This is it. The Minnesota Vikings’ Week 7 matchup against the Detroit Lions at U.S. Bank Stadium is the biggest Vikings game since their 2022 playoff showdown against the New York Giants. Two heavyweights — perhaps the two best teams in the NFC — face off for the first time this season. Detroit is coming off a 47-9 win over the Dallas Cowboys, during which offensive coordinator Ben Johnson remained aggressive. The Vikings entered last week’s bye following their ugliest win of the season, where Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets had a chance to win the game on the final drive.
Johnson versus Brian Flores will be a chess match for the ages.
Detroit’s offense is second in EPA/rush. The other five teams in the top six (the Washington Commanders, Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, and Buffalo Bills) all have a quarterback contributing to the rushing attack. The Lions don’t have that luxury, highlighting how incredible they are in the traditional run game. They are also third in success rate and have ripped off 24 explosive runs through their first five games, good for eighth in the league. Every team with more has played six games.
If Detroit can get positive runs on early downs, it will be difficult for Minnesota to dictate the game plan the way they have against every other opponent this season. Flores’ unit is second in the NFL in EPA/rush allowed and has given up just seven runs of 10-plus yards. The Vikings blitz more often on first and second down (48%) than they do on third down (29%), which sometimes contradicts the eye test.
Flores makes aggressive calls on early downs to force the offense to play into his hands. Once he gets offenses into third-and-medium or third-and-long, he uses pre-snap eye candy to confuse quarterbacks and gets creative with how he deploys his four-man rush. Detroit is his most difficult test in that regard, and perhaps the team is best equipped to attack Minnesota.
The Vikings have been highly effective against the zone run this season. The Houston Texans, Green Bay Packers, and San Francisco 49ers have some of the most zone-heavy running schemes. Still, Minnesota stymied all of those attacks. Edge defenders like Jonathan Greenard and Dallas Turner do a great job of pursuing on the back side of these runs to take away cutbacks, Ivan Pace Jr. and Blake Cashman excel at knifing through reach blocks at the perfect time, and Harrison Phillips is constantly flowing laterally with the blocks to play multiple gaps. The Vikings have not had the same level of success against gap scheme runs like power and duo.
Detroit has a 60% success rate on duo runs this season and has been most effective in displacing defenses vertically behind their mammoth offensive line. The Lions sometimes utilize an extra offensive lineman to aid in the running game. Still, they also just put several trick plays involving offensive linemen on film against Dallas last weekend. An offense that always seems to get a push and positive yardage on the ground will be up against a run defense that ranks first in yards before contact allowed.
David Montgomery’s ferocious running style blends perfectly with his dominant blockers; 44% of Montgomery’s carries have come on gap-scheme runs this season. Their other running back, Jahmyr Gibbs, is the sweet to his sour. He is a shifty, dynamic runner and also does well as a pass-catcher out of the backfield. To me, this feels like more of a David Montgomery game because the Lions will want to prod at the relative weakness of the Minnesota defense.
Harrison Phillips was limited in practice on Thursday. However, if he plays, he must hold his ground against center Frank Ragnow and guard Kevin Zeitler for Minnesota to stand a chance at keeping this run game bottled up.
Detroit Passing Attack vs. Vikings Pass Defense
Detroit has a well-balanced offense. They have a near 50/50 run/pass split (50.3% run) and are top-five in EPA/Rush and EPA/Pass. 72.9% of plays run against the Vikings this season have been pass plays, largely due to opponents playing from behind for most of the game. If the Lions can stay this balanced, it will create uncharted waters for the Purple.
The Lions are tied for second in the NFL in yards per/pass and lead the league in play-action rate. The consistency of their run game makes for many favorable play-action looks, of which Johnson’s group tends to take advantage.
The group of pass catchers is dynamic and complementary. Amon-Ra St. Brown is a No. 1 receiver who does most of his damage out of the slot and is an exemplary route runner. While Jameson Williams lacks polish, he has game-breaking speed. Sam LaPorta is a versatile pass-catching tight end, and the newly acquired Tim Patrick is a big-bodied outside receiver with a large catch radius. The Vikings will struggle to get away with playing man coverage against this group, even if it is behind the blitz.
On the other side, the Vikings are third in the NFL in EPA/pass allowed and sixth in pass yards allowed per play. They will need to continue to rally and tackle in the open field without any major blunders if they hope to contain this offense. Funneling many throws to the flats and underneath parts of the field, Minnesota allows the league’s highest (t-first) average separation per catch. Gibbs and Williams are extremely lively after the catch, so one missed tackle could easily spell disaster for the Vikings’ defense.
Once Detroit is in true passing downs, we will see the real mind games begin. Johnson uses a ton of pre-snap motion to alter the defense’s angles and coverages in the passing game. That can give the quarterback a clue as to what the defense will get to after the snap, but it also forces defenses to widen their coverage and pursuit angles to create better passing windows. Johnson pulled out a lot of deceptive plays against Dallas. However, according to him, “the well runs deep,” so expect no shortage of trickery this Sunday.
Johnson’s offense creates explosive plays at the highest rate in the NFL (13.1%). Flores will have his hands full keeping a lid on this group. With all of Detroit’s crossing routes that have so much run-after-catch potential, the Vikings will feel the likely absence of Blake Cashman at linebacker. While Ivan Pace Jr. is a marvel in the run game, he doesn’t have the same level of instinct, physical length, and speed to do what Cashman does against the pass. If Kamu Grugier-Hill is called upon to fill in, he will likely see many snaps that match Detroit’s heavy personnel sets.
One thing we know for sure is that Brian Flores intends to “fight fire with fire” on Sunday. With two full weeks to gameplan for the biggest kid on the playground, it will be fascinating to see what he pulls out of the hat this time.
