The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 4 Minnesota Vikings vs New Orleans Saints Sunday morning London game.
| Minnesota | Rank | @ | New Orleans | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -2.5 | Spread | 2.5 | ||
| 23 | Implied Total | 20.5 | ||
| 19.3 | 16 | Points/Gm | 17 | 22 |
| 18.3 | 9 | Points All./Gm | 22.7 | 19 |
| 62.3 | 16 | Plays/Gm | 62.3 | 16 |
| 68.3 | 26 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 65 | 18 |
| 5.5 | 13 | Off. Yards/Play | 6 | 7 |
| 6 | 26 | Def. Yards/Play | 5 | 10 |
| 34.22% | 24 | Rush% | 32.62% | 29 |
| 65.78% | 9 | Pass% | 67.38% | 4 |
| 42.44% | 20 | Opp. Rush % | 50.77% | 30 |
| 57.56% | 13 | Opp. Pass % | 49.23% | 3 |
- The Saints have scored a touchdown on 1-of-25 (4.0%) drives outside of the fourth quarter, the lowest rate in the league.
- 74.5% of the New Orleans points have been scored in the fourth quarter, the highest rate in the league.
- New Orleans is just one of three remaining teams (Arizona and the Jets) that have trailed by double-digits in all three games so far this season.
- The Saints are one of two teams (Raiders being the other) that are 0-3 against the spread to open the season.
- 34.0% of Minnesota plays on first or second down have resulted in a first down or touchdown, the highest rate in the league.
- Kirk Cousins is the lowest-rated passer (26.5) on third down to open the season, completing 11-of-27 (40.7%) passes for 138 yards (5.1 Y/A) with two touchdowns and three interceptions.
- After six passing plays of 20-plus yards in Week 1, Minnesota has two since, the fewest in the league over the past two weeks.
Quarterback
Kirk Cousins: It wasn’t a clean performance, but due to a lower scoring week by the field, Cousins was still able to register a QB9 (18.3 points) scoring week this past week against the Lions.
After a strong Week 1, Cousins has completed just 58.7% and 58.5% of his passes the past two weeks for 4.8 and 6.3 yards per attempt.
Pressure and man coverage have given Cousins issues to open the year. Under pressure the past two weeks, Cousins has completed just 8-of-26 passes (30.8%) for 83 yards (3.2 Y/A) with two touchdowns and two interceptions. The good news here is that New Orleans is dead last in pressure rate (16.8%) and 28th in sacks (four) through three weeks.
Against man coverage this season, Cousins is 28th in rating (63.1), completing 19-of-45 passes (42.2%) for 219 yards (4.9 Y/A). Cousins has an excellent track record against man coverage for his career, so we could still easily be working through a small sample in a new offense early in the season on that front.
The Saints have played man coverage on 31.3% of passing plays, which is 11th in the league. They have allowed just 6.3 Y/A on those plays, eighth in the league.
We also have seen with the Vikings, that this passing game is largely going to go as Justin Jefferson goes as they do not have a wealth of talent outside of him to lift Cousins’s numbers when he struggles like the past two weeks.
New Orleans has allowed just 10.3 passing points per game to open the season (sixth), but they have not had a daunting draw, facing Marcus Mariota, Tom Brady, and Baker Mayfield.
Cousins is a solid option as a higher-end QB2 as this passing game tried to adjust early in the season.
