PurplePTSD: Third Down Woes Cost Vikings The Game

Press release from the PurplePTSD:

November 1, 2021

The Vikings have once again embarrassed themselves on national television, losing a prime time game at home against Cooper Rush and the Dallas Cowboys, putting their playoff aspirations in doubt.

Coming into the game, the Vikings were fresh off of a bye week, had a respectable .500 record, and were at home against a back up quarterback to get the season back on track.

Disappointingly, they were not able to take advantage of a crucial opportunity, and will now be fighting an uphill battle to get into the postseason.

Although it may be painful, let’s go back over the game and try to figure out what went wrong on Sunday night.

Things started off well, as they have in many games this season. The Vikings have had such great success with scripted plays at the start of the game, that they actually scripted the opening drive of the second half in a game earlier this season. Against the Cowboys, this same pattern repeated, as the offense marched down the field with ease to open the game, putting together a 7 play, 75-yard touchdown drive, capped off by a 20-yard Adam Thielen touchdown. However, the momentum was not sustained, and the Vikings offense sputtered and struggled for the remainder of the day against the Dallas Cowboys.

The reason the Vikings were not able to sustain drives is because they failed to convert on third downs. The Vikings offense was a miserable 1 for 13 on third downs, and they didn’t make it easy on themselves, either, as they averaged 8.1 yards to go per attempt. That means they were averaging less than 1 yard per play on first and second down. Some of this may have been due to a poor game plan, but Kirk Cousins also had an undeniably poor performance, making bad reads, checking the ball down too early, and throwing inaccurate passes. The offense simply needs to perform better on third down to give the team a chance to win games.

On the other side of the ball, the defense did not perform much better in third down situations. The Cowboys converted 7 out of 14 third down opportunities with a back up quarterback starting the first game of his career. Mike Zimmer and the Vikings defense is known for getting after the quarterback in passing situations with creative fronts and blitzes, but this was not the case against Dallas. Dallas threw the ball for 17 first downs throughout the game, compared to 6 for the Vikings. It’s safe to say that Cooper Rush outplayed Kirk Cousins, especially on third downs.

This press release was produced by the PurplePTSD. The views expressed here are the author’s own.