Analysis: How the Vikings’ Jerry Tillery earned a game ball in Monday’s win over the Bears

How does an unheralded guy with no “SportsCenter” moments and nothing on his stat sheet beyond a single assisted tackle end up being awarded a game ball during his head coach’s postgame locker room victory speech?

Dominate the line of scrimmage in short-yardage situations the way Vikings defensive lineman Jerry Tillery did across from Bears rookie left tackle Kiran Amegadjie in Monday night’s 30-12 win at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“I felt like [Tillery] on some of those weighty downs was just blowing straight through the line of scrimmage,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell told his players before tossing Tillery one of the three defensive game balls he awarded.

Heading into the fourth quarter, the Bears were 0-for-7 on third down and 0-for-2 on fourth down. They finished 1-for-12 and 1-for-3, respectively.

Tillery was an immovable pain in the backside from the very first possession of Amegadjie’s NFL starting debut. The drive ended on fourth-and-1 from the Chicago 39.

A toss left to Bears running back D’Andre Swift was stopped for no gain when the 6-6, 295-pound Tillery got underneath Amegadjie’s pad level, refused to budge and made first contact with Swift. Edge rusher Jonathan Greenard got the other half of that tackle.

“You can’t play Jerry’s position in this defense and be a selfish guy,” Greenard said. “He’s taking on double teams. He’s taking on down blocks while I get one-on-ones. It’s dirty work, a little grimy, but Jerry and Jonathan Bullard are the best in the league at doing it.

“And Jerry has very, very strong hands. People don’t understand. When he puts hands on people, they go backwards.”

People forget Tillery is yet another former first-round draft pick that’s in Minnesota after other teams gave up on him. The 28th overall pick of the Chargers in 2019 joined the Vikings this year from the Raiders because defensive coordinator Brian Flores knew Tillery didn’t mind getting grimy and going essentially unnoticed in a 3-4 defense that makes stars of its edge rushers and inside linebackers like another first-year Viking, Blake Cashman.

It was Cashman who got credited for making the second fourth-and-1 stop of the game in the second quarter. And it was Cashman who passed along that credit to others, particularly Tillery.

“What we do in the run game is predicated on the guys up front moving one way or the other and either making the tackle for loss or forcing the ball to cut back to either me or Josh Metellus,” Cashman said. “Jerry’s done a great job with that this year.”

Tillery has only 24 combined tackles this year. That’s 1.7 a game.

But …

On that second fourth-and-1 from the Vikings’ 29-yard line, it was Tillery who busted the play by driving Amegadjie a yard into the backfield. Swift ran into Amegadjie and Tillery, then hit another pile of bodies that included Metellus and Harrison Phillips before Cashman cleaned things up for no gain to leave the Bears down 10-0 and empty-handed after an interception.

“I gave Tillery a game ball just because I just felt him, the penetration, getting into the backfield, making the back stop his feet,” O’Connell said. “To get stops in those [fourth-down] situations, they’re essentially turnovers.”

They also were essentially the two main reasons the Vikings maintained control over a sloppy first half.

“It set a tone,” Tillery said. “When a team tries us multiple times on fourth-and-short, we take that personally. We need to make a statement on those weighty downs when they do that. And that’s what we did.”

The Bears ran the ball 29 times. Eight times (27.6%) they were held to 1 yard or no gain.

Another moment in which Tillery didn’t appear on any statistical record came when the Bears faced second-and-goal from the 1 in the third quarter. Again, Tillery beat Amegadjie so badly that Amegadjie essentially tackled Tillery before Tillery could tackle Swift.

Metellus made the tackle short of the goal line, but the holding penalty that Tillery drew made it second-and-goal from the 11. The Bears settled for a field goal two snaps later.

“Jerry’s been great doing whatever job we ask him to do,” Metellus said.

Quietly, for the most part.

“I wouldn’t say any of us on the D-line is underrated,” Tillery said. “I don’t think anybody is sleeping on us. Every team that plays us, I think they know what they have to deal with when it comes to those weighty downs.”

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