Undrafted Linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. Shines in Vikings 3-0 Win Over Raiders

Technically, the Vikings fielded an offense. That hardly seemed to matter, even with a quarterback storyline weaved into the fold.

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The Vikings defense pitched a shutout in their dominant showing against the Las Vegas Raiders. Unfortunately, the Vikings offense — missing their starting quarterback, running back, star wide receiver and three offensive linemen — couldn’t do anything until the end of the game, when they swapped out Joshua Dobbs for Nick Mullens.

The drudgery of the offense is well worth discussion but that seems a bit unfair to an incredible defensive showing. They also worked through their fair share of injuries, without their starting linebackers or one of their starting edge rushers.

That’s not quite the same handicap, but it’s worth acknowledging — especially as a backup linebacker was critical to the Vikings’ win. Undrafted rookie Ivan Pace Jr., already a bit of a camp phenom, showed up big in the game.

Ivan Pace, Rare Defensive MVP of the Game

He started off hot with seven solo tackles in the first quarter. He was credited with two assists as the first quarter ticked over, but had one taken away. That meant he finished with eight combined tackles in the first 19 defensive plays of the game.

The Raiders seemingly decided to run plays away from Pace but that didn’t stop him from having an impact in the game. One of the few times he was exploited in coverage it was a positive for the defense, as it occurred during the end-of-half two-minute drill and drained more clock than anything else.

He added a sack to his impressive defensive totals and finished off the game with an interception just as the Raiders were attempting to mount a game-winning drive in the final two minutes of the game. Pace was outstanding.

The Rest of the Defense Was Outstanding

It may be important to qualify the defensive performance by pointing out that the Raiders are not a particularly impressive offensive team. The natural response to that, as it has been every time the Vikings have taken care of a bad offense, is to note that this is the worst offensive performance those teams have put up this season.

And at zero points, this is quite obviously the worst an NFL offense can do. There had only been four shutouts this year entering the week and none of them included the Raiders, whose previous low was ten points (to the Buffalo Bills in Week 2). In the Aiden O’Connell era, their low in points scored came in Week 11 to the Miami Dolphins, a total of 13.

In addition to Pace’s high-level play, the defense outmuscled the Raiders offense in every phase of the game at nearly every position. D.J. Wonnum, Harrison Phillips and Troy Dye all earned sacks.

Danielle Hunter, who earned a quarterback hit, played a crucial role in some of those sacks while also forcing O’Connell to throw the ball away or take grounding penalties because of his pressure.

This also happened to be a game where Josh Metellus somehow felt quiet. That’s a relative term of course — he finished second in the team in tackles and forced a crucial fumble that was necessary to avoid giving the Raiders the lead. Metellus was outstanding, as has become typical for him.

It’s difficult to levy criticisms of anyone on a defense that not only avoided giving up points but allowed 5.3 passing yards per attempt and 4.1 net yards per dropback. When excluding the final play, a 24-yard catch for Davante Adams that amounted to nothing, the Raiders averaged 4.7 yards per attempt and 3.4 yards per dropback.

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Feature back Josh Jacobs, last year’s rushing leader, was held to 34 yards on 13 carries, or 2.6 yards per attempt. There was only one Las Vegas rushing attempt longer than seven yards — an Ameer Abdullah run for 12 yards. The Raiders finished with 3.3 yards per carry.

To their credit, they primarily rushed in short-yardage situations, so their success rate was better than those numbers imply — but it was still an abysmal 28 percent.

That’s better than their passing success rate of 19 percent.

Byron Murphy was perhaps the biggest culprit in lost yardage — excluding the final play — but it’s unreasonable to nitpick the few instances where he allowed any significant yardage, especially when he made up for those plays with tackles in the screen game and a pass deflection.

A missed tackle from Camryn Bynum in the run game didn’t overshadow his otherwise excellent day and we even saw big moments from backups like Wonnum and Jonathan Bullard.

The Quarterback Conundrum Continues

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The Vikings didn’t score until Nick Mullens took the field after replacing Joshua Dobbs. Mullens accomplished in two drives what Dobbs couldn’t accomplish in eight: score.

There’s context and nuance here that’s worth exploring, of course. Mullens benefited from receiver luck while Dobbs suffered from bad receiver play. Mullens’ biggest play was thrown to a defender and deflected up into a receiver’s hands. Dobbs had an opportunity to lead a scoring drive, but Greg Joseph missed a 49-yard field goal, generally makeable by modern kicking standards.

The practice week, according to Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, was built around Justin Jefferson. Without Jefferson there, much of what they worked on wasn’t relevant or was entirely off.

Jefferson, who took a hit on a 12-yard — a dig versus quarters coverage, essentially the perfect route and the perfect read — was taken to the hospital out of caution for his chest injury. The throw was too high and forced Jefferson into the air to catch it, but it was a fairly typical play.

His status for next week is unknown, though the Vikings have not signaled that the injury is overly serious or long-term. O’Connell said he was feeling “pretty encouraged” with the early prognosis.

As a result, this game didn’t provide good context for either quarterback. The injuries to the offense were catastrophic. In addition to Jefferson, Ed Ingram was ruled out of the game ahead of time, with Blake Brandel taking his spot. Brian O’Neill was injured partway through the game, as was Dalton Risner. That meant we saw Austin Schlottman at guard and David Quessenberry at tackle.

Alexander Mattison, who was playing perhaps his best game of the season, also exited partway through the game. That left the running game to Ty Chandler, who the Vikings have not trusted all season to be a second back, much less a primary back, and Kene Nwangwu — who at this point is purely a returner.

Despite those injuries, one receiver, K.J. Osborn, seemingly played so poorly that he got benched. Though he did get back into the game, that seemed more a product of underperformance from Jalen Nailor. It didn’t help that Brandon Powell would later get injured.

Those provide context, but those facts do not suggest by themselves that Dobbs played well or better than Mullens. Both played poorly. It just so happens that Dobbs played better than his statistics suggest and Mullens played worse than his statistics would suggest.

Nevertheless, Mullens played better football. His timing and decisiveness — while not constants of his play — were far superior to Dobbs’. Dobbs also began the game with a potential turnover-worthy throw, and may have had another one as the contest wore on.

Mullens veered close to those kinds of plays but didn’t truly have one in the same egregious sense. The pass to the defender to open his play was tipped up more than anything else and the pass behind Nailor was complicated by Nailor’s poor route timing.

Regardless, Mullens’ familiarity and comfort with the offense — something that was fairly easy to assume and predict going in — as well as his higher performance floor might be a reason the Vikings go with Mullens going forward.