shy of the conversion.
The 4th down attempt from the Vikings 41 is a mess from the get-go. Vikings LB Eric Wilson sniffs out the quick pass to Ty Johnson pre-snap and directly darts into the RB. Stafford sidearms a rushed throw under pressure that Kendricks easily bats away. There are four Vikings within a yard of Johnson at the time of the pass, but it was the only option for Stafford on the play. Good defensive anticipation, bad lack of a Plan B by the Lions.
The Vikings quickly push the lead to 11 on a great run-oriented drive. Missed tackles by Tavai, Walker and Davis contribute to the drive, which is capped on a simple pitch-and-catch between Cousins and Rudolph, who snuck out from inline late and the Lions D never saw him. Davis gets lost in coverage, Walker and Diggs can’t react fast enough to cover him.
Stafford quickly gets into a groove in the Lions up-temp offense. Crisp, quick passes to Amendola, Hockenson and Jones all set up another Jones TD. It’s a great design to isolate Jones on Rhodes from inside the 10 once again. The quick throw is money and the Lions close the gap to 35-30.
Golladay cannot make the contested catch on the 2-pt. conversion, a route which he didn’t run deep enough in the first place. With just over 3:00 to go, Patricia elects to kick it deep and trust his defense instead of trying an onside or squib kick.
The gamble fails miserably. Cousins pulls off another brilliant play-action fake against a stacked Lions line. Stefon Diggs runs free behind the defense and takes the catch all way inside the Lions 5-yard line. Every single Lions defender bites on the fake on 2nd-and-5. It’s a 1-man route but the Lions can’t cover it and Cousins faced no pressure on the slow-developing throw.
Cook sashays into the end zone on the first play inside the 2-minute warning. Harris badly whiffs on a tackle attempt at the line of scrimmage, Tavai was in the wrong gap and Davis was very late to react. Vikings go up 42-30 on the conversion. Ford Field empties out quickly.
The game effectively ends when Stafford and Jones have a miscommunication on a deep route. Waynes picks off Stafford’s misfire along the deep sideline. Ballgame.
Good games: Marvin Jones, Kerryon Johnson, Darius Slay, Mike Ford, Kevin Strong, Quandre Diggs (mostly)
Bad games: Kenny Golladay, Jahlani Tavai, Tracy Walker (mostly), Jarrad Davis, Will Harris, Graham Glasgow, Don Muhlbach, Justin Coleman, the entire pass rush not named Strong
This was not a great game from Matthew Stafford, not as good as his final numbers indicate. Other than Marvin Jones (a career day with 4 TDs) and one play from Marvin Hall, his receivers did little to help him. This was the worst game of Kenny Golladay’s career, a lethargic effort. The OL was actually pretty good in pass protection, notably Kenny Wiggins and Frank Ragnow when they were together. The run blocking, notably Graham Glasgow and Taylor Decker, was not good.
But the utter failure of the Lions defense to generate any sort of pass rush threat or read play-action was the biggest issue in this game. I give Minnesota’s coaching staff a lot of credit for this one, too. Mike Zimmer, Kevin Stefanski & Co. scored a clear victory over Matt Patricia, Darrell Bevell and their Lions counterparts.