Second Thoughts: After fast start, Vikings offense hit the brakes vs. Cowboys

On Sunday night, for the fourth time in their past six games, the Vikings scored a touchdown on their first drive, stringing together an eight-play, 75-yard march they hoped would put Cowboys rookie quarterback Cooper Rush in a vise grip.

Kirk Cousins scrambled for 6 yards when a game-opening play-action pass didn't materialize. Offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak motioned Adam Thielen into a trips set on third down, leaving Tyler Conklin split wide for a one-on-one matchup and a 31-yard gain against former Vikings safety Jayron Kearse. Cousins dropped back on four of the Vikings' first six plays; one of his two handoffs was to Justin Jefferson for a downfield pass attempt to Thielen. And on a second-and-11, the Vikings set Thielen up like he was blocking a Jefferson screen for the second time on the drive, before he disengaged from Trevon Diggs and found plenty of space for a Cousins touchdown pass in the middle of a Cowboys defense that had been fooled by the screen.

The Vikings were aggressive and creative in the opening series, and they would have gone up 14-0 if Jefferson hadn't misjudged a deep ball from Cousins on their second series.

Then, suddenly, their offense dried up.

Like most teams, the Vikings script their first 15 plays of the game, and first-year offensive coordinator Kubiak's work has shone in those spots. What happens to the offense after that has been a mystery that's perplexed the Vikings for much of the season.

After the Vikings needed a comeback to defeat the winless Lions on Oct. 10, coach Mike Zimmer directed his offensive staff to do a self-study before the Vikings' next game, moving the traditional bye-week activity up by seven days. Cousins threw for 373 yards in the next week's overtime win against the Panthers, but on Sunday night, the quarterback was at the helm of an offense that has rarely appeared more tentative.

Cousins threw seven passes that traveled 10 or more yards downfield, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. He threw 11 behind the line of scrimmage, completing nine of them. His average throw Sunday night was 5.2 yards short of the first-down marker — the shortest in the league. The Vikings went 1-for-13 on third downs, which was the worst conversion rate in the league this season; after hitting Conklin on the game's opening possession, Cousins threw short of the sticks on his final eight third-down attempts of the 20-16 loss.

"That's never part of the game plan going in," wide receiver Thielen said of the short throws. "That's just what the play call is and then, I don't know. Again, you've got to look at the tape. There's so many factors, right? It could be pressure, it could be guys not getting open, myself included. There's so many factors that lead into that, why a quarterback throws a checkdown."

Zimmer said the Vikings use scripted plays coming out of halftime, too, adding he didn't think the tentative approach simply happened when the Vikings went off the script.

"During the first part of the game, everybody makes adjustments," he said. "They did some new things, and we had to adjust to that defensively, and vice versa. I just feel like we're just not as consistent overall as a football team as we need to be. We go right down and score — we did it in Carolina two weeks ago — and we get stagnant and then we pick it up again at the end."

What makes the Vikings' tentativeness so confounding is there are so many possible sources for why it could be happening. Is it:

• A philosophical shift away from the play-action deep shots that have marked the offense the past two years? The Vikings used play action 31.1% of the time in 2019 and 28.7% last year; they are down to 23.8% this year, according to Pro Football Focus.

• That teams have figured out how to stop the Vikings' play-action bootlegs, as the Cowboys seemed to have done Sunday night? Cousins is averaging 8 yards per attempt on play action, but was at 9.6 yards in 2020 and 9.3 in 2019. Against Dallas, he attempted a season-high 13 play-action passes, but averaged only 6.4 yards per attempt.

• That pressure is again getting to Cousins? He was pressured on 41% of his dropbacks Sunday night, as left tackle Christian Darrisaw gave up his first NFL sack. "I think it was a combination of coverage and pressure," Cousins said.

• That Kubiak is still finding his footing as a first-year play-caller, trying to balance the Vikings' run-first identity with the fact his team has one of the NFL's best receiver duos? "I'll say this [about play-calling]," Thielen said Sunday night. "That's not my job, but I will say, as competitors, yeah, we want the ball. We want opportunities. We feel like we have guys who can go up and make plays. But at the end of the day, it's a collective effort. There's gotta be a lot of things that go into allowing you to do that. We didn't do those things tonight."

Without access to all the things necessary to answer the question — namely, a copy of the Vikings' game plan, the ability to listen in on candid conversations about the team's offensive philosophy and a complete understanding of Cousins' thought process as he drops back — it's nearly impossible to say with any certainty why the Vikings' offense is slowing down. Those of us outside the team are left to do our best to ascertain what's happening by watching the game closely, parsing through applicable data and asking questions of those involved.

