Sep 8, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle Harrison Phillips (97) celebrates a defensive stop during the second half against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
The Minnesota Vikings opened up their regular season on Sunday.
The year started swimmingly as Minnesota dominated their way to a victory over the New York Giants in Sam Darnold’s debut as the starting quarterback. Now that the game is behind us, here is a look at the snap counts for the Vikings from Week 1.
It hasn’t happened much over the past year where the Vikings had the same five offensive linemen and one quarterback play the entirety of the game, but the 2024 campaign got off to a clean start in that department.
Meanwhile, a Week 1 surprise came in the form of Brandon Powell earning the second-most snaps among all Vikings wide receivers. Of course, a reason for this was Jordan Addison’s ankle injury, but Powell wasn’t targeted a single time throughout the afternoon. That will need to change if Addison were to miss this Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers.
Otherwise, the offensive alignment ended up about as expected on Sunday. Aaron Jones earned a bit more time in the backfield than Ty Chandler while Johnny Mundt and Josh Oliver essentially split the snaps at tight end.
Vikings fans have grown accustomed to their safety trio leading the way in terms of snaps under Brian Flores, and it happened again to begin the 2024 season. Among that trio, it was the 35-year-old ageless wonder, Harrison Smith, who especially had a fantastic game against New York. He was targeted three times on the day and allowed just one reception while intercepting a pass as well.
Further down the line, fans will find that Dallas Turner played just about half the snaps, but he was almost exclusively used in pass rush situations. PFF was not kind to him in terms of a grade, but he did record his first NFL sack.
After being near the top of the list in terms of special teams snaps over the past few years, Josh Metellus found himself closer to the middle of the pack in Week 1. Perhaps that will be the plan this season with another year of a full defensive workload in front of him, or maybe he goes back to playing virtually every snap on the special teams later on.
Instead, Theo Jackson and Jay Ward were the two safeties to take on the majority of the special teams snaps. The Vikings have done a great job of converting players from special teams to contributors on defense over the past couple years, so this seems like a positive sign for the two young safeties.
Editor’s Note: Statistics for this article were found via Pro Football Focus.