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The Vikings' defense led the way in a win over the Colts that ended their two-game losing streak. This week, we're looking at some interesting changes their defensive players had to make, and opening the NFL rule book to see why those hits on Sam Darnold weren't flagged.

Jerry Holt/The Minnesota Star Tribune

Brian Flores became the Vikings' defensive coordinator in 2023, a year after the Vikings signed defensive tackle Harrison Phillips to his first deal in Minnesota. Phillips, a third-round pick by Buffalo out of Stanford in 2018, loved watching film, and he was good at it: by the time he lined up for the Bills on a Sunday, he'd processed enough of an opponent's offensive tendencies that he knew what was coming before the ball was snapped.

"If you showed me a highlight tape of my four years in Buffalo — every TFL [tackle for loss], pressure, sack — I'd say at least half of them were because I knew the play before it happened," he said. "I'm in my stance, I'm playing these guys, and I'd go, 'OK, they just flipped the formation, I know exactly what I'm gonna get.' I'd play it, and beat it, and boom — a huge tackle. Not to any extreme of this, but if you watch [former Panthers five-time All-Pro linebacker] Luke Kuechly talk about calling out runs, if you know the play before the play, it's a huge help."

The process he'd used under Sean McDermott and Leslie Frazier in Buffalo helped him earn a three-year, $19.5 million deal from the Vikings in 2022, and Phillips continued it under Ed Donatell during his first year in Minnesota. "I was pretty stubborn with it," he said. 

Five or six games into his first season with Flores, Phillips (No. 97, above) realized his process no longer worked.

"My first few games, I was trying to play plays that never happened," he said. "It was, 'OK, I saw this on film: the running back's over there, the guard's off here, it's gonna be power.' And I go play it, and that's not the play it all. So it took me a few weeks to realize that teams prepare for us differently, and it's more important to see what has happened to us in the past, and what hurt us. Teams will copy that. Even though they've never ran that play before, if it's hurt us, they'll run it."

I thought the insight from Phillips, in a conversation at his locker on Wednesday, was a particularly interesting window into how the Vikings approach the second half of a season that could be defined by what they learn about how offenses adapt to their defense. Their scheme was so unorthodox, so chaotic, that it left quarterbacks shaking their heads in disbelief over the first month of the season. But the Lions and Rams beat the Vikings in back-to-back games with accomplished play-callers and veteran quarterbacks who built plans off the small sampling of concepts that had hurt Minnesota.

Now, players are learning if their defensive scheme defies convention, their preparations must, too.

Phillips said he actually watches less film of opposing teams than he used to, focusing instead on reviewing the Vikings' practices to see how their own offense attacked a certain look.

"There's a few breakdowns you can look at: What are the handful of the runs that went for 8 yards on us?" Phillips said. "If you watch all of them in a row, you'll see that over half of them are to this gap, or to the field [side] or to the boundary [side], or they follow the tight end, or they don't follow the tight end. And so you can kind of anticipate that."

He'll also watch the individual matchups he'll face in an upcoming game, to see how aggressively an offensive lineman sets on pass plays or whether there's a tell in a lineman's spacing or foot placement. "You can go down many rabbit holes with that, but it's still less than when you have to dissect a whole game," he said. 

The Vikings are on the road the next three weeks to play the Jaguars, Titans and Bears, but they're likely to be favored against three teams with younger quarterbacks. By the time they return to U.S. Bank Stadium, they'll have three more games of film for veteran opponents — like Kirk Cousins, their studious former QB — to dissect. 

The Vikings have learned the key is to study themselves and think how their opponents do.

"Definitely, I think it’s more challenging to watch film,” linebacker Blake Cashman said. “But when we say it’s about us with this defense, that’s really important. There’s so much movement in different places that teams aren’t used to seeing. As long as you’re dialed in on that, I think you’ll always be in a good position to capitalize on opportunities.”

