Second Thoughts: The dominance shown by Aaron Rodgers indicates the Vikings' secondary is again a problem

The 2013 Vikings, the franchise's last team not coached by Mike Zimmer, fielded a cornerback group of Chris Cook, Xavier Rhodes, A.J. Jefferson and Josh Robinson.

Rhodes played largely in a situational role as a rookie, Jefferson was released that November after an arrest on domestic violence charges, and Robinson was a former third-round pick who moved to slot cornerback in an ill-fated experiment after General Manager Rick Spielman released Antoine Winfield before the season.

That team allowed 480 points, the most in the NFL that season. The Vikings fired Leslie Frazier the day after a 5-10-1 season and brought in Zimmer, who'd first made his mark as a defensive backs coach before becoming one of the league's most highly regarded defensive coordinators.

The Vikings invested considerable resources in the secondary over the course of Spielman's time with Zimmer, using two first-round picks and a second-round pick on the group between 2015 and 2018 and then drafting two corners in the first three rounds of the 2020 draft as they tried to refresh a group that had aged after several years at the top of the league.

Of those five corners Spielman drafted in the first three rounds, only two remain in the organization, and only one — Mackensie Alexander, in his second stint with the team — was on the field at Lambeau Field on Sunday night, when Aaron Rodgers finished filleting the Vikings' current secondary in a manner that rivaled anything he'd done to the group before Zimmer.

If Sunday night was the final time Rodgers and Zimmer will face off, the Packers quarterback closed their 15-matchup stretch with the kinds of numbers he used to enjoy against the Vikings before Zimmer came to town. Rodgers, who completed 29 of his 38 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns, posted a passer rating above 100 for the fourth consecutive game against the Vikings — only the second time he's done that in his career — and threw two touchdown passes to finish the season with six TDs against Minnesota.

In the past two seasons, he's thrown 13 touchdown passes without an interception against the Vikings. He'd never had two consecutive seasons when he'd been healthy for both games against the Vikings and gone without an interception.

The Vikings won two of those games: Dalvin Cook became the first person in Lambeau Field history with 200 yards from scrimmage (226, 163 rushing and 63 receiving) and four TDs in a 28-22 victory last year, and earlier this year, Justin Jefferson set what was then a career high in yards (169) while posting his only two-TD game of the season as the Vikings won 34-31 on a last-second field goal. On Sunday night, though, they had no exemplary offensive performance to answer the Packers quarterback, and no answer for some of the throws he made to wide receiver Davante Adams.

"We had good coverage on him all game," Vikings cornerback Patrick Peterson said. "Aaron was making some great throws. Kris [Boyd] was in position a bunch of times, but it was just that Aaron-and-Davante connection that seems to be so hard to stop right now, especially that back-shoulder fade that's just one of the most lethal throws in the game. Aaron and Davante have that down really good. Coming out of halftime, Coach [Zimmer] told me that I would be shadowing Davante, and that's what I did. Unfortunately the game was a little bit out of hand, so they ran the ball to try to milk the clock."

Zimmer said the Vikings had talked about having Peterson shadow Adams; the veteran cornerback said he wasn't part of those conversations but figured he might get the call if the Vikings were struggling to stop the All-Pro receiver. Zimmer eventually put Peterson on him in the second half, but not before Rodgers completed eight passes for 118 yards to Adams, who did most of his damage against Alexander and Boyd.

"We talked about [Peterson shadowing Adams] during the game and we were going to have, basically have him double-covered," Zimmer said. "We did a couple of times and he still caught the ball."

Rodgers does that to plenty of corners, but the Vikings' efforts to improve their secondary also haven't yielded much success. They gave up 4,141 passing yards last year (the eighth-most in the league). This year, they've surrendered 4,034 through 16 games (the seventh-highest in the NFL). Advanced metrics aren't much kinder: Opponents have the 11th-highest success rate in the league when dropping back to pass against the Vikings this year, according to data from NFL Fast R. Last year, the Vikings gave up the seventh-highest success rate.

