Everything Is Lining Up PERFECTLY for the Vikings...

Everything is lining up perfectly for the Vikings coming out of their bye week as this backfield is going to be fully healthy right as this offense begins a huge ascension moving forward this season. And Kyler Murray surprised everyone with this wild stat from their week 5 victory against the New Orleans Saints. We're going to break it down all of that in this episode of Vikings Digest. First, we're trying to hit 5,200 subscribers before the start of this weekend, so if you're part of the 89% of viewers who are not yet subscribed and you want to stay up to date on all things Vikings, make sure to hit that subscribe button and the bell icon so you don't miss any of the episodes when they drop. But that'll top right into the first topic of the day, which is the perfect bell cow buy as Kevin O'Connell, when he took the podium the other day, was talking about the dynamic with the running backs and how this buy is coming at a perfect time, not just for Aaron Jones, but also for Jordan Mason and what it's going to mean for this running game in this offense moving forward. As like we've been talking about almost ad nauseum, but the Vikings are running at a very high run rate right now, the second highest in the NFL since kind of last season, like midway through last season or since their 10 game win streak started and it's really kind of paying off in dividends where Aaron Jones is having a great season so far proving that he is not old and washed up and shutting up all the naysayers basically then you have Jordan Mason he scored in week one and then he was hurt so when he comes back as well that is going to be another explosive element for this Vikings offense that is going to hopefully result in more points scored than they've been scoring over the past couple of games but as far as how the Vikings have leaned on Aaron Jones in Jordan Mason's absence Kevin O'Connell was also addressing that in his press conference saying I think we even talked about it at the podium when the injury first happened that we were going to lean on Aaron and he's responding in a way it was really hard to even put into words just the toughness and the way he's been able to turn over a high volume of carries and get to a place by the next Sunday with a lot of work a lot of time in the recovery room just knowing that his body like he does he's just been an absolute pro he's been a warrior and that is the thing that I think is the most underrated element about Aaron Jones where we can talk about the talent and the leadership and all that but how he battles every single week it seems like for the past two years almost Aaron Jones has popped up on the injury report every single week with a questionable tag and participating in limited uh capacity and some dmps along the way but overall he has been fighting through injury report every single week for the past two years but he manages to suit up nearly every single Sunday and put his body out there on the line and put up good numbers while he's doing it I know a lot of Vikings fans like I had said a couple days ago when he got hurt in that Saints game and he came back into the game with a big knee brace on I was really worried where it's like okay how many touches is he going to get are we going to lean on the other guys and then when DeMond Claiborne and DJ Dallas couldn't get going Aaron Jones almost needed to go back in there and I think it wasn't a doubt that he was going to but when Kevin O'Connell saw that all right these guys aren't getting it going now we're going to have to really rely on Aaron Jones again even though he is a little bit banged up and he was an absolute beauty at doing it putting up over 100 yards and he's just been awesome in Jordan Mason's absence and this combo is going to look very good once Jordan Mason is back from the bye week because Kevin O'Connell is so excited about it having Aaron Jones and thankful for him on their team and knowing that the original intent was really to pair Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason together as he stated multiple times that this is not a RB1 RB2 kind of thing going on in Minnesota they're trying to do what Detroit did a couple years ago with the Montgomery and Gibbs combo where it's more of a 1A 1B type scenario but in the case of Gibbs and Montgomery we know how that went I don't think that's necessarily going to happen with the Vikings in this sense but I do think it's going to be very interesting to watch as we get closer to the trade deadline to see if any other ones pick up but there's going to be a video on that dropping very soon so stay tuned for that as far as the trade deadline talks are picking up and as far as the other running backs on the Vikings roster Kevin O'Connell did also want to touch on them as well as they have also been contributing he said we have a good young back in DeMond Claiborne we've also seen DJ Dallas have some impact especially as a protector and a special teams player and even yesterday where he was talking about on Sunday having a nice little off schedule conversion from Kyler in the game as well and that was also really nice to see and I know that a lot of people are going to get on me in the comments but oh hey DeMond Clayborn he hasn't panned out now you can kind of give up on him I don't want to give up fully just yet but I'm starting to come to that acceptance where DeMond Clayborn might not just be ready enough yet next year I think he's going to be really good for the Vikings and possibly fill in for one of the absences of Jordan Mason and Aaron Jones and this year is all about developing him to make sure that they can eventually lean on him in those scenarios and trust him and that he can develop into a really good starting running back overall right now it's not necessarily there and I really hope they can get him there but as far as the run game it is going to be great to see these two backs leading the way once again as we saw with the past couple of weeks that if there was a chance for DeMond Clayborn or DJ Dallas to really explode and make a case as far as why they should be the RB2 or to make it a little bit of running back controversy we would have seen it by now unfortunately we haven't but the good news is we are going to get back to our kind of timeshare running back a stable with Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason as this run game is going to get very very nice over the next couple of weeks once they are back as you said we've seen impact from all those guys we're very excited to get JP back up and running I do feel like we're growing and we're creating space in the run game we're running it at a high clip even when teams know we're running the ball it'll be able to impose our will late in games and we did it again on Sunday which they did against the Saints where when the chips were down in the fourth quarter hit and they knew all right