KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chiefs’ defense showed on Sunday night against Green Bay that it is capable of recreating the aggressive run defense and pass rush that helped it dominate in Denver.
Now, Kansas City faces another formidable foe in the Minnesota Vikings, who play a lot like the 2015 Denver Broncos.
Minnesota has a fundamentally sound defense under coach Mike Zimmer. The fingerprints of assistant head coach Gary Kubiak and offensive line coach Rick Dennison are all over the offense.
The Vikings utilize the stretch run game and cutback lanes to let running back Dalvin Cook fully utilize his speed and vision.
Quarterback Kirk Cousins is able to play-action pass off that to sustain drives and to buy time to throw deep passes to Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen.
Cook’s rookie backup, Alexander Mattison, provides the change-of-pace power back for an offense designed nearly identically to the Broncos’ most recent Super Bowl teams.
Defensively, the Vikings have a front four capable of getting after the quarterback without much help.
A strong linebacker group can stuff the run up the middle with imposing size, while the secondary is adept at both man and zone coverages.
Minnesota wants to present opposing offenses with multiple looks and keep the quarterback guessing with their coverage.
The Chiefs, who thrive by leveraging their speed for advantage on offense, will face a lot of speed on Sunday.
Here are the keys to find themselves in striking distance for a victory:
1. Set edge defensively, be disciplined on cutbacks
The Vikings’ offense revolves around its ability to run the football primarily on stretch plays.
The goal is to get Cook to the edge or have defenders over pursue and give him cutback lanes, so the Chiefs will need to shut down the edge and be ready for the cutback run.
Cook has the speed and vision to make a defense pay if it lacks discipline in controlling assigned lanes
2. Isolate linebackers in passing game
The Chiefs offense can steal a page out of Green Bay’s game plan from Sunday.
Minnesota’s linebackers lack the athletic ability to cover running backs in space and when utilizing pick routes.
The Chiefs can feast on this particular Vikings weakness with check-down passes, angle routes, slant routes with a flats combination, and flare passes out of the backfield when in need of a first down.
Another option is to load up in the backfield, having one eligible receiver go in motion into the flats and the other be prepared for a screen or flats pass to the opposite side depending on the matchup.
3. Two tight-end sets with double teams
Kansas City's offensive line almost always needs to double team when run blocking to effectively move defenders.
The Chiefs can move the Vikings’ interior by double teaming at the point of attack and also on the cutback, but they will need to add in double tight end looks to seal the edge.
Either the Chiefs will need to run away from two tight end sets, put a tight end on each side, or run toward the double tight end side and look for the cutback.
It’s a similar concept to how the Chiefs were able to run against a stout Broncos front under Reid, and it’s how opponents have moved the ball routinely against the Vikings this season.
4. Beware of double moves
This point applies to both sides of the ball.
Defensively, the Chiefs will need to be ready for Diggs and Thielen to try double moves, especially in the red zone to gain leverage against a defender.
It has been an effective weapon because of the duo’s ability versus an isolated defender with no safety help
Offensively, Kansas City can run its own double moves against Minnesota’s zone coverage, because their safeties and corners are often manipulated by the initial move on a route.
The Vikings’ secondary likes to commit after the first move and expects the pass rush to get there if they guess wrong.
5. Occupy center, destroy Cook in pass protection
Minnesota's weakness in their pass protection is at the guard spots.
Left guard Pat Elflein and right guard Josh Kline can be beat with bull-rushes or a wide rush with a rip across their face while attacking the inside shoulder.
The addition of center Garrett Bradbury has kept Minnesota’s interior offensive line play from becoming a massive problem. Bradbury typically helps one of the guards and the other is left on an island, but if Bradbury is occupied the struggles at guard become apparent.
Cousins runs a lot of play-action and bootlegs to buy time, but it has been close when the coverage is on point.
As talented as he is, Cook is a liability in pass protection. If a team can isolate him against a blitzer one-on-one, he can be run over with a bull rush and often guesses wrong on swim moves.
The added bonus is that he won't be out catching a pass.
Tackles Riley Reiff and Brian O'Neill struggle on short sets with the dip-and-rip to the outside.
6. Hit intermediate routes off play-action
If the Chiefs can run the ball a bit, it will open up intermediate routes open over the middle because the Vikings crash hard on run fakes and vacate space over the middle.
If the run game is ineffective, Minnesota will sit back and close down the middle of the field between the numbers.
This is one of the final options to move the chains consistently but
The Chiefs will need to be gash the Vikings’ front with the run to open up another consistent option to move the chains.
Kansas City has a tough task ahead this week with another playoff-caliber team arriving at Arrowhead Stadium, where the Chiefs have lost three straight games.
So far, the home schedule has been tough, but KC’s lone win in four games came against Baltimore followed by losses to Indianapolis, Houston and Green Bay.
The Chiefs can beat the Vikings, but the run game will be a big factor on both sides of the ball, whether Patrick Mahomes plays or not.
Nick Jacobs can be found on Twitter: @Jacobs71 . You can also download the weekly 4th and 1 podcast on Apple, Google Podcast, Spotify and Stitcher.
