MINNEAPOLIS — As people streamed onto the field, Josh Metellus sat and stared from a metal bench. While players and coaches from the Vikings’ and Lions’ sidelines met near midfield, Minnesota’s do-everything defender remained hunched, helmetless and pensive.
The first loss of an NFL season will do that to a man, and the Lions had just put the finishing touches on a 31-29 victory at U.S. Bank Stadium. That the first loss arrived in late October says as much about what was going through Metellus’ mind as anything else.
“The standard,” Metellus said afterward in the locker room, “is to be great.”
Before Sunday, the Vikings had confirmed that standard as realistic. In previous weeks, they had dismantled Daniel Jones, disoriented Brock Purdy, disassembled C.J. Stroud, deconstructed Jordan Love and dazed Aaron Rodgers. Minnesota demanded attention in an NFC North filled with stars and storylines.
Losing to the Lions should not change that. The Vikings proved Sunday, once again, that Super Bowl contenders do not faze them. Had Minnesota completed a third-and-4 pass with under three minutes left in the game, perhaps Metellus would have been skipping and jumping out onto that field.
Instead, his frustration proved something else. The standard requires repeated execution before and after the snap. And even in many of Minnesota’s wins, that repeated execution has been absent, especially on offense.
If the Vikings were 2-3, maybe these minor mistakes and penalties would not warrant such an inquiry. And if the Vikings players and coaches didn’t believe in this team the way they do, speaking openly about how intentionally this positive locker room vibe was constructed, then individual lapses in concentration could be cast aside as minor details.
The Vikings, however, see themselves as capable of competing with the NFL’s heavyweights. When that’s the case, criticism on the most minor scale is necessary, and coach Kevin O’Connell leaned into it in his postgame news conference.
“You can’t just enjoy the wins,” O’Connell said. “Championship-caliber teams are going to look inward.”
He, as the primary designer of the offense, shouldered some of the responsibility. The Vikings committed seven offensive penalties Sunday, stifling any hopes of the unit getting into a rhythm.
In the first quarter, center Garrett Bradbury was whistled for a false start on third down. In the third quarter, wide receiver Jordan Addison lined up offside. Soon after, backup running back Ty Chandler bear-hugged a blitzer on a max-protected deep pass and was penalized for holding. Tight end Johnny Mundt struggled to dislodge early enough as a blocker. Right guard Ed Ingram was blasted backward off the line of scrimmage like he’d been hit by a cannonball and resorted to holding Lions defensive tackle Alim McNeill while being bulled back into quarterback Sam Darnold’s lap.
Mistakes like these prevented the Vikings offense — which still averaged 7.4 yards per play, besting the Lions on the day — from consistent matriculation. The Vikings have amassed 29 penalties on offense through six games. Not only is that the fourth most in the NFL, but it’s also 14 more than the Vikings had through six games in 2022 and 10 more than the Vikings had through six games last year.
“I still feel like, operationally, we could get better,” Darnold said.
Improvements are necessary beyond the penalties, too. In the first half, Darnold signaled toward a group of Vikings receivers bunched on the left side of the line of scrimmage. None of the receivers moved. Darnold waved again. Finally, Justin Jefferson floated right across the formation, but he didn’t seem to understand what he was supposed to do following the motion. Right after Darnold received the snap, he spiked the ball into the ground.
No play captured the at-times disjointed nature of the offense better than the Vikings’ final play. Minnesota regained possession up a point with 4:16 remaining. Detroit had only two timeouts left. A couple of first downs would ice an impressive comeback win. But after a 5-yard run by Aaron Jones on first down and an unsuccessful run on second, Darnold rolled out to his right on third-and-4. Both Jefferson and Addison ran over routes but were positioned far too close to each other, constricting space. Darnold sailed a pass in Jefferson’s direction that fell incomplete, which led to a punt and ultimately the Lions’ final position.
“When you’re trying to win at the level we’re trying to win at,” O’Connell said, “you cannot do things to help good football teams (like the Lions) out.”
The game was rightfully billed as a faceoff between two of the best units in the NFL: Ben Johnson’s Lions offense and Brian Flores’ Vikings defense. Minnesota’s first punch wobbled Detroit to the tune of a 10-0 lead, but the Lions bounced back from three nothingburger possessions with explosion and efficiency. Running back Jahmyr Gibbs jump-cut his way through tacklers. Quarterback Jared Goff held his ground against looping pass rushers and had pinpoint accuracy.
In the second quarter, for the first time all season, it felt like an opposing offensive coordinator had twisted Flores’ defense into a bit of a knot. The Lions savvily ran Gibbs on a third-and-6 situation in the red zone against the Vikings’ light personnel. Another touchdown resulted from a well-blocked, well-choreographed touchdown pass over the top to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
The second-quarter production forced a reset at halftime, with Vikings defenders reiterating the need to “calm down,” as safety Cam Bynum explained it. Minnesota limited fatal explosive plays in the second half, and Metellus even poked the ball loose from running back David Montgomery. Linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. recovered the fumble and returned it 36 yards for a touchdown, but the momentum could not lift the Vikings in the end.
Once Metellus stood up from the bench and returned to the locker room with his teammates, they were all in agreement about one thing. Could the Vikings play from behind? Before Sunday, that question hadn’t been answered. In fact, the Vikings hadn’t trailed at home and had never been down by double digits in the second half of a game. Both happened Sunday, and neither doomed Minnesota.
“We really got to see what this team is about,” left tackle Christian Darrisaw said. “We showed it. We came up short, but this team … we’ve got a special unit right here.”
Next to Darrisaw in the locker room was Aaron Jones, whose words summed up the game perfectly: “Sometimes you play other great football teams, and it comes down to 2 points, and it’s about one play here and one play there, and they all really matter.”
