[h2]FBO: The Vikings' playoff issue[/h2] [h3]They're likely to face Arizona, and the Cardinals are almost designed to beat them[/h3]
Despite their 10-2 record, the Vikings have their flaws, and those flaws were on full display in their 30-17 beatdown at the hands of the Cardinals. The bad news for the Vikings is that Arizona's strengths match up perfectly with their weaknesses. Even worse, a playoff rematch between the two seems inevitable -- and the Cardinals seem like a team designed in a laboratory with the specific goal of ending Minnesota's Super Bowl run.
Despite the brilliant season Brett Favre is having, the Vikings still are built around the threat of
Adrian Peterson running the ball. Peterson's basic stats look sensational -- third in the league with 1,103 yards, second with 12 touchdowns, second in 20-yard runs -- and all with a very good average of 4.5 yards per carry. By Football Outsiders' statistics, though, he looks much more mundane. He ranks
24th among running backs in rushing DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, FO's exclusive metric that analyzes every play of the season and adjusts it for down, distance, field position, opponent and many other factors).
Why does DVOA indicate that Peterson has been only a league-average back? First, there are his six fumbles, the most of any non-quarterback in the league. He also ranks just 28th out of 38 qualifying backs in success rate (percentage of runs that gain 40 percent of needed yards on first down, 60 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth downs; 100 carries to qualify). Furthermore, Peterson has been playing behind an offensive line whose performance has not lived up to its reputation. As a team, the Vikings have been stuffed for no gain or a loss on 25 percent of their carries,
the highest figure in the league. They usually make up for that with plenty of long runs -- they've gained 27 percent of their rushing yards more than 10 yards downfield, a higher share than any team except Tennessee and San Francisco -- but their running game, while explosive, is terribly unreliable.
That makes a matchup with Arizona particularly bad news, because the Cardinals are the NFL's best team at stuffing opposing runners,
doing so on 27 percent of all carries. If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it was -- Peterson was stuffed for no gain or a loss seven times in 13 carries Sunday night. His longest run of the night was 11 yards; his other 12 carries gained a total of 8 yards.
While
Sidney Rice and
Percy Harvin have provided plenty of fireworks this season, they have not proved they can come back from a big deficit. Going into Sunday night, the Vikings' offense had snapped the ball only 15 times when behind by at least two scores -- five times at the end of their loss to the Steelers and 10 plays in the second quarter in Detroit in Week 2. By shutting down Peterson, the Cardinals were able to jump out to a big early lead, and Minnesota's offense ran 40 plays while behind by at least two scores. The Cardinals' defenders could ignore the run and focus on receivers, and the wideouts looked incapable of making plays on their own. Rice was particularly ineffective, catching only seven of the 16 passes thrown his way.
On offense, too, Arizona is the perfect team to attack Minnesota. The Vikings' run defense is as good as advertised,
first in the league in DVOA by a healthy margin and right behind Arizona in stuff rate. That's fine with the Cardinals, though -- they're perfectly happy to throw the ball, passing on a league-high 63.6 percent of their plays. Minnesota's pass defense as a whole isn't very strong, ranking 19th in DVOA. The Vikings do rank fourth in FO's adjusted sack rate, but that pass rush was neutralized by Arizona's offensive line, which ranks sixth in that same statistic.
The worst news of all for Minnesota: A playoff rematch with the Cardinals looms on the horizon. Two games behind the Saints and two ahead of everyone else, the Vikings are virtually assured of the No. 2 seed in the NFC. For their part, the Cardinals have a three-game lead in the NFC West, so they're getting into the playoffs. They're currently tied with Philadelphia and Dallas for the No. 3 seed, but they have only two conference losses and the easiest schedule of the three going forward -- three games against the 49ers, Lions and Rams (combined record: 8-2
before closing with a home game against Green Bay. If the Cardinals finish in the No. 3 spot and win their first playoff game, they then will play the No. 2 seed. And if they somehow finish as the No. 4 seed? They still could play Minnesota if the NFC East champion is upset in the wild-card round.
The Vikings have looked like a super team all season, but in the Cardinals, they might have found their kryptonite.
