The Vikings weren’t the same defense in the postseason that they were in the regular season. Minnesota led the league in total defense and scoring defense in the 16-game regular season. In two playoff games, it allowed an average of 31 points and 407 yards.
“There’s some things that I really want to look at in this offseason,” Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said Tuesday, via Chris Tomasson of the Pioneer Press. “There’s some other teams I want to study that have done a good job. I want to go back and evaluate a lot of our rush situations to see if we can improve in some of those areas, go back and see why we were good on third downs.”
The Vikings led the league in third-down conversions in the regular season, allowing conversions only 25.2 percent of the time. But the Eagles converted 10 of 14 third downs on Sunday.
Zimmer, who calls the defensive plays, said in postgame interviews he could have “called a lot better game.” He reiterated that Tuesday.
“Sometimes when you’re sticking with things, and it’s been successful for you, you continue to do it, and maybe I did it a little bit too long,” Zimmer said. “That’s all a part of the process of self-scouting, evaluation and things as you go forward.”