The Minnesota Vikings could not overcome Kirk Cousins‘ injury to get back to the playoffs, ending a tumultuous season in disappointment. They’ll be at home watching the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers play in the Super Bowl, a rematch of the contest the Chiefs won after the 2019 season.
There isn’t necessarily a correct way to build a team, but studying the final four and how they got to that point can be instructive. I took a closer look at the four teams in the conference championship games — the Chiefs, 49ers, Baltimore Ravens, and Detroit Lions — and came away with some principles to consider when building a team.
HAVE A GREAT OFFENSE OR QB, OR BOTH
On the AFC side, the QBs representing their teams will have accounted for four of the last six NFL MVP awards once Lamar Jackson wins his second this season. All four teams had offenses within the top 11 in EPA per play. The 49ers were first, the Ravens were sixth, the Lions were eighth, and the Chiefs were 11th. San Francisco built a Death Star of talent on the offensive side of the ball to help Brock Purdy, and Detroit has an elite offensive line, talented RBs, and a couple of strong pass-catching options in Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta.
All four teams also have play callers who are held in high regard. Andy Reid and Kyle Shannahan have been two of the best in the NFL for a long time, and Ben Johnson and Todd Monken were strong HC candidates this cycle for good reason.
How do the Vikings match up to this? They have only cracked the top 10 in offensive EPA/play once since Kirk Cousins was signed in 2018, and that was in 2019. However, they were 11th in EPA/play through eight weeks, while Kirk was healthy this year. Their offense has strong skill position talent outside of running back, highlighted by Justin Jefferson, and they have an offensive line that is ascending with two bookend tackles. They hired Kevin O’Connell in large part because of his potential play-calling acumen, and he has done well with play design through two seasons.
That leaves the QB question wide open. Assuming Cousins returns to form, his ceiling has proven to be as a Purdy or Jared Goff-type player instead of one of the elite QBs in the game. The Vikings will have to decide if they want to settle for him moving forward or swing for the fences in the draft.
The QB position is so important that I’m mentioning it twice. The scramble below by Purdy on third-and-four was one of the most critical plays in the 49ers-Lions game:
That drive ended in a TD that put the game out of reach for the Lions. In the other game, Mahomes and Jackson made plays that bordered on absurdity, like this crazy scramble on third-and-five:
Or this pass that Jackson caught himself and took for a first down:
In the group, the only QB who doesn’t have that improvisation talent, Goff, ended up losing after failing to convert a fourth-and-three in scoring position:
Against the best teams in the playoffs, sometimes the defense will have the offense’s number. The plays above are well-defended, but three of the four QBs rose above their circumstances and made a play anyway.
That’s the biggest question for the Vikings. Cousins has never been an improvisational player, and plays like the fourth-and-eight in the Wild Card round have been the biggest point detractors have made against him over the years — regardless of whether they are correct. It’s certainly possible for another player to step up and transcend the moment like Justin Jefferson did on fourth-and-18 against the Buffalo Bills last year. But it’s much easier for the QB to have that effect on the game than any other player. That’s what the team will have to grapple with this offseason as they decide which direction to go at QB.
Defensive adjustment is best illustrated by a team that won and a team that lost, the 49ers and the Ravens. The Lions and Chiefs got off to hot starts, but neither scored in the second half of either game.
The Chiefs started off the game by screening the Ravens to death. Kansas City had drives of 10 and 16 plays go for TDs to eat up nearly a full quarter of game time. Baltimore adjusted to these concepts and took away quick passes, forcing five consecutive Chiefs punts in the second half. It helps that the Ravens might have had the best defense in the NFL. Still, holding Mahomes to 17 points is commendable.
San Francisco’s shift was even more drastic. The Lions scored TDs on three of their first four drives and went up 24-7 before the half. In the second half, the 49ers bent a couple of times but didn’t break. They made critical fourth-down stops and also forced a fumble. Detroit came out with a strong run game and quick passes that generated significant yards after the catch to players like Sam LaPorta. In the second half, San Francisco was able to close down on the run game and force Goff to throw deeper, lower-percentage routes. That led to incompletions, which eventually led to the fourth-down failures.
Both offenses had good initial plans of attack, but the strong defenses were able to adjust. It let the 49ers win the game and allowed the Ravens to keep it competitive.
Baltimore might have pulled out the victory if not for the next item:
TURNOVERS ARE CRUCIAL BUT FICKLE
Turnovers are some of the most impactful plays in football. Most of the time, teams that win the turnover battle win the game. That was extremely true for the 2023 Minnesota Vikings:
The Ravens turned the ball over three times, including one fumble on the goal line that took away a touchdown. The complexion of their game would have been drastically different had Zay Flowers scored on that play or if they had taken the ball away from the Chiefs in the game.
Luck is a hard thing to quantify. Turnovers are maybe the best expression of luck that football has because so much is determined by the bounce of an oddly shaped ball.
Obviously, an individual turnover displays skill or a lack of it. But from a team perspective, the results end up being pretty random. Just because a team is good at getting turnovers in the regular season doesn’t mean that luck will continue from game to game. The Ravens and Chiefs are great examples of this. Baltimore was +12 in turnover differential during the regular season, the best in the league. Meanwhile, Kansas City was at -10, 28th.