Seven games into the season, though, this much is clear: The Vikings' hopes for continuity on offense (by naming Kubiak the coordinator after his father, Gary, retired, bringing back Cousins and retaining the same philosophy) haven't led to the same production they enjoyed in 2019 and 2020. On Sunday night, the frustration with the Vikings' offensive stasis seemed to be mounting.

"There's no fingers being pointed anywhere; everybody's gotta take accountability," Thielen said. "And that's the entire team, every single person in this organization needs to look at themselves in the mirror and say, 'What could I have done better?' That's what I'm going to do."

TWO PLAYERS WHO STOOD OUT

Xavier Woods: The safety had a big night against his former team, intercepting Cooper Rush's throw for Dalton Schultz after a Harrison Smith tip and sacking Rush off a blitz. Woods came clean off the edge on the right side of the Cowboys' line, after the Vikings showed a double-A gap look and Eric Kendricks dropped into coverage while Anthony Barr rushed the quarterback from the same side of the center as Woods.

Thielen: He did a masterful job of disengaging from Diggs on his touchdown, and he beat his former teammate's brother for a 32-yard gain on a deep crossing route on fourth-and-1 in the second quarter. Thielen had 78 yards, with 36 of those coming after the catch on a night where the receiver provided some of the Vikings' biggest plays.

TWO TRENDS TO WATCH

The Vikings' clock management: After Sheldon Richardson called a timeout the Vikings didn't have in a Week 4 loss to the Browns, Zimmer said, "No one should call timeouts but me." That seemed to be how Cousins was thinking at the end of the first half, when the Vikings let the clock run from 25 seconds to 4 while trying to get everyone lined up instead of using their final timeout following a quarterback scramble. "I just let Zim handle the timeouts, because I never know quite what the coaches want to do with what they're thinking, a play ahead or what that may be," Cousins said. "So I was just gonna let them handle that and call the next play if one came in."

The Vikings ended the half without using the timeout, and then in the fourth quarter, they were penalized 5 yards for delay of game when Zimmer called back-to-back timeouts, turning a third-and-16 into a third-and-11 before Rush hit Ezekiel Elliott for a pivotal 15-yard gain. By rule, officials aren't supposed to grant the second timeout, but they can penalize a team for delay of game if the timeout is mistakenly allowed. "I screwed up," Zimmer said. "I forgot that I called one. I knew the play that they were running, it was really the same play they hit down the middle against us for a long touchdown. And somebody said, 'Call timeout,' and I did. The official wasn't supposed to grant it. It's not his fault."

How teams attack the Vikings' secondary: While the Vikings played tentatively in the second half, Rush wasn't reluctant about pushing the ball downfield, trying 15 throws that traveled at least 10 yards and seven that went at least 20. That might have been because deep shots, in some ways, are easier for a young quarterback than trying to fit the ball in between layers of coverage, but it's worth watching what happens especially as the Vikings are now without Danielle Hunter. Teams seem to realize they can challenge cornerbacks Cameron Dantzler and Bashaud Breeland downfield, and the Cowboys started to test Harrison Smith, who gave up a 35-yard completion to CeeDee Lamb and was targeted on a third-quarter sideline throw to Amari Cooper.

ONE BIG QUESTION

What should — and what will — the Vikings do before Tuesday's trade deadline? As effective as Everson Griffen has been (he posted another sack Sunday night), the Vikings could have a hard time generating enough pass rush with Hunter out for the season. They could also use help in the secondary, with Patrick Peterson out at least another two games. But as they prepare for back-to-back road games in Baltimore and Los Angeles, it's difficult to conceive of them as a team that should go all-in.

They only have around $5 million in cap space; the Rams were in the same spot before Monday's trade with the Broncos for Von Miller. If they were able to work out a financial package with Denver to make Miller's remaining salary work under the cap, it stands to reason the Vikings could have done the same with Broncos general manager George Paton, the team's former assistant GM. But the Rams are 7-1 and entertaining Super Bowl hopes; the Vikings are 3-4 and trying to keep themselves in the playoff race.

It's the kind of predicament that could invite the bold move the Rams made, but to do something like that, the Vikings would have to be certain enough about the rest of their roster to make an all-in move worthwhile. They've done it at times when they believed they had the roster to make it pay off (like when they traded for Sam Bradford in 2016), but it's tough to look at their roster and say they're one move away.

Since their 13-3 season in 2017, the Vikings have gone 28-26-1, with a 1-1 record in the playoffs. They've largely been in a kind of purgatory since opening TCO Performance Center and bringing Cousins to town, always on the cusp of making a run in the NFC but so far unable to break through. Would that invite a splashy move before Tuesday? It could, but it's also easy to wonder if the Vikings are trending in a different direction.

The next 48 hours could reveal plenty about how the 2021 Vikings see themselves and size up their chances.