According to Pro Football Focus, opposing quarterbacks have a 117.8 passer rating when targeting Alexander (the seventh-highest rating in the league). Bashaud Breeland, who was released last month, gave up a 112.6 rating (10th-highest in the NFL). Peterson (96.3) and Cameron Dantzler (78.8) have been better, but no Vikings corner ranks among PFF's 40 highest-graded players at the position.

Dantzler, Boyd and Harrison Hand are the only corners signed for 2022, with Peterson and Alexander (as well as safety Xavier Woods) headed for free agency. Peterson talked Sunday night about returning to Minnesota for another season, but it's difficult to know whether he'll feel the same way should the Vikings move on from Zimmer.

Dantzler, the Vikings' third-round pick in 2020, was out because of a calf injury Sunday night and has missed eight games the past two years. Alexander has struggled, especially in downfield coverage, after returning to the Vikings on a one-year deal this year. Jeff Gladney, the Vikings' first-round cornerback in 2020, was released in August and is awaiting trial in Texas on felony family violence charges. Breeland, whom the Vikings signed to a one-year, $3 million deal in the offseason, was released Dec. 18 after Spielman had to break up a practice field altercation between the cornerback and several teammates.

Whether Spielman is back for a 17th season in charge of the Vikings' personnel department, or whether the Vikings have a new front office overseeing the roster in 2022, they'll have as many questions at cornerback as they did when Zimmer arrived.

On the bright side, if Rodgers leaves Green Bay following this season, the Vikings won't have to worry about trying to stop him anymore.

TWO PLAYERS WHO STOOD OUT
Anthony Barr: He finished the game with nine tackles and fared well in pass coverage much of the time. Barr made two stops at the line of scrimmage on passing plays in the first quarter, first hitting Tyler Davis for no gain on a third-and-10 pass after Woods blitzed Rodgers. Then, when D.J. Wonnum got his hand up to affect a third-and-11 Rodgers pass, Barr stuffed Aaron Jones following his reception in the flat. Barr also had one of the Vikings' six pressures on Rodgers.

Garrett Bradbury: He was flagged for holding in the third quarter (the Packers declined the penalty after tackling Dalvin Cook for a 5-yard loss on a swing pass), and the Vikings couldn't get much going for Cook when they did try to run the ball. But Bradbury earns kudos for his "Immaculate Reception"-style catch in the third quarter, when he saw the ball in the air after Adrian Amos leveled Tyler Conklin and peeled off his block to sprint downfield and make a shoestring catch, carrying several Packers defenders downfield for a 21-yard gain. It was a tremendous display of athletic ability for the center, whose mobility and quickness were what attracted the Vikings to him before they picked him 18th overall in 2019. And until Sean Mannion hit K.J. Osborn for 30 yards in the fourth quarter, it was the Vikings' biggest offensive play of the night.

TWO AREAS OF CONCERN
The Vikings' running game: Zimmer said afterward he didn't think the Vikings stuck with the run long enough (a point that by now should be familiar to the team's offensive coordinators), and without Kirk Cousins available, the Vikings' best chance to move the ball on the Packers seemed to involve Cook, who last year became the first player in Lambeau Field history to post 200 yards from scrimmage and four TDs in the same game. But even when the Vikings did try to run the ball, they could get nothing going against a Packers defense that had allowed 499 rushing yards in its past three games before holding the Vikings to 27 on Sunday night.

"We thought we had some good plays in there in the passing game," Zimmer said Monday. "They played basically a shell defense the majority of the time, which is conducive to running the ball, and we got out of some plays and didn't do that. We talked about it during the game. We talked about it today as well. My frustration: Our best player is either [Justin] Jefferson or Cook, and we're playing with a backup quarterback, and no offense to Sean, but we're throwing the ball 45 times."

Green Bay held Cook to 13 yards on nine carries, beating blocks at the line of scrimmage to spill him outside or tackle him in the backfield. The Vikings have struggled to create running lanes for him much of the season, but without a good ground game on Sunday night they allowed the Packers to sit in deep coverage shells and take away any thought Mannion had of throwing downfield. And while Zimmer pointed out a series when a first-down sack of Mannion made it impractical for them to run the ball, they also had series short-circuited by early-down runs: Cook was stopped for no gain on second down in both of the Vikings' first two possessions, and on the series after the sack, the Vikings ran on first and second down, for a net total of 0 yards.

