How new head coach Kevin O’Connell plans to redefine the Vikings’ offense

With all the firepower that’s in Minnesota Vikings offense, it’s been two years since the team has seen the playoffs. Last year, Kirk Cousins threw for 4,221 yards, 33 touchdowns and only seven interceptions. Justin Jefferson finished the season with 1,616 receiving yards, Dalvin Cook was a top-5 rusher, and yet the offense still felt bland. With the penalties piling up and the defense not playing to their potential, it felt like the organization needed a culture change. So, they decided to part ways with head coach Mike Zimmer, and longtime general manager Rick Spielman.

When Jefferson was asked about the changes he recently said, “We had an old-style offense last year. It’s 2022. You get into a new age and move to a new generation. Adding new things to the offense definitely allows us to be more comfortable with the offense and work in different areas of the fields.”

The biggest question mark we have is when looking at the Vikings today is, how much different will the offense be under new head coach Kevin O’Connell? When he was with his former team, the Los Angeles Rams, they had a similar play-action style quarterback in Matthew Stafford.

So, let’s dive into the Vikings’ offense to see what will be different this upcoming year!

Kirk Cousins isn't really the problem

Something that we’ve all noticed with Cousins is that he isn’t the type of quarterback to put an average team on his back and carry them into the playoffs.  Although this may be true, he also hasn’t held his team back when we look at his production.

It might be hard to believe, but there are only three quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, who in their first 115 games have 30k passing yards and 200 touchdowns: Dan Marino, Peyton Manning and Cousins.

Right now, Cousins holds several franchise records from his time in Washington. He is first in career completions (65.5), and passing yards per game (261.4). For the Vikings, he currently he holds the highest career passer rating (103.6) and most season completions (425 during 2018) in Vikings history.

According to Pro Football Focus, 2021 was Cousins’ best season as he finished with the highest player grade of his career (88.4).

Cousins had nine games last year where he finished with 100+ NFL passer rating and this allowed Jefferson to achieve over 1,600 receiving yards; Jefferson and Adam Thielen both had 10 touchdowns each. According to Sports Info Solutions, Cousins leads the league in completions against Cover-3 defenses bringing five or more pass rushers.

All of this mentioned, the Vikings should be better than what they have been. When we pull up their results from last season, they had a total of nine losses and seven of those were by seven points or less. We could blame the defense for allowing rallies late in games (which would be entirely valid), but today we are looking at just the offense.

The offensive line had the second most offensive holding penalties in the NFL (26), which was only one penalty behind the last place Dallas Cowboys (27), also landing them 30th in the league in penalty yards per game with 61.4.

Four of those losses were by only three points or less. Imagine if the Vikings had those sixty penalty yards to work with each game, they might have ended the season 12-5.

It’s true that the offensive line had declined over the years, but Cousins still showed an ability to stay upright through the pressure and blitzes, as he was only sacked 28 times (25th) in the NFL and had the fifth most completions in the NFL when under pressure (per SIS).

Cousins preformed this well under a former head coach in Mike Zimmer who reportedly didn’t like him very much. Imagine being a quarterback that is getting paid millions of dollars and having to run out onto the field each and every drive knowing that the play-caller doesn’t put his trust in you. This mistrust certainly showed in the play-calling as well.

Defining the 2021 Vikings offense

When we take a step back and look at the stats, we are able to see that there were plenty of issues with the Vikings’ offense over the last few years. It all starts with the overall philosophy. The Vikings were a run-first team and built their passing game around the run.

According to SIS, Dalvin Cook had the 6th most run attempts in the league on first-and-ten and second-and-ten. This led to several third-and-long situations which landed the Vikings offense dead last in the NFL when it came to three-and-outs (per Football Outsiders) and 26th in third down conversion rate.

The play action offense works best when the defense fears the run game. Essentially, any quarterback would do well under play action with Cook’s skillset. But Cousins wasn’t just good; he was a top performer. Last year, on play action passes of 15+ air yards, he finished second in touchdowns and fifth in completions.

Cook is a very good ballcarrier but when you have a player like Jefferson and a two-time pro bowler in Adam Thielen, it’s important to get your receivers the ball on early downs.

On top of being overly dedicated to the run, another one of Coach Zimmer’s issues was his personnel usage. CJ Ham is a top fullback in the league, but when he is out there on the field 61% of his snaps, he’s blocking. Cousins is only passing it 11% of the time that his fullback is on the field.

There wasn’t any deception in the Vikings offense.

They ran 11 personnel only 44% of plays which was 5th lowest in the NFL, behind the Miami Dolphins, Cleveland Browns, Balitmore Ravens and Atlanta Falcons.

If an offense is able to run several plays out of the same look, it gives your quarterback a chance to examine the defense throughout the drive and exploit coverages.

Another tactic most coaches use to help their quarterback identify coverages is the pre-snap motion. When looking into the leaderboards (per SIS), when the Vikings used pre-snap motion there was a huge difference in production.

When it comes to completions from 11-personnel, the Vikings offense ended 14th in the league when they used pre-snap motion and 20th without. Using that same 11 personnel and looking at completions of 15+ air yards the Vikings were 10th with motion, and 12th without.

Using tempo to upset opposing defenses

Not only does new head coach O’Connell plan on using more 11-personnel and pre-snap motion in the Vikings offense, but he also plans to use more of an up-tempo offense.

When the O’Connell was on the VikingsDaily podcast, he asked about the new offense with Cousins, this is what he had to say, “…don’t put him (Cousins) into a position where he has to decipher different coverages to know where he starts his progressions, let’s call plays that have answers versus plays that have everything built into pure progressions, limit the impact of him getting hit.”

There were a few instances last year where Cousins didn’t get the ball out on time or didn’t bother going through his reads. In the clip below, the defense blows the coverage and Cousins misses the wide-open seam route.

In order to prevent these mishaps, O’Connell plans on simplifying the offense and calling plays that are based on Cousins trusting his wide receivers and taking a risk early in the play, rather than forcing Cousin’s to find the open receiver.

“We will pass in a smart, aggressive way, where you’re understanding the risk-reward of the why.” says O’Connell.

Another way the new head coach plans on improving the offense is using more of an up-tempo offense. Last year when O’Connell was coaching Matthew Stafford, the Rams ran no-huddle at the NFL’s second-highest rate, and led the league in 15+ air yard throws from no-huddle. Cousins was 24th in attempts with only 30 dropbacks from no-huddle. Zimmer rarely gave Cousins a chance to catch the defense off guard.

When it came to the run game, Cook had the second-most attempts against 8+ boxes only behind Jonathan Taylor, and still finished with the fifth most rushing yards. Adding in a no-huddle offense, defenses will have to cheat inside to stop the run leaving the Viking’s receivers with ideal matchups outside in their new high-risk passing offense.

Where does the Vikings' offense go from here?

This isn’t the first time Cousins and O’Connell have worked together. Back in 2017, when Cousins was in Washington, O’Connell was his quarterbacks coach.

Overall, the Vikings offense might not look much different from last year in terms of the playbook. It should actually be more condensed. O’Connell will put his quarterback in better opportunities using an up-tempo offense with play action, pre-snap motions and different formations from the same personnel. Deception will be key. We might even see Cook motion out to the sideline to catch a few passes. Anything that will keep the defense guessing!

When Cousins has the fire, he’s fun to watch!

The Vikings did the right thing by keeping Cousins. His performance earned him another chance with a new head coach, but this is his last year to really prove that he has what it takes to earn another contract. If he isn’t successful, the Vikings have the picks to trade up and grab a quarterback in the 2023 NFL draft.

We shouldn’t expect Cousins to preform significantly better than he already has, but if the defense can get a few more stops and the offense limits the penalties; there is a good chance that Cousins could lead this team back to the playoffs for the first time since 2019.

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