Minnesota Vikings Preview

Edition #714

Good morning! ☕

I’ve got the jersey ready, the hat ready, the plans are in place for gameday Sunday and I’m fully expecting the Jets to walk out of London with the victory.

Vikings fans seem to think the game is already won, and just like the Broncos game for us last week, this is the perfect trap game for a Minnesota team dreaming of 🏆.

I’m going to do my best to share some photos from Tottenham stadium in our Gameday thread on the Substack app, so if you’re yet to get that downloaded, you can do so before Sunday to ensure you don’t miss out.

In other news, Ian Rapoport has confirmed that Davante Adams wants to come to the Jets, but he’s open to joining other teams.

The Raiders will do what’s best for the Raiders, as they should. Talks have been held over the last 48 hours but no deal is expected until next week at the earliest.

There are a lot of moving parts here but unless a team is willing to offer something outrageous, and I never put it past NFL teams to offer something outrageous, Davante Adams will likely be a Jet within the next few weeks and that’s an exciting prospect.

We focused in on Sam Darnold yesterday, so today we’re going to take a wider look at the Minnesota Vikings and their 4-0 start to the season.

Let’s start with a look at both offences and where they sit. As expected the Jets tumbled down the rankings last week after managing 0 touchdowns and just 9 points against the Denver Broncos. Denver have an outstanding defensive unit and pretty much everyone they’ve faced has struggled to put points on the board, but if you want to go where the Jets want to go, you have to be able to put points up against anyone.

Minnesota have a very good offence and as mentioned yesterday Sam Darnold is running it to perfection at the moment. They’re nicely balanced between the passing and running game ranking inside the top 15 in both, and in terms of points scored they’re averaging nearly 30 points per game.

I’d love to say that they’ve been beating up on bad teams but apart from the Giants they’ve taken down the Packers, Texans and 49ers, three teams who were tipped to be playoff contenders this season and obviously the Jets already lost to the 49ers.

If there’s one area here where you can exploit Minnesota it’s in pass-protection and in forcing those turnovers. Minnesota have been largely fortunate that those 1.8 turnovers per game haven’t hurt them as much as they could and probably should have.

Sam Darnold has been sacked on 9.4% of his dropbacks and only five teams have a worse rate and none of them are 4-0. In fact only Tampa Bay who allow a sack on 10.4% of dropbacks have a winning record from the teams below Minnesota, so if the Jets can generate pressure and force Sam into mistakes, it would go a long way.

Outside of those two areas, it’s hard to pick holes in this team. Sauce will have his hands full with Justin Jefferson, the Jets interior defensive line will have to handle Aaron Jones who still has plenty of juice left in the tank. The linebackers will also need to be aware of Jones leaking out the backfield, the former Packer has 16 receptions for 143 yards through four weeks of the season. Jalen Nailor already has three touchdowns to his name and he likes to move around, so Carter II and Reed will need to keep a close eye on him.

Their kicker Will Reichard has a perfect 6-6 record on FG’s, 1-1 on FG’s over 50 and 100% on extra points, so no problems there for Minnesota and their punter is averaging over 46 yards per punt.

There aren’t a load of weaknesses to this team. Pressure and force turnovers and make sure that you force someone other than Justin Jefferson to beat you.

On the other side of the ball there is a very clear weakness for Minnesota, but underestimate their defense at your peril. They have a top-5 unit in terms of points per game, have one of the best rush defences in the league, have a top-10 unit in terms of third down stoppage and a top-2 unit in forcing turnovers.