It’s okay to overreact to the offense
For the third time in three years, the Vikings have switched to a completely different offensive scheme for the upcoming season. Friday night was everyone’s first opportunity to see it work in a game and it looks very encouraging so far.
Since it was just the preseason, Minnesota wasn’t going to include much from their playbook. But even the basic aspects of their new scheme already seem much better than what the offense was running under John DeFilippo last year.
With their starters on the field (minus Dalvin Cook), the Vikings ran a total of nine plays and scored a touchdown during their first offensive drive of the night. Of these nine plays (including penalties), eight of them had Kirk Cousins lining up under center.
Minnesota ran five pass plays (three were play-action) and four run plays (one was a quarterback scramble) on their opening drive against the Saints on Friday. It was much more of a balanced attack for the Vikings than their 2018 offense that utilized plays starting in the shotgun formation 60 percent of the time.
It was only one drive and it isn’t supposed to mean much when it happens during a preseason game. But Minnesota should be very happy with how their first-team offense came out and performed on Friday.