Vikings, Week 1 — What Repeats: Five or More on Four in Five

Minnesota sent five or more pass rushers at Jordan Love on 37 of his 46 dropbacks on Sunday. 80 percent. The next-highest defense was at 46, and the league median was about 27. The charters tag a blitzer when a defender rushes from somewhere he does not usually rush — and Minnesota's blitzer count was eight dropbacks out of 46, 17 percent. Last season this defense had a charted blitzer on 51 percent of the dropbacks it faced and five or more rushers on 46 percent. So the blitzers went down by two-thirds and the rushers went up: 5.3 rushers per dropback on average, against 4.6 last season. The fifth rusher was mostly not a charted blitzer, and Green Bay saw him on four dropbacks out of five.

What the throws looked like against it: Love put 42 passes in the air and 21 of them were charted catchable — 50 percent, the lowest catchable rate any offense produced in Week 1, 30-second of 32, against a league median of 71. Last season the quarterbacks Minnesota faced were catchable on 69 percent of their throws. Green Bay's receivers dropped none of the 21 that were catchable, and only six of the 42 throws were contested — a receiver and a defender arriving together — so the misses were not traffic and were not hands. Two of the 42 were charted interception-worthy. He was intercepted once, by James Pierre, and the charting does not say whether that was one of the two. Four sacks, and none of the four was charged to the quarterback. The counterweight is 387 passing yards; a pass defense that allows that is not finished with its work.

Against the run, the box counts say the same thing the rush does. Green Bay ran 21 charted designed runs, and Minnesota showed six or fewer defenders in the box on 20 of them — 95 percent, the lightest boxes any offense saw in the league this week, with an average of 5.9 in the box. Last season Minnesota showed a light box on 57 percent of the designed runs it faced, with an average of six and a half. Those 21 Green Bay runs gained 66 yards. Read together: fewer bodies in the box on runs, more on the passer, and on Sunday the run game did not make that cost anything.

Now the offense, where the story is a quarterback who threw 20 clean passes. Carson Wentz's 20 charted throws included zero interception-worthy balls, 12 catchable — 60 percent — and two contested. Last season, on a part-season sample of 170 throws, 10 of his were interception-worthy, about six percent, and 72 percent were catchable. 20 throws is a sample small enough that both changes could be noise. Kyler Murray's five throws before he left included one charted interception-worthy ball; the charting does not say whether it was the one Keisean Nixon intercepted. The team line: 25 throws, 15 catchable, one interception-worthy, three contested, no drops, one throwaway. Across all of last season this offense's throws were catchable 71 percent of the time, interception-worthy five percent of the time — 24 such throws on 488 — and its receivers dropped seven percent of the catchable ones. Sunday's catchable rate of 60 percent ranked 20-eighth of 32 offenses this week. The interception-worthy rate, one on 25, was tied for ninth-highest. The catchable rate is worse than last season's; the interception-worthy rate is a shade better, in a year after 21 interceptions.

The scheme moved in several places and stood still in one. Play-action on nine of 31 dropbacks, 29 percent, tied for eleventh-highest in the league this week against a median of 21, and up from 26 percent last season; Wentz's six play-action throws produced three completions for 27 yards, and his 14 other throws produced nine completions for 108. Screens on four of 31 dropbacks, 13 percent, up from nine. Motion on 51 percent of charted plays, ninth in the league, up from 41 percent last season. No run-pass options at all, after five percent of snaps last year. And the thing that stood still is the box count the run game saw. Green Bay showed a light box on 17 of Minnesota's 28 designed runs, 61 percent, an average of 6.4 in the box. Last season, for this offense: 62 percent, 6.4. Near enough identical. Those 28 runs gained 100 yards. Green Bay did send five or more rushers on 14 of 31 dropbacks, 45 percent, fourth-highest in the league this week. Minnesota took three sacks, none charged to the quarterback. Last season this offense had 21 sacks charged to the quarterback's own fault, nearly four percent of its dropbacks — a number to keep beside the zero.

The stat lines have settled, so here they are, scored half-PPR. Justin Jefferson caught eight of nine targets for 92 yards and two touchdowns, 27.2. Wentz went 12 of 19 for 133 three touchdowns, 19.2, with five carries for −1. Jordan Mason ran 15 times for 59 and a touchdown, 11.9; Aaron Jones 12 for 40 and a touchdown, 10 even. T.J. Hockenson caught four of five for 36 and a touchdown. Jordan Addison was targeted twice and caught neither. Murray finished three of five for 18 with the interception and two carries for nine. For Green Bay, Christian Watson caught six of eight for 147 two touchdowns, 29.7, the highest total on the field; Love went 21 of 42 for 387, two touchdowns and one interception; Matthew Golden caught six of 12 targets for 95; and in the backfield MarShawn Lloyd ran 13 times for 37 and Chris Brooks seven for 29.

This is the first of these all season, so a word about what it compares to. There is no within-season baseline yet — no prior weeks of this Minnesota team to hold Sunday against. Every comparison above is to all of last season, which is a different roster, a year older, in some places a different job. That tells you what is unusual about Sunday, and unusual is useful. It does not tell you what is true about this team. The version of this show that compares the Vikings to their own recent weeks starts working around Week 4, and until then we will say each time which comparison we are making.

The season-long thread starts here. The Recap put down last season's ranks: a defense fourth in expected points allowed per play, fifth in the rate of plays it allowed to succeed, first at preventing explosive plays; an offense 20-eighth in expected points per play, 20-ninth through the air, 30-first on third down. The charting adds two lines. The defense rushed five or more on 80 percent of dropbacks with almost no charted blitzers — a different shape from a year ago — and a quarterback threw half his balls uncatchable against it, for 387 yards. And the offense threw 25 passes with one interception-worthy ball and took three sacks with none charged to the quarterback, in a year that follows 24 interception-worthy throws and 21 quarterback-fault sacks. That last line is the one to watch, and one game with a backup is the least reliable place to read it. We are writing it down, not calling it.

That's your Vikings — every game, by the numbers. This is Muffed: we do the same deep dive for all 32 teams. Follow the Vikings show wherever you're listening, so next week's recap lands the moment it's out. No theater. Just the football.

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_Data via nflverse. Charting: FTN Data via nflverse._