Daily Norseman
It’s been impossible to do any sort of meaningful statistical analysis of the Minnesota Vikings this season because the only thing that’s been consistent about them this season has been their inconsistency. There is a stat for that of course, brought to you by those who compile DVOA stats and it’s called variance. It tracks the week-to-week variance in a team’s Total DVOA.
After nine weeks and eight games, the Vikings have the second-highest variance in the league at 30.1%, 0.1% lower than the league leading Commanders. The Vikings have shown high variance all season. This shows up not just in their DVOA, but other stats as well. It also shows in their largely alternating weekly results- win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, loss, win.
In Total DVOA terms, which is expressed as a percentage relative to “average”, the Vikings had the worst Total DVOA week two against the Falcons (-65.0%), then had the best DVOA week three against the Bengals (+76.5%), then week four had the fourth-worst DVOA (-54.6%) against the Steelers. And week eight against the Chargers they once again had the worst weekly DVOA at -83.0%, but followed it up with DVOA of +42.7% against the Lions- fourth best that week.
The pattern suggests the Vikings will once again be off-the-charts bad against the Ravens on Sunday, but I wouldn’t bet on that either. The Ravens are a Super Bowl contender when healthy, and they are healthy now, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the Vikings lost on Sunday. But the Vikings’ performance doesn’t seem to be based on the quality of their opponent. Their worst performances in DVOA terms came against the Falcons and Chargers, neither of which look like contenders this season and it wouldn’t be surprising if neither made the playoffs either. Their best performances came against the Bengals- who are bad- but also against the Lions, who are contenders.
If you look only at games J.J. McCarthy started, the Vikings’ Total DVOA in those games was +7.9%, -65.0%, and +42.7% – once again inconsistent.
And breaking it down further into offensive and defensive DVOA paints a similar picture. Defensively the Vikings started with two near average games, one great game against the Bengals, four moderately bad games, then one good game against the Lions. Offensively, the Vikings started with an average game, then really bad game against the Falcons, followed by a moderately bad game, then bad game, then good game, then moderately bad, really bad, then near (but below) average game against the Lions.
Breaking it down even further, the Vikings have had good and bad games running the ball and defending the run, and good and bad games defending the pass. They’ve had bad games passing, and less bad-to-average games passing, but no really good games.
The most consistent part of the Vikings this season has been special teams, where they’ve had six average games (+/- 5%) in DVOA) and two good games against the Bengals and Lions....