QUESTION: Why was booth review able to buzz in and correct ball spots during last game but not able to buzz in and help out on two head shots to Sam? — Chris Hovde

ANSWER: We'll use the mailbag today for a bit of a procedural discussion on the NFL's replay assistance policy, which has come up quite a bit lately after the two violent hits on Sam Darnold in the last two games: Byron Young's grab of the face mask on the safety that ended the Rams game, and Grover Stewart's hit to Darnold's head and neck on the forced fumble that Kenny Moore II returned for a touchdown in the Colts game. In both cases, the Vikings believed a penalty should have overturned the play; referee Tra Blake told a pool reporter that no foul was called on Young because an official didn't have a clear view of it, while referee Shawn Smith offered a similar explanation to a pool reporter on Sunday for why Stewart was not penalized, adding he initially threw a flag for the possibility of a face mask penalty.

In both cases, replay assistance was not available to change the call, and here's why: While Article 9 of the NFL rule book allows for replay assistance on "specific, objective aspects of a play where clear and obvious video evidence is present," the technology is not permitted to overturn or identify calls. After the Rams game, I reached out to NFL vice president of communications Brian McCarthy, who confirmed a face-mask penalty is not reviewable under current rules. Smith said on Sunday that a hit to Darnold in the head or neck would not be subject to replay assistance either. 

Rule 12, Section 2, Article 11 was amended for the 2024 season, making roughing the passer calls reviewable when related to a hit on a quarterback’s head or neck. But again, the call has to be initiated on the field; a replay assist isn’t meant to initiate a penalty. 

On Sunday, O’Connell said his conversation with officials after the play wasn’t about the face-mask penalty they initially told him they threw a flag for that they later picked up. He reiterated that on Wednesday, saying, “My dialogue was not about face mask at all." But knowing that "forceful contact to the head-neck area is now a reviewable thing," he added, he was trying to figure out "if that's the reason we dropped the flag on the field.” 

In other words, if officials had initially thrown the flag for roughing the passer, replay assistance could confirm or overturn the call. But because that wasn’t the initial call on the field, it wasn’t reviewable. Any change to that process would have to come through the NFL owners' meetings in March, where teams vote on proposals for rule changes. I’ve wondered, given the hits on Darnold that weren’t flagged in the past two games, if the Vikings will propose a rule change for the competition committee to discuss. We’ll see if anything develops there. 

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We'll begin, as usual, with the business of the trivia question, where we asked you to name the two receivers who started ahead of Justin Jefferson in the Colts game in 2020 (the last one before he entered the starting lineup). Adam Thielen and Bisi Johnson were the starters that day. Kudos to Dave Larson, Bill Swenson and Marcus Thompson for providing the correct answer to that question.

As a bonus, we asked you to name the one game Jefferson hasn't started since the Colts game. It was Dec. 10, 2023, in his first game back from a hamstring strain against the Raiders (Bill and Marcus were correct on that one, as well).

We’ll wrap up today with a look back at the Vikings’ first game against the Jaguars on Dec. 20, 1998. The teams met for a Sunday night matchup at the Metrodome; though the Jaguars were in just their fourth season, they’d been to the playoffs the previous two years and had already wrapped up their first AFC Central division title. But the Vikings were on their way to a 15-1 season, and that night, they beat the Jaguars by more than they’ve beaten any team in the 26 years since that game. The Vikings had eight scoring drives, as well as a Jimmy Hitchcock interception return for a touchdown, on their way to a 50-10 win over a Jaguars team playing without quarterback Mark Brunell. Jonathan Quinn, starting in Brunell’s place, threw two interceptions, completing just 12 of his 27 passes for 88 yards. Had Quinn not thrown a late touchdown to Pete Mitchell, the win would have been the second-largest in Vikings history.

As it is, it’s tied for the fifth-largest in team history; the Vikings have beaten only four teams by 30 or more since then. Vikings receivers coach Keenan McCardell posted 892 receiving yards for that Jaguars team as part of a prolific receiving duo with Jimmy Smith; he was held without a catch in that game. 

Ben Goessling, reporter

Naila-Jean Meyers, editor

This Week's Trivia

If the Vikings beat the Jaguars this weekend and the Titans next weekend, they'll finish the season 5-0 against AFC opponents for the second time in three years under Kevin O’Connell. 

They've had three other seasons in team history where they've won at least four games against AFC opponents. Name two of them.