Minnesota Vikings vs. Los Angeles Chargers Preview & Prediction | PFF

Minnesota Vikings vs. Los Angeles Chargers Preview & Prediction | PFF

Let’s start off with Thursday Night Football as we always do, of course, as we preview in every single game, which three less games. We got six teams on by weeks this week. So, three less games, more to dig into with the ones that we got. Vikings at Chargers. That’s the Thursday Night Football game. And Dalton, you and I were talking about this actually a couple of days ago. And I think on paper, people might look at this matchup given what we thought these teams were going to be going into the season, sort of like how we talked about the show, but these teams both have a lot of injuries that they’re dealing with, a lot of struggles that they’re going through, and I think that will make for a close game. Now, as good of a game as this could have been when we would have predicted it preseason, maybe not. But I do still think this is a close one. You want to start talking about the Chargers or the Vikings here for this game? I I’ll take the Chargers defense actually. It’s something I want to focus on here because we focus so much on the the struggles in the trenches on the offensive side of the ball. Well, it’s kind of happening on the defensive side, too. You can see you mentioned another injury here to them is Khalil Mack, who hasn’t played in a while, right? And it’s really suffered though for the Chargers. Their pass rush has not been as good as they expected, right? When you look at this pass rush, Tuli Tulie Palotu has 36 pressures this year. Nobody else on the team has 10. So, there’s just not enough depth there beyond him to get consistent pressure on quarterbacks. you see that the third worst pass rush grade in the league, second lowest pass rush win rate. And Carson Wentz, look, as he’s played respectable as the backup coming in for JJ McCarthy’s played good football in spurts, but when you talk about um under pressure, he’s really struggled. The 35 passing grade under pressure, played respectable when he is clean, and the Vikings have had some offensive line injuries. Still missing Ryan Kelly. Uh they got Donovan Jackson, the rookie left guard, back last week. But the Chargers are going to have to find a way to get consistent pressure on uh Carson Wentz and they’ve struggled to do that lately. So, if they can do that, I think it makes a big difference. If you give him too much time, he’s got those weapons on the outside that he can really hurt you with. And it’s great that the Chargers play such great zone coverage and they keep that lid on the back end of their defense and they don’t give up a lot of deep shots. But if you give too much time to any opposing quarterback in the NFL, they’re going to hurt you. They’re going to find the open guy. That’s what W has done in clean pockets with Jordan Addison, with Justin Jefferson. If the Chargers can’t get pressure in this game, I worry it starts to look like a lot of recent weeks for their defense. Yeah. And and on the other side of things with the Vikings, I I think that amongst all the injuries that they have, this team, they’re just not running the ball at a super dynamic level. And that’s not to say that Jordan Mason hasn’t been able to get his yardage. I think that he has. But specifically, I just don’t think they’re a very dynamic rushing attack. When I was looking this up because I I I saw the stat that you put in about Carson Wentz, it’s like, okay, how do you mitigate that a little bit? Well, you got to stay balanced. You got to keep the defense on their heels. You got to be able to run the ball. We know that the Vikings do want to run the ball. But when you look at the last three games they have played, and I know they got Donovan Jackson back like you mentioned, but the last three games, now week six, they had a by-week, so you got to go back four weeks technically, but these three games, 48.9 run blocking grade as a team over those last three games. And Jordan Mason specifically, this is a a data point that we like to lean on when we talk about how how dynamic running backs are out of the backfield. just a 0.13 miss tackles force per attempt average over the course of those three games. Now, in them, I believe he’s gotten more than 50 rushing yards in each of those games. And so, you say, “Okay, well, not the worst thing in the world when it comes to total output, but being dynamic, does this team have the ability to be dynamic when they are in the run game?” And I’m just not so sure that they are. When the offensive line blocks well, Jordan Mason can make things happen. And obviously he could tote the rock to a point where, you know, there he reaches the first defender and he might get some yards after contact, but that’s about it. When they don’t run block properly, Mason’s not really this force multiplier for you that can really make up for something like that. And just so people kind of have a reference here, when we talk about miss tackles force per attempt, 2 to three, that’s a pretty good score. That’s kind of what you want. All right, it’s good baseline. we’re okay giving you the football. You could be pretty dynamic and you can make things happen independent of the offensive line. Anything from like a.3 to a point four, okay, now you’re talking about somebody who’s really a differencemaker whether the offensive line is blocking well or not. And then anything point4 and above, yeah, you’re talking about one of the best in the NFL at making guys miss, whether that’s after contact or just a juke move that makes them miss in open space. Jordan Mason, once again, 0.13, so he’s not even hitting the 0.2 two mark over the last three games. So, it’s just kind of a flat what you see is what you get. The offensive line blocks well, they get some yards. If they don’t, they don’t. And that to me might be an issue for this game when it comes to being as balanced as they want to be. So, ultimately, I do think the Chargers win this game amongst all the injuries and the things that they have struggled with. I think the Chargers win because I think that I’m going to trust Justin Herbert if anything in this game. I’ll go 23 to 20 as my final score here. What do you got in this one? I I have it similar 20 to 17 Chargers and I’m with you. The most reliable player I I think you could argue on this entire field in this game is Justin Herbert and the fact that he’s got Lad Makanki on the outside. He’s got Quinton Johnson or Ronda Gadston against the Colts this past week. Had a big game. So, I think you’re talking about him and those weapons and him dealing with the offensive line that he has. Maybe they get Joe Alt back this week. That would help obviously a lot. You’re dealing with a team with the highest blitz rate in the league. But Justin Herbert’s been getting the football out of his hands. It’s been a more conservative offense. They have struggled to run the ball. It’s going to be hard for them to run the ball in this game, but I think he can carry them through this one. It’s going to be a tough game. I think it’s going to be really hard fought in a more defensive game than a lot of people might think considering what we thought about these two teams coming into the season. But I’m with you. I’m trusting Justin Herbert in this one. Yeah. So, both of us have it as a three-point game. I just have it a little bit more high-scoring than you. 23 to 20. You got 20 to 17, but we both have the same victor winning by the same um margin of victory

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Minnesota Vikings and The Los Angeles Chargers.

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