With Joseph Out, Zimmer Will Be Forced To Attack Cowboys

With Pro Bowl defensive tackle Linval Joseph out for Sunday night’s game in Dallas, Vikings head coach and defensive play-caller Mike Zimmer will change the dynamic in trying to stop Dak Prescott and the Cowboys’ offense.

Let’s start things off with some visual aids.

When you don’t have this–

Then you usually don’t have a lot of this–

And you need to add a healthy amount of this–

Perhaps Mike Zimmer thought the Vikings might control the Cowboys’ run game on Sunday night with a conventional approach having a healthy Linval Joseph in tow. With a solid rank of 8th in yards allowed this year, the Vikings’ defense hasn’t really been that stingy, but it has been consistently above-average.

But Joseph is out due to a knee injury. Whether it’s serious, no one really knows. In a question from local press along those lines, Mike Zimmer elaborated with a deft, “He’s out,” and that was that.

Pressure For Pressure

Third-year defensive tackle Jaleel Johnson is expected to start in Linval Joesph’s place. A guy Zimmer once called a “bull in a china shop” when attempting the ‘three-technique’ over nose tackle, the Vikings’ head coach has now put him permanently in the spot over center rather than breaking all that glass.

Johnson is hardly in the class of defenders as Joseph, of course, and Zimmer is in the unenviable position of examining one of the best run teams in the game without his best run defender.

This is a job for Superman. Without that kind of talent, Zimmer is going to have to have a superhuman strategy to keep the Cowboy from controlling the game with running back Ezekiel Elliott rushing the football and QB Dak Prescott standing tall in the shotgun, misdirecting the Vikings’ defense with play-action passing.

That’s going to take a bevy of blitz packages, stunt blitz packages and maybe a blitz or two Zimmer hasn’t even come up with yet.

With number one wideout Amari Cooper nursing a knee injury, the Cowboys won’t be playing at fulls strength in their vertical passing game, and Dallas receivers three and four, Michael Gallup and Randall Cobb are far from the type of quicksilver pass-catchers that can wreck a full game in single coverage.

This may mean they will see a lot of that single coverage because of an extra Viking headed at the quarterback.

Thinking In The Box

Look for the Vikings to stay close to the “box” in this game, and use several with zero (single coverage) blitzes, all the time keeping a scout on RB Elliott. Most likely that tag-along will be middle-linebacker Eric Kendricks or Anthony Barr.

This will require Zimmer to use five defensive backs most of the game, a dangerous gamble against a team with a big running quarterback like Dak Prescott. But the fact that the Vikings are missing Adam Thielen means they are not going to win a shootout with Dallas and have to force Prescott to make quick decisions with the ball.

And make those decisions with a sharp eye out for Harry the Hitman.

Meanwhile, the ideal situation for Minnesota would be to take an early lead and force the Dallas offense to move away from their run game, all the while allowing Zimmer to play more coverage with only four rushers.

That will depend on Dalvin Cook and the Vikings’ offensive line doing what the Cowboys are now clearly making plans to do–run the football with success and keep the ball away from the opponent.

It will be Cowboy Plan A vs. Viking Plan B in Dallas, Texas, Sunday night.