Lost amid the Minnesota Vikings' spate of turnovers this season is an observation that would draw pride from any fan of 1980's football: They can't run the ball, and at least in Week 2, they couldn't stop it either.
Smart NFL teams have moved past dated and outsized notions about the run game's impact on wins and losses, given the league's undeniable shift toward efficient passing. And the most significant factor in the Vikings' 0-2 start is their minus-six turnover margin. But it's difficult to look entirely past the Vikings' ineptitude and indifference on the ground this season, especially given a series of offseason personnel decisions that seemed aimed at upgrading its performance on both sides of the ball.
The Vikings had 14 rushes by running backs in their Week 1 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, tied for the third-fewest in the NFL, and then followed it up with nine such carries in Thursday night's 34-28 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Running back Alexander Mattison, who was promoted this offseason to replace Dalvin Cook, has played on 74% of their offensive snaps but has 62 rushing yards on 19 carries.
All told, the Vikings have dropped back on 79% of their offensive plays this season. Speaking to reporters Friday afternoon, coach Kevin O'Connell had a succinct explanation for why.
"We need to run the football more," O'Connell said, "but our yards per carry is not justifying that other than just the overall landscape of how that does help our team."
O'Connell would face far more scrutiny if he had forced additional run plays at the expense of a passing game that is stocked with playmakers and is producing an average of 337 yards and three touchdowns per game. The Vikings scheme is built around receiver Justin Jefferson, who already has 20 receptions for 309 yards himself this season. Pass-catchers Jordan Addison, K.J. Osborn and T.J. Hockenson are all benefitting from the cascading effects of the attention opponents pay to Jefferson.
But it's also easier to play defense against a one-dimensional offense, no matter how explosive that one dimension might be, and that narrow focus can be particularly debilitating in key moments of games.
"It becomes a question you've got to ask yourself, knowing that I'll get asked the question about the number of rushing attempts," O'Connell said. "My ultimate goal is to try to move the football and score points and overcome those turnovers, which make it more of a dire need but more of a necessity to have success on that drive however we see fit. Overall, we're not going to abandon the run. We've got to run the football more. It'll help our whole entire team and our whole entire offense."
Indeed, the Vikings have already started seven different offensive linemen this season because of injuries, and some of their original five struggle when facing power-based defensive tackles. O'Connell said his schematic decisions have been based in part on helping "those sixth, seventh or eighth linemen" with personnel groupings that minimize those mismatches. For instance, No. 2 tight end Josh Oliver, signed this offseason to provide the Vikings heftier blocking help in the run game, has been on the field for 19 of the 23 carries that either Mattison or backup Ty Chandler have taken this season.
But Oliver alone hasn't been able to clean up muddled run lanes. No one expected Mattison to match the production of Cook in his prime, but a closer look at his carries this season -- albeit in a small sample size -- suggests he has not had much room to run. Mattison, in fact, is averaging 0.95 yards before contact on his 19 carries, which currently ranks No. 43 in the NFL. The league average is 2.17 yards. And he has produced more than twice as many yards after contact (44) as before (18).
While the run game's struggles have been apparent in both weeks this season, the Vikings' defensive issues Thursday night were new. They had held Buccaneers running back Rachaad White to 39 yards on 17 carries in Week 1, but a complex series of schematic decisions left them vulnerable Thursday night. The Eagles ran for 259 yards, including 175 from tailback D'Andre Swift.
As O'Connell explained it Friday, the Vikings wanted to use a personnel grouping that would make them versatile enough to defend what he referred to as the Eagles' "triple option" offense -- the traditional running game, the passing game and quarterback Jalen Hurts' designed runs. Defensive coordinator Brian Flores settled on what was technically a 3-3-5 scheme with three players up front, three linebackers and five defensive backs.
From a positional standpoint, however, the Vikings were in essence using one defensive lineman -- mostly Harrison Phillips -- five linebackers and five defensive backs. The Eagles eventually realized the look gave them a significant physical advantage, one that was most notable on a 16-play drive that ended in a touchdown during the second quarter. The Vikings had one defensive lineman on the field for 14 of the plays on that possession.
"The hope was we would not turn the football over," O'Connell said, "and we would sustain and get some points to hopefully get a lead in a short week and force them to be a little bit less reliant on the run game and more on the pass game, and then we can settle into the plan.
"The Eagles did a good job adjusting and figuring out ways to possibly limit the effect of those. They started leaning us on a little bit upfront with that offensive line and got Swift going downhill pretty good."
Of Swift's 175 yards, 133 of them came before first contact. Not all opponents will have the combination of the Eagles' rush weapons and offensive line, and the Vikings' rush defense is probably less a concern than their rush offense. Neither is the most critical issue facing the team after an 0-2 start, but rarely does a single adjustment produce the kind of turnaround the Vikings need. Both need to be better.