I’m not sure there’s much for a football team to learn from this point, but it is instructive for a fan. You can’t count on turnovers, the best you can do his hope your team wins the battle. If they don’t, they’re probably going to lose, and that sucks.
For years, people warned against mega-lucrative quarterback deals because of a narrative that a QB had never won a Super Bowl while taking up whatever moving goalpost of cap percentage the person talking wanted to put in there. Patrick Mahomes killed that narrative, which can be seen in three of the four teams that made the championship games.
The Ravens and Chiefs each have six different players making more than $10 million per year. The 49ers have an astounding nine players making that much. If you’ve watched the Vikings over the past five years, though, you understand that a star-studded roster also needs depth to compete at a high level, and that comes through drafting well.
Baltimore got major contributions from picks like Tyler Linderbaum, Zay Flowers, Isaiah Likely, Kyle Hamilton, Justin Madubuike, Brandon Stephens, and Geno Stone. The Chiefs found players like Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith, Rashee Rice, L’Jarius Sneed, George Karlaftis, and Trent McDuffie. San Francisco got great play from Brock Purdy, Brandon Aiyuk, Deommodore Lenoir, and Talanoa Hufanga.
Many of the players listed above were first- or second-round picks, but there are several later-round players in there. Many didn’t break out until two or three years after they were drafted. Having the infrastructure to support and develop those players is important. The 49ers lit three first-round picks on fire by drafting Trey Lance and spent a bunch of draft picks to acquire Christian McCaffery. Still, they found and developed quality depth.
The Lions are an example of a team built with young, cheap players through the draft. They did so by amassing a massive amount of draft capital by trading Matthew Stafford and losing a lot of games. That’s not necessarily a path the Vikings can or want to follow, so they must build with players like Jordan Addison, Camryn Bynum, Josh Metellus, and Ivan Pace Jr. once Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw get big contracts
Welcome To the NFC Title Game Heartbreak Club, Detroit
Welcome, Detroit Lions fans. You are now members of the NFC Title Game Heartbreak Club.
It’s not easy watching what looks like a certain Super Bowl trip ripped out of your favorite team’s hands, especially when your team has never experienced the joy of the proverbial promised land. Watching the opposition celebrate their unlikely victory after being so sure of a big game appearance for your favorite team is an experience few get to share.
But here we are sharing it, Detroit. You are now one of us.
Recognizing that the team you root for has an actual, honest-to-goodness chance at the Super Bowl can have a serious impact on a fan’s brain. That kind of euphoric hope can manifest itself into bouts of delusion that will have practical people contemplating their tears of joy during the upcoming Lombardi Trophy presentation. That very same kind of hope being destroyed in an instant? That type of hurt makes you part of the club.
It’s common knowledge that the Lions haven’t been club-eligible in a very long time. It had been over 30 years since they had last played for a spot in the Super Bowl. Watching a team lose their 12th game of the season hurts far less than watching them squander a 24-7 halftime lead in the NFC Championship game. After shedding the loser label that people had attached to the franchise for so long, the Lions graduated their fanbase to a new level of possible pain-per-loss and are card-carrying members of the NFC Title Game Heartbreak Club after Sunday.
Rooting for the Minnesota Vikings makes one a premium member of the NFCTGHC. As such, I feel obligated to give the Detroit fans an idea of what to expect as new members.
Sure, having your favorite team lose an excruciating game hurts quite a bit. But I can now recite a long list of traumatic experiences involving football games and/or plays using only nicknames and also feel seen when sitcoms reference them! I’m sure Lions fans will start calling Sunday’s game something clever once the hurt subsides. The references and lists are sure to follow.
The first step for most members is to second guess nearly every decision and play made during the game and wonder if a slight difference could have changed the outcome of the contest. I’m sure you’re already thinking about kicking field goals instead of going for it on fourth down (I’d be looking at dropped passes bouncing off face masks and hands, myself). Second guessing is just one of the many never-ending perks of the NFC Title Game Heartbreak Club.
Watching your favorite team lose a conference championship is never pleasurable, but club members should note that not all NFC Championship game losses hurt the same. Defeat by a large margin has proven to soften the blow; 41-0 and 38-7 don’t seem to hurt as badly as 30-27 or 31-28. For example, I hear “2009” in conversations and think about a throw over the middle.
For the same reason, I can’t hear the word “ponder” without getting the chills, but I remember very little of 41-donut. A game played in 1998 has rendered me unable to perform the chicken dance at weddings and caused me to assume any athlete who hasn’t missed recently will but can’t recall a single play from the 2017 Philly debacle.
Watching the Detroit Lions return to relevance this season felt good. Seeing a franchise that has struggled for so long find the right coach, change the culture, climb back up to the top of the conference, and then win in the playoffs for the first time in so many years was a great story and, honestly, a pleasure to witness.
Dan Campbell is likable. The team’s identity seems to be a reflection of his personality. The players look like they believed in each other. The fan base is rejuvenated, and all parties are rewarded with the painful outcome in Sunday’s game versus the San Francisco 49ers.
