Vikings enter bye week with plenty to fine tune after a 5-1 start

The Vikings enter the bye week with a charmed 5-1 record and a roster that is "pretty clean injury wise," said head coach Kevin O'Connell, whose to-do list is still plenty populated after straining through four straight one-score wins.

Six games into O'Connell's offense, the Vikings rank middle of the pack across the board — points (14th), red-zone efficiency (13th), third downs (17th), yards (20th) — and have fielded an uneven defense that allows a lot of yardage, but not as many points. Playing clean with limited turnovers and penalties helped them overcome issues like 10 three-and-out drives in Sunday's win against the Dolphins.

While players get time away this week, coaches will evaluate their approaches and how they can counter what has been thrown at them so far.

"Hopefully we can stay one step ahead," O'Connell said Monday. "Definitely going to look at how we used our players, when we used them, certain formations and certain personnel groupings, and obviously defensively we'll do the same thing. Just try to continue to evolve."

One area that will catch O'Connell's eye is the lack of explosive plays. The Vikings have struggled to generate big plays of at least 20 yards passing (23rd) or running (26th) as quarterback Kirk Cousins is throwing deep downfield about half as often as he did in 2019-2021, according to Pro Football Focus. Big plays don't only come from long throws, O'Connell noted.

"I'm going to take a long look at that and just see what that translates to," he said. "We've had shorter targets go for explosive gains in catch and runs. ... [Cousins] making great decisions and being really, really accurate with the ball underneath is a whole other layer to his game."

Receiver Adam Thielen is one of four Vikings players remaining from 2016, the last team to start 5-1, joining safety Harrison Smith, linebacker Eric Kendricks and edge rusher Danielle Hunter. That year's result — starting 5-0 and finishing 3-8 to miss the playoffs — has not been forgotten.

Receiver Jalen Reagor was the league's fastest ball carrier on Sunday when he was tracked reaching 21.25 miles per hour on a 25-yard punt return in the third quarter, per NFL's Next Gen Stats. Running back Dalvin Cook and receiver Justin Jefferson were also among 10 players to exceed 20 mph with the ball.

Five of the 14 fastest players with the ball during Sunday's games were at Hard Rock Stadium, where Dolphins receivers Jaylen Waddle (20.23 mph) and Tyreek Hill (19.74 mph) also reached high marks.