we're in a spot where we can win the game as long as we're just committing to running the ball run the clock out get a last minute touchdown or a last minute field goal when we need to to put the game out of reach then by then the Saints are just going to really have to scramble to try and make something happen we saw what happened and the Vikings ended up winning that was a very big element of it where they were just all right control time possession run the ball be efficient get first downs that's all you got to do and that's what Kevin O'Connell has been committed to doing ever since that Seattle game that they lost last year where they got absolutely blown out and shut out for the first time in a very long time and forever I am forever grateful for the Seattle Seahawks absolutely walloping us that day because something changed in that flight back from Seattle and it's been great ever since and one of the things that's going to really open up this run game is how the offense is really starting to get clicking and Kyler Murray is now incorporating his legs into the mix as well McCabe was saying it's very positive I think we'll continue to see the evolution of how we put it altogether the impact of Kyler throwing a bunch of completions we really see him click into a comfort playing the position using his athleticism being a factor with his legs and protecting himself while doing it I'm excited about what's coming for us offensively and I've kind of envisioned it being like that from the beginning of the season we've been able to win football games as we progress and that's Kevin O'Connell admitting that hey he knew coming into this season with Kyler Murray it was not going to be magic right off the fact even Kirk Cousins said that it took him a while to get familiar with Kevin O'Connell's system once he got there then once he figured it out Vikings doing pretty good offensively look at those numbers Cousins was having in that year before he tore his Achilles he was on an MVP type trajectory and with Kevin O'Connell saying here that he knows it was going to be a process the bonus is that they've been able to win games because this defense has really been carrying the heaviest weight of the load and been able to just kind of project us to more kind of dominant wins than you would want to see or than you would think kind of in this early part of the season where we were able to completely shut down the Bears, we were able to get it together in the second half and completely shut down the Packers, shut down the Saints completely, the Dolphins, we kind of kept them out of scoring a lot even though it was a one-score game. So with this offense getting better and better every week but still winning games, that's just an added benefit. And as well as with Kyler Murray, like Kevin O'Connell was saying, the way he's using his athleticism, he's running smarter. Where you saw in that Saints game, his slides that he was taking, he was sliding earlier or he was sliding a lot smarter and that is going to be something that we're going to hopefully see a lot more of this season as he begins to use his legs a lot more and those 50 yards that he had on Sunday I think that is eventually going to jump up to around like the 70 or 80 yard margin as we get into some of these teams that have a little bit of weaker defenses or defenses that are not going to account for the quarterback running as much and speaking of the quarterback running that is going to lead us into the second topic of the day which is Kyler's dangerous speed as on Sunday it was disclosed that his speed that he reached on that third down run reached 20 miles 20.82 miles per hour which was the fastest run on Sunday clearly he would beat it on Monday Night Football against the Rams but the run in question was absolutely beautiful, he was on a key third down play you got Cam Jordan and Chase Young coming off of both edges right there Kyler is able to roll out outruns the big defensive tackle as well right there and then continues to go on further ripping off another even more of the run to outrun even two more defenders in the secondary get the first down ran out of bounds flip the ball to jets to keep the chains moving and that is what I am very excited to see with this Vikings offense as we are now going to have Kyler Murray using his legs, Jordan Mason using his legs, Aaron Jones using his legs and getting that primo combo back where he says ultimately want to maximize who we want to be as a team where our offense is going to be a big part of that and Jordan Mason is going to be a big part of that as well so excited to get him back from the bye because it's going to provide a lot of relief for Kyler Murray as well where on certain plays where Kyler had to use his legs maybe I am wrong in the sense that some of those 80-yard games won't be as common I think they're eventually going to happen I think he's going to have one of those games where he just goes absolutely crazy with running the football but I do like with Aaron Jones having to not take as many uh reps or as many kind of carries having Jordan Mason there it's also going to take the load off of Kyler Murray a little bit from having to be as athletic when you have two energized running backs that are going to be able to take relief off of each other where are you going to put them in there if you're having Aaron Jones in there for the whole game if he's just coming off of a series where a series of downs where he ran the ball two times and you're going back into another set of downs and you're having to hand it off to him again you have Jordan Mason there all you got to do is just swap them out takes a little bit of relief off Kyler especially if they want to go play action and the defense will be very on their toes as far as who to account for all right Jordan Mason's coming in he's no schlub so we're gonna have to account for him are they gonna run it they're gonna pass it it's not gonna be as one-dimensional as they were through that injury where if Aaron Jones was subbed out well if Mont Clayborn's coming in or Deidalo coming in it's probably gonna be a pass play so at least this will add a new dynamic to that or a better dynamic to that offense and reintroduce that one-two punch that the Vikings have at the running back position let us know down in the comments below what you guys think about all the stuff that we covered in this video and the stuff with Kyler Murray's speed and how you think that'll be utilized through the rest of the season as well as getting Jordan Mason back as the Vikings come out of their bye week and go into week seven trying to remain undefeated against the Indianapolis Colts let us know down in the comments below is that's going to do it for this episode of vikings digest again thank you guys so much for liking subscribing hitting that bell icon so you don't miss the episodes when they drop but for now i've been your host griffin take care