Vikings defense focusing on fundamentals

Members of the Vikings defense have a message for those concerned by the passing yards Seattle put up in last Friday's preseason opener: Calm yourselves.

Yes, the Seahawks' three quarterbacks passed for 257 yards and four touchdowns, but the Vikings say this is not the time to panic.

"It's the preseason," veteran cornerback Antoine Winfield said, a bit incredulously. "We're playing really vanilla coverages, we're not putting in all our packages. Come back with that question after we start playing the regular-season games."

The Vikings finished at the bottom of the NFL in passing yards given up the past two seasons. Last season, opponents averaged 264.1 yards per game. That was 25.5 yards worse than 2006.

While pointing to yards surrendered can be a bit shortsighted, there is no doubt the