3 reasons why the Vikings defense could be better in 2020
By Dustin Baker
Will the 2020 Minnesota Vikings defense be better than the 2019 defense?
During the upcoming season, the Minnesota Vikings defense will look much different than it did in 2019. But there’s a good chance that the current group of Vikings defenders could end up performing better than the 2019 unit.
Or at the very least, the 2020 Vikings defense will be comparable to 2019 in terms of points per game allowed.
Minnesota’s 2020 defense will not careen into this fledgling group of unproven flunkies as doomsayers forecast.
Considerable chatter during 2019 was that the Vikings defense wasn’t very good anymore. However, the team finished fifth in the NFL in points allowed.
According to this metric, the Vikings defense outranked the defenses of the San Francisco 49ers, Denver Broncos, Tennessee Titans, and Green Bay Packers to name a handful of squads that were applauded for performance on the defensive side of the ball in 2019.
Older players on swollen contracts were shown the door by Minnesota this offseason. Younger players on rookie deals will enter through the gargantuan glass doors of U.S. Bank Stadium and suit up for the purple and gold.
That’s how it goes. Aging guys travel elsewhere to score some final big bucks while youthful players report to the team that drafted them. Unless their first name is Eli.
That said, there is room for improvement when it comes to the Vikings pass defense and their performance on third-downs. Minnesota head coach Mike Zimmer has previously set the bar so high for his team that when his team performs average in these parameters, they look “bad.”
The 2019 Vikings defense was very good no matter what talking points are used to spin the argument. But the 2020 defense will either mirror this or be better and there are multiple reasons to explain why.