Minnesota’s Blueprint to Beating Tampa Bay

  |  
Dec 10, 2020

By winning their fifth game in six weeks, the Vikings have earned the right to control their own playoff destiny. While their record is even with the Cardinals at 6-6, the Vikings own a tiebreaker that gives them the seventh playoff spot. 

 

While controlling one’s own destiny is always a good thing, in Minnesota’s case it means they have to win games against good teams. This week is their first test against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. 

 

Even though the Buccaneers came into the season with lots of hype, they have proven beatable with the right strategy. Likewise, the Vikings have shown they can beat good teams with their dominant win in Green Bay earlier this season. Here is what Minnesota needs to do against Tampa Bay to walk away with another win. 

 

Big Plays Early

 

Tampa’s loss to Kansas City was littered with big plays, especially in the first half. Tampa Bay has a tendency to try to establish their pass rush early in the game, which results in a lot of one-on-one coverage in the secondary. Tyreek Hill broke a couple huge passing plays in the first quarter of that game, basically putting Kansas City out of reach in the blink of an eye. 

 

However, even in both New Orleans games, Tampa also gave up big chunk plays to Jared Cook on touchdown drives. Here’s a close look at a 46-yarder from the week one game. 

 

 

See the lax single coverage? It’s because even though Tampa Bay only rushed three on this play, they lined up six guys at the line to give the appearance of a blitz. 

 

New Orleans did a bad job of exploiting matchups during much of this game, which resulted in it being close. However, on this play, the Saints sent Jared Cook on a go route, and Drew Brees hit him on a strike after he got behind the defense. New Orleans scored a touchdown minutes later, and then they proceeded to grab a muffed kick return. 

 

In the week nine rematch, New Orleans was much more keen on making big plays early, racking up four plays of 20+ yards just in the first half en route to a 31-0 halftime lead. Big plays rattle Tampa’s defense more than anything else. They’ve allowed 38 passing plays of 20 or more yards, ninth-worst in the league. Kirk Cousins should be fine with that, as he has averaged the third-highest average air yards per completion at 7.4. 

 

Bring Pressure

 

While the Vikings should attack the Bucs use of single coverage, they may also have to employ a little of that themselves to get a win. The most obvious example of this is New Orleans in week nine where their pass rush sacked Brady three times, but they also used this rush to force him into three interceptions. The three interceptions were a result of a batted ball, and then the other two occurred when the Saints brought a five-man rush.

 

Brady hasn’t had to throw under pressure much this season, just 16.8% of the time according to Pro-Football-Reference. However, when he has had pressure applied, it has clearly affected him. Here’s a game-changing interception he threw in the loss to the Rams. As you can see, LA put pressure on him, and he again threw a ball that was up for grabs.

 

 

Minnesota doesn’t have the most impressive pass rush when compared to that of LA and New Orleans, but if they can at least make their presence known, they should be able to force Brady into uncomfortable situations. This is a defense that has forced at least one turnover in every game since week one, and given Cameron Dantzler’s emergence, Zimmer might feel more comfortable leaving him in one-on-one battles.

 

Don’t Get Complacent 

 

This is something specific to the Kansas City game, but it still applies. The Chiefs got out to a 17-0 lead in the first quarter, and then scored only 10 points for the rest of the game. Some of this can be attributed to Tampa Bay making defensive adjustments, i.e. not using single coverage on Tyreek Hill, but it certainly also seemed like Kansas City got a little too comfortable with the lead. 

 

After going up 27-10 in the third quarter, the Chiefs punted on their next three drives, and two of them were three-and-outs. During this time, the defense also gave up two touchdowns, and had Mahomes not woken up during the final four minute drive to end the game, Brady would have had an opportunity to lead a game-winning drive. 

 

Should the Vikings get a lead this week, they cannot afford to let their foot off the gas. The Chiefs won that game solely because they are such a talented team, and Mahomes was able to bail them out on some plays towards the end of the game with his legs.

Share: