The San Francisco 49ers dominated the Divisonal Round against the Minnesota Vikings. The Niners took the Vikes’ passing game completely out of the game and pulled away safely in the second half. The Vikings could not build on their spectacular appearance from the Saints game. The NFC Championship Game is rising in San Francisco.
For much of the first half, the game felt much more in favor of the Niners than the scoreboard revealed. San Francisco started with a picture-perfect play-action drive, at the end of which Garoppolo (11/19, 131 YDS, TD, INT), also via Play Action, found Bourne to touchdown. With the Vikings, however, a different feeling prevailed in the first half, at least with regard to their own offense: fear.
The offensive play-calling of the Vikings ranged from conservative to fearful, and after an unsuccessful first-down run, another was regularly added to the second down – and then a long third down was quickly followed by the punt. Meanwhile, Cousins (21/29, 172 YDS, TD, INT) regularly looked for the checkdown and left big plays lying around, at the same time he also missed his receivers several times – in the end it was two plays that kept the game close at half-time.
On their second own drive, Minnesota came into a short third down and got the coverage the Vikings had been waiting for: one-on-one with only one free zone defender outside. That gave Diggs a one-on-one, in which he boiled Witherspoon and caught the long touchdown.
Minnesota was able to equalize in the meantime, and shortly before half-time the defense followed suit: Garoppolo repeatedly overlooked Kendricks when he let himself fall back into coverage – this time the linebacker snapped and caught the interception. Minnesota’s offense could hardly do anything with it, but at least a field goal jumped out. Instead of 21: 7, the half-time scoreboard was 14:10.
Vikings offense disappointed – Niners win
But even if the Niners kept Minnesota in the game – including the first drive after half-time when San Francisco hit the field goal on 4th & 2 deep in the opposing half instead of playing the down – there was simply no way for the Vikings offense into this game: Immediately after the fell goal, Thielen and Cousins were not on the same wavelength about the middle and Richard Sherman caught one of the easier interceptions of his career.
That was the preliminary decision. San Francisco now dominated the line of scrimmage and was in the end zone a few plays later, before Minnesota’s Special Team buckled: After the defense forced the fast punt on the next Niners Drive against an increasingly conservative 49ers offense, Returner let go Sherels dropped the ball deep in their own half and the 49ers added another field goal.
It was more than just the preliminary decision, because nothing at all came from the Vikings offense – so San Francisco was able to pull away step by step without taking too much risk itself. The NFC Championship Game is rising in the Bay!
No. 1 San Francisco 49ers – No. 6 Minnesota Vikings
Result: 27:10 (7: 7, 7: 3, 10: 0, 3: 0) BOXSCORE
49ers vs. Vikings – the most important statistics
- The Niners went into half-time with 63 rushing yards – and ran in the second half, with the lead behind them, almost at will: 46 (!) Runs for 187 yards were recorded at the end. Minnesota, on the other hand, despite play-calling stubbornness, came to 21 rushing yards, which paved the way for many long third downs.
- San Francisco’s defense was dominant: In the first half, the Niners allowed Stefon Diggs to touchdown 41 yards – in the other 20 plays, Minnesota’s offense was 42 yards. Of these, 27 came in the passing game (sacks deducted) and 14 in the run game.
- When the game was long in garbage time – four minutes before the end of the game – the Vikings offense had produced five (!) First downs. At this point, San Francisco was at 21. In the closing stages of the third quarter, San Francisco had produced more punt return yards (23) than Minnesota had rushing yards to account for (15).
- After this game, Cousins has a record of 0-17 if he is away by at least 14 points. Garoppolo, on the other hand, is 7-0 at home if he leads with at least 14 points.
The star of the game: San Francisco’s O-Line
It was a game in which no individual player tore the game to himself. Both quarterbacks had their problems and mistakes, Kendricks in Minnesota’s Defense and Bosa for San Francisco each had the most noticeable appearances. The most dominant unit, however, was San Francisco’s O-Line. The Nines not only blocked the Vikings pass rush, which was strong in the previous week, excellently, in the second half San Francisco was also outstanding in run-blocking on the line of scrimmage at times.
The flop of the game: Minnesota’s play-calling
The game’s big disappointment was Minnesota’s offense, and it was largely self-inflicted – play-calling was a disaster, while Cousins was just playing safety. Again and again the Vikings ran completely inefficiently at First Down. Again and again another run or a safety pass followed at second down, followed by a long third down, where then a sack or a pass that was much too short came. Not to mention the punts in the final quarter when they are clearly behind. The Vikings play calling over the entire game looked like that of a team leading with two touchdowns. And there was obviously no plan B.
Analysis: 49ers vs. Vikings – the tactics board
- A central question in the run-up to the game was: Which offense can pull off more big plays via the play-action passing game? For both teams this is an elementary part of the offense and both quarterbacks are largely dependent on it. The answer became clear relatively quickly: San Francisco was that team.
- The Niners once again had excellent designs to get players with different motion sets and from similar formations completely open via play action. The whole first drive was right away a play-action masterpieceeven before the run had a chance to get established.
- It also became clear that Shanahan was targeting the anticipated matchups. Early in the game, he targeted both Anthony Barr – the weaker of the two Vikings linebackers – and Andrew Sendejo in the slot, who only had to play there again due to the extremely thin staffing situation in the secondary. This plan also worked out early on several times. Conversely, San Francisco went into the run game early as soon as the Vikings Pre-Snap offered two deep safeties and thus presented a lighter box.
- Defensively, Minnesota tried, similar to the Saints, to attack the two edge rushers Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen over the guards with obvious passing downs. Occasionally both stood on one side. But the effect was not comparable to the Saints game, San Francisco’s guards held much better here.
- Conversely, the Niners also tried that a few times, with Bosa and Ford side by side in the formation on obvious passing-downs. This is how Ford’s third-down sack came about shortly before half-time. In general, the 49ers rotated their ailing returnees (Ford, Kwon Alexander) a bit from the start, Ford more often only came in at Third Down.
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