This Vikings defense the Lions and QB Jared Goff will face? ‘Night and day’ different.

Lions quarterback Jared Goff has been Ginked before.

You know, the difficulty that befell Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers in London. The one that hit Giants quarterback Daniel Jones in East Rutherford, N.J.

In November 2020, Vikings edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel — then a member of the Miami Dolphins — ran 78 yards for a touchdown during a Dolphins win against the Rams, Goff and then-Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell.

It was the first of Van Ginkel’s five NFL touchdowns in six seasons. He has scored two touchdowns off interceptions in five games with the Vikings this season.

“[Emmanuel] Ogbah came off the edge, kind of knocked the ball loose,” Van Ginkel recalled Thursday. “I was in position to pick it up and score. That was a great game. Obviously, we got the win down there. If I remember, Christian Wilkins got a pick that game. We just have to cause some havoc on [Goff] and put some stress on him, and hopefully that leads to turnovers.”

Pressuring Goff is key to throwing off a red-hot Lions offense, which just demolished Dallas and former Vikings coach/Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer 47-9 last week.

The Vikings have struggled with the Lions under O’Connell, going 1-3. Goff has been sacked only twice across those four games, which include two under former defensive coordinator Ed Donatell and two at the end of last season, the first under coordinator Brian Flores.

“They got a really good line,” Flores said. “He gets the ball out quick. Receivers get open quickly. There’s obviously a rhythm and a timing that they’ve built over a period of time.”

The Lions have only one loss, which came against the Buccaneers in Week 2 when Goff threw two interceptions under pressure. But Detroit and offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, who was a head coaching candidate last offseason, have kept Goff largely clean.

“He’s got a great scheme, which allows him to play calm and confident,” Van Ginkel said. “He’s getting the ball out quicker. He’s diagnosing plays and schemes and able to get it to playmakers. He’s able to dink and dunk, get the ball out and let them have yards after catch.”

But this year’s Vikings defense, allowing only 15.2 points per game, could make things different.

“I think it’s night and day different [from last year],” edge rusher Patrick Jones II said.

Disruption has been the name of the game.

Only the New York Giants (4.3) are averaging more sacks per game than the Vikings (four) this season, led by Jones with five, Jonathan Greenard with four and Van Ginkel with three. And only one team, the Green Bay Packers, has forced more takeaways than the Vikings’ 13 through five games.

Quantity and quality of talent is one change.

But another has been how that depth, particularly the new talent at cornerback, has allowed coaches to expand the playbook, deploying a wider variety of coverages that have kept quarterbacks thinking an extra second or two before throwing.

“We’ve really talked about getting more into the body and playing more man [coverage],” cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. said. “I really like that. Because now you’re giving offenses troubles with different looks and disguises. With the looks we’re giving them, we can drop into something else, which some teams haven’t seen.”

The Vikings defense even fooled Rodgers, who threw right to Van Ginkel during a zone blitz that led to Van Ginkel’s 63-yard interception return for a touchdown against the Jets.

The Vikings’ deception happens all over the field. Murphy pointed to a play on which the defense fooled Rodgers into thinking it was a two-high safety alignment, when safety Harrison Smith was really dropping into the middle of the field to take away Rodgers’ early reads. The play led to a hit on Rodgers by Greenard.

More coverage options lead to more possibilities for disguises.

More disguises lead to confused quarterbacks.

“Is it [Cover] 2? Is it 3? Is it 4? Is it 1?” Flores said. “Which one is it? I think the idea is to try to make the quarterback and the receivers figure it out, and if they’re trying to decipher it for an extra half a click that might be the difference between making a play or not making a play.”