Asked Monday if there is a disconnect between first-year offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and him, Zimmer said, "It's not really a disconnect. I talked to him on the play we got sacked on. It was the first of the possession, and I talked to him before that and said, 'Hey, Klint, we've got to run the ball here,' and he was going to run it on second down, thinking he had a good play on first down, and then on second down, it's second-and-20. So a lot of things like that happened."

Kellen Mond's progress: The Vikings discussed starting Mond on Sunday night but ultimately went with Mannion because they thought they'd be better off with the veteran handling the full game plan than with Mond making his first start in frigid temperatures on national TV. But asked after the game if he wanted to play Mond in Sunday's regular-season finale, now that the Vikings have been eliminated from the playoffs, Zimmer said, "Not particularly." When asked why, he said, "Because I see him every day."

The Vikings added Mannion to the roster at the end of the preseason after Mond missed time because of COVID-19 in training camp and struggled when he was on the field, slipping behind Jake Browning on the depth chart. They drafted him knowing he'd need some work before he'd be ready to start, and Mond's work in study sessions has earned praise from people in the organization.

"He's improved throughout the year," Zimmer said Monday. "He's got a chance to be a good player. But he's third on the depth chart so we kind of knew that.''

Zimmer said he expects his starters to play on Sunday against Chicago, which would suggest Kirk Cousins will be back on the field once he returns from the COVID-19 list. If that's the case and Mannion remains the No. 2 QB, the three passes Mond threw on Sunday night might be the only work he sees this season.

"You try to draft a guy on his ability and where he's gonna go, and every one of them moves at a different pace," Zimmer said.

ONE BIG QUESTION
What changes are coming for the Vikings, and when will they happen? After missing the playoffs for a second straight year, at the end of a season in which they added veterans in an effort to get back to the playoffs and satisfy ownership's desire for a winner, it'd be naive to think the Vikings wouldn't be headed for coaching changes. If they were to fire Zimmer this week, or tell the coach he won't return after the season, they could take advantage of a new NFL rule that allows them to interview coaches from other teams before the end of the regular season. Spielman's status, though, creates a logistical puzzle: If he might not be the GM after the season, having him interview coaching candidates this week would seem odd. So any Vikings decisions might not happen until after the Bears game on Sunday.

For his part, Zimmer said Monday he hadn't talked to Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf about his status, adding "that's not for me to judge" when asked why he should be the coach going forward. Later, he pointed back to moments like Cook's overtime fumble in Cincinnati, Greg Joseph's missed field goal against the Cardinals, an overtime loss in Baltimore and Jared Goff's TD pass on the final play in Detroit. "If we hit half of those, we're in the playoffs."

For the second straight year, however, the Vikings are not. From building U.S. Bank Stadium and the TCO Performance Center to routinely spending cash over the cap, the Wilfs have equipped the football operation with virtually every resource it could want to ensure a winner. Those investments come with expectations, and after winning 40 regular-season and postseason games in Zimmer's first four years, the Vikings are 33-32-1 since. They also pushed roughly $18 million of cap costs into 2022 while trying to build a winner this year, putting themselves roughly $7.3 million over next year's cap with big decisions looming on such players as Cousins, Danielle Hunter and other veterans.

All those moves were made with expectations the Vikings would contend, and when the team gave Spielman and Zimmer three-year contract extensions before the 2020 season co-owner Mark Wilf said, "If you look over the Coach Zimmer years and Rick Spielman years, there's been a definite uptick in terms of continued success, continued knocking on the door. And I think players around the league and coaches around the league recognize that, and that's kind of how we go about it."

Since then, the Vikings are 14-18. In both 2020 and 2021, they were in control of their own playoff destiny in December; both times they were eliminated after embarrassing losses in the penultimate game of the season. To say they're still knocking on the door might require something of a creative interpretation of the phrase.