The Vikings are 3-5 since Kirk Cousins was lost for the season. In that time, Vikings fans have been subjected to a handful of abysmal quarterback performances, most recently Jaren Hall struggling against Green Bay on Sunday night. Despite a sputtering offense and free fall out of playoff contention, Purple Insider’s Matthew Coller says there is “very little” reason to be concerned about Kevin O’Connell’s handling of the QB situation.
“What we know about the offense when Kirk Cousins was running it is that the Vikings were seventh in scoring from the time Kevin O’Connell took over to the time Kirk Cousins’ Achilles popped at Lambeau. That’s pretty good,” said Coller in a recent Purple Insider Extra. “Since then they’re not seventh in scoring, they’ve gotten much worse.”
O’Connell’s offense has dropped down to 22nd in points and 12th in yards this season after finishing 2022 seventh in both categories.
“When you look at the QBs [O’Connell] is working with, we’re not talking about even a Case Keenum level of backup quarterback,” Coller continued. “We’re talking about two guys that are barely hanging on in the league, in Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullens, and another guy who is playing for the very first time in his life in the NFL, in Jaren Hall.”
Mullens and Dobbs had a combined career record of 6-21 before starting games for the Vikings this season. Hall was the team’s fifth-round pick in the 2023 draft and was seen more as a developmental prospect that could be a nice backup option for years to come, not a quarterback a team in playoff contention would ask to save their season as a rookie.
“For a coach, there is only so much you can do. When you go back and look at the plays [Sunday night against the Packers] there were opportunities to throw the ball and Jaren Hall just couldn’t get it out, because the NFL is really fast and really difficult. The timing is such a big deal, so he needs much more time to practice, to go through another training camp, to develop, to get used to what he’s seeing matching up with what he’s doing physically.”
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Hall struggled in the bright lights of Sunday Night Football, completing 5-of-10 passes for just 67 yards and an interception. Often throughout the first half Hall was visibly slow in processing the play and diagnosing what the Packers defense was doing, which led to three sacks before his halftime benching.
“From Nick Mullens’ perspective, he’s always turned the ball over like crazy. They actually did get 48 points in those two games with Nick Mullens starting. With Dobbs, eventually when opponents started to factor for his legs it was a much more difficult run,” said Coller.
Mullens has thrown six interceptions in just four appearances for Minnesota this season, all six coming in his two starts. Dobbs, meanwhile, was the talk of the NFL in his first two weeks in Minnesota.
After Cousins’ injury in Week 8, the Vikings front office traded a sixth-round pick to Arizona for Dobbs at the trade deadline. Three days after arriving in Minnesota, Dobbs was forced into action after Hall suffered a concussion on the second drive of the team’s Week 9 game in Atlanta. With little knowledge of the team’s playbook Dobbs went 20 for 30 for 158 yards and two touchdowns, scrambling for another 66 yards and a touchdown en route to a 31-28 win.
A week later Dobbs was lights out in a 27-19 win over New Orleans, throwing for 268 yards and a touchdown while rushing for 44 yards and a touchdown. In the following three weeks the Vikings would go 1-2 with Dobbs throwing five interceptions and fumbling three times.
While the replacement quarterbacks have had their share of struggles it’s not entirely fair to place all of the blame on them. All season long the Vikings have struggled to get their running game going. Minnesota has the 27th ranked rushing attack. Coller pointed out the Vikings have also had a “miserable” screen game, even with Cousins running the show.
Screen Game Stats (per PFF)
- Kirk Cousins – 26/33 188 yards, 1 touchdown 66.9 passing grade (85.1 overall passing grade)
- Josh Dobbs – 11/13 35 yards 0 touchdowns 67.9 passing grade (68.8 overall passing grade)
- Nick Mullens – 5/7 28 yards 0 touchdowns 59.2 passing grade (55.4 overall passing grade)
- Jaren Hall – 2/2 3 yards 0 touchdowns 61.9 passing grade (64.4 overall passing grade)
“[The screen game] is one thing you can [use to] help out backup quarterbacks,” Coller explained. “A little bit of quick game. We saw even the Green Bay Packers getting some bubble screens that turned into seven-, eight-, nine-yard plays that the Vikings have not really used. They’ve tried to push the ball downfield or they’ve tried to use downfield routes to clear out underneath. The quarterbacks have just not been able to find it or in Nick Mullens’ case they just went for the deep route every single time against the Detroit Lions.
“Seeing that Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullens didn’t perform any differently at all here than anywhere else, it’s hard for me to point the finger at the head coach and say, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’ Now I will say that they probably asked too much of Jaren Hall. Ty Chandler was running pretty well against the Packers.”
The Vikings enter the final week of the season with a 3% chance of making the playoffs, according to the New York Times playoff simulator. With Cousins out of contract, and potentially a very expensive re-signing in the offseason, the future of the Vikings QB position could rest on the shoulders of a highly drafted rookie.
“If they draft a quarterback, or they go back to Kirk Cousins, does anyone think that they can’t get Justin Jefferson open, or get Jordan Addison open, or get the football to T.J. Hockenson with a competent quarterback? Because the numbers would suggest they are very good at doing that and that their passing scheme works when they have a quarterback that can execute it,” continued Coller.
“I do think that there is work to be done. There is self-analysis to be done. They have to figure out why they can’t run the football. . . Because that’s another thing that would have helped a lot with these backup quarterbacks.
“As far as big picture concern, I don’t think it should be on the serious side because most coaches, when they end up with the backup quarterback this is the kind of result they end up getting.”
