Pro Football Focus Tidbits About The Vikings' Victory

The folks from Pro Football Focus have partnered with us to break down some of their facts and figures on the Minnesota Vikings' 19-13 overtime victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers yesterday. Let's take a look at some of the info they've provided us.

Offense

-The distribution of snaps at running back is getting closer to what I think a lot of us would like to see, with Jerick McKinnon receiving 44 snaps and Matt Asiata getting 26.

-Speaking of snaps, Charles Johnson appears to have passed Adam Thielen on the depth chart. Johnson got 19 snaps at wide receiver on Sunday, while Thielen was on the field for just three snaps.

-The Vikings had success in the running game just about everywhere, the exception being at left tackle, where Matt Kalil managed a -1.7 run blocking grade. Joe Berger was the team's highest-graded run blocker, grading out at a +2.2. Rhett Ellison and Chase Ford had solid run blocking games as well, grading out at +1.4 and +1.3, respectively.

-Kalil and Berger both had rough games in the pass blocking department, with Kalil coming in at -2.0 and Berger a -3.0 in that category. No player on the Vikings graded in the "green" (+1.0 or better) in pass blocking. . .John Sullivan was the highest at +0.7.

-The low pass blocking grade puts a little light on the fact that, according to PFF, Teddy Bridgewater was pressured on nearly half of his dropbacks, seeing pressure on 21 of 44 attempts.

-Cordarrelle Patterson was targeted nine times on the afternoon, and caught six for 86 yards. Chase Ford was targeted six times and caught all of them for 61 yards. Rhett Ellison was credited with a drop on his only target of the day.

-The top five offensive grades for the Vikings went to guard Charlie Johnson (+1.9), Patterson (+1.8), Phil Loadholt (+1.6), McKinnon (+1.4), and John Sullivan (+1.4).

-The five lowest offensive grades for the Vikings were Kalil (-3.4), Bridgewater (-1.7), Jarius Wright (-1.0), Berger (-0.6), and Asiata (-0.3).

Defense/Special Teams

-Sharrif Floyd was a force of nature in this game, garnering the top overall grade of any player on the Vikings' roster (+5.5) and getting the team's highest grade in both run defense (+2.5) and pass rushing (+2.4).

-On the other end of the spectrum was Chad Greenway, who graded out at a -2.6 for the game, and managed to grade in the "red" (-1.0 or lower) in both run defense and pass coverage.

-Everson Griffen, as you'd imagine, also had an outstanding game for the Vikings, earning a +2.0 grade in pass rushing and a +3.8 grade overall.

-According to PFF's numbers, the Vikings only pressured Mike Glennon on 12 of his 35 dropbacks. The Vikings brought the blitz 14 times, and got more sacks when they didn't blitz (3) than they collected when they did blitz (2). Glennon's one interception came on a play where there was no pressure.

-The Vikings' five highest defensive grades for the game were Floyd (+5.5), Griffen (+3.8), Corey Wootton (+2.2 on just 25 snaps), Anthony Barr (+1.7), and Harrison Smith (+1.2).

-The five lowest defensive grades went to Greenway (-2.6), Brian Robison (-1.3), Xavier Rhodes (-1.3), Linval Joseph (-1.2), and Shamar Stephen (-0.7 on 19 snaps).

Miscellaneous

-Harrison Smith is now PFF's #2 ranked safety, just behind San Diego's Eric Weddle. Smith has a grade of +11.0 for the season. (Oddly enough, at least to me, Robert Blanton appears at #18 on their list of safeties with an overall grade of +3.5.)

-Not surprisingly, the Vikings' offensive tackle duo of Kalil and Loadholt ranks fairly low in PFF's Pass Blocking Efficiency stat. Loadholt has allowed 26 pressures (4 sacks, 2 hits, 20 hurries) on 314 pass protection snaps this year (good for 46th out of 58 tackles ranked), while Kalil has allowed 32 pressures (8 sacks, 4 hits, 20 hurries) to put him at the bottom of the pile in that category.

-As a unit, the Vikings' offensive line ranks 30th out of 32 in Pass Blocking Efficiency, with only the St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers being worse in that regard.

Chris Phillips is the man from PFF that provided us all of the information you see here. You can find him on the Twitter at @PFF_CPhillips.