Vikings vs. Giants Wild Card Weekend Preview: ‘Frauds’ Have the Last Laugh

The Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants are one of a number of similar teams facing off against each other in the playoffs. Both teams are plagued with accusations that their record is “fraudulent,” they’re more than just an uneven statistical record.

With a combined 22-11-1 record, both teams have an impressive win rate — especially in close games — but are average to below average in several statistical categories, like EPA per play, DVOA, and drive success rate.

The Vikings and Giants enter the game with quarterbacks that don’t have much time left on their contracts, strong trench play on the defensive side of the ball, and first-year head coaches massively overperforming. How this game goes might define the future of these questions.

Kirk Cousins and Daniel Jones: Quarterbacks at a Crossroads

Neither QB in this game has a long-term commitment from their franchise. Daniel Jones’ situation with New York is much more precarious than Kirk Cousins’, but both could conceivably be playing for their long-term futures in this playoff series.

Both have made enormous strides to prove that the franchise should trust them, but it remains the case that Cousins has one year left on his contract. Jones, meanwhile, after seeing the team decline his fifth-year option, is about to hit free agency.

Cousins signed a one-year, $35 million extension last offseason. Minnesota could have traded him to a number of teams — and received some interest for that from a few franchises — or given him an extension of some sort to really hammer home that a new regime did not mean rebuilding.

The Vikings chose an in-between route that preserves their ability to trade him this offseason if they so choose to or extend him for much longer if he turns out to be the franchise quarterback that his biggest supporters claim he is. By kicking the can down the road on that decision, they made this somewhat of a prove-it year for Cousins.

The Giants and Vikings have expressed commitment to their quarterbacks this season, both in terms of public statements of support and by providing positive atmospheres for them to operate in. But neither has received a long-term contract extension that makes that kind of commitment concrete.

Jones is having a career year. He has his best yards per attempt as a passer and lowest interception rate, but most importantly, has had his best season in expected points per play. He’s been a better passer with a bad receiving corps, but Jones has really been enabled by a scheme that encourages him to gain yards on the ground.

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His struggles before — negative in expected points per play every other year of his career — were responsible for New York’s hesitancy to commit to him. If Jones can pull off a playoff run, they might be forced to give him the long-term deal he’s looking for.

Cousins is in a different boat. Statistically, this is the worst year of his Vikings career: lower touchdown rate, lower yards per attempt, and the lowest expected points per play. But that probably has little to do with Minnesota’s position. They’ve seen a lot of Cousins at his statistical best, and it hasn’t helped the franchise win many playoff games.

The issue with Cousins is that he rides the balance between the value he produces and the cost of his contract. He’s also struggled in situational football, often failing to preserve the clock in end-of-half drives or failing to lead comebacks.

This year, that has changed. Cousins leads the league in fourth-quarter comebacks and is tied for the single-season NFL record for most comebacks with eight. He’s been remarkable in the fourth quarter, and it’s part of the reason that the Vikings have the league’s best point margin in the final frame of the game.

But if the case for Cousins this year is that he comes up in big moments, then a poor performance in the playoffs would undo the narrative he’s built up for himself. In reality, it’s not the case that the Vikings would trade Cousins after one bad playoff game in a new regime. But their willingness to commit to a long-term deal might be mediated by these big-game performances.

Trench Play Might Define the New York Giants-Minnesota Vikings Matchup

The Vikings’ offensive line was already struggling to keep Cousins clean, but recent injuries at center and right tackle have exacerbated the problem. Not only that, their primary backups at both positions have been hurt as well.

Going from Garrett Bradbury to Austin Schlottman to Chris Reed at center has been difficult, and Minnesota has had to take their lumps with communication and snap operation while Reed learns the position and cadence live in games.

This has set the offense back and created penalties. The snap count that Cousins and the rest of the offensive line know is not the snap count that Reed has anticipated. Not only that, the confusion there and the missing communication across the offensive line has made it difficult to wall off blitzes and develop a protection plan.

At right tackle, the Vikings lost a top-10 player in Brian O’Neill but got excellent play from Blake Brandel. Brandel, unfortunately, also suffered an injury, and Minnesota was forced to play Oli Udoh, who they benched last year after struggling at guard.

There is the possibility that Brandel and Bradbury return to the lineup. Brandel was recently activated from injured reserve, while Bradbury was recently a full participant, which would be a big help.

That communication element will be critical, as the Giants blitz more than any other team, and by a substantial margin. On passing downs, they blitz at a rate of 44.8% of snaps — 7.9% more than the second-place Arizona Cardinals. The difference between the Giants and the Cardinals in blitz rate is the same as the difference between Arizona and the 11th-placed Pittsburgh Steelers.

Against the Vikings three weeks ago, the Giants increased that rate to 51% of Cousins’ dropbacks. Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips is well aware of this tendency from Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.

“I feel like he’s got a book about this big,” he said as he gestured with his hands to approximate the Codex Gigas, an ancient book weighing 165 pounds. “He just pulls out sheets [of blitzes] and decides which ones to use.

“His curveball will be a pressure we haven’t seen yet.”

Without solid communication to deal with the Giants’ blitz plan, the Vikings won’t be able to protect Cousins. In Week 16, with Schlottman in the lineup, Cousins did well against the blitz and prevented those from turning into pressures.

But if the protections can’t get set because Reed is new to the center position, it would be tough for any quarterback to consistently get to his hot read quickly enough to avoid disaster. Even without the blitz, having a backup RT (or backup backup) against Kayvon Thibodeaux is a recipe for disaster. Dexter Lawrence has wrecked centers, and with uncertainty there, it will be tough to keep the pocket clean.

The Vikings, for their part, have been excellent at generating pressure from their front four in the last several weeks. In a six-week span (Weeks 12-16) where they played their starters, Minnesota ranked fifth in the NFL in total pressures generated from their top two edge rushers. Ahead of them were Las Vegas, Dallas, San Francisco, and the Los Angeles Rams.

The Giants have put OT Evan Neal on the injury report as a limited participant. While he’s expected to play, that’s something to monitor. Even with Neal in there, there’s reason to be worried. In that same six-week span, Neal has given up more pressures per pass-blocking snap than any other tackle in the NFL with at least 100 pass-blocking snaps — a group of 68 players.

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Jones can mitigate pressure with quick reads and a low depth of target, so it can be difficult to take him down, but if the coverage picture is muddied just a little bit, they can force him to hesitate to allow the pressure to arrive.

Outside of the All-Pro quality Andrew Thomas, the entire Giants offensive line has been an issue. They rank 29th in pass-block win rate. That’s why, despite having the shortest depth of target in the NFL, Jones has the third-highest pressure rate.

Part of that is also his tendency to scramble if the picture isn’t clear. His low depth of target contrasts with his 2.99-second average time to throw, which is the sixth longest in the NFL.

Cousins and Jones are among the league leaders in total sacks, ranking third and fifth.

First-Year Head Coaches Prove Themselves

It’s rare that a first-year head coach makes the playoffs. It’s even rarer that two play each other. Since 2007, there have been 110 head coaches hired. Only 33 made the playoffs in their first year, and just three prior playoff matchups in that span featured first-year head coaches.

Of the 33 first-year head coaches who made the playoffs, only 17 had neither previous head-coaching experience nor a quarterback on a potentially Hall of Fame track at that point in their career.

Kevin O’Connell and Brian Daboll have done an excellent job leading their team to the playoffs. We’re now guaranteed to see a first-year head coach without a Hall of Fame track QB in the Divisional Round because of it.

We’ve seen first-year coaches like John Harbaugh lead their teams to multiple playoff wins. Two of them in the past fifteen years have appeared in the Super Bowl: Jim Caldwell with the Colts and Gary Kubiak with the Broncos.

While we’re probably not going to see that with one of these two teams, it remains a possibility. Either of them could establish themselves as franchise legends in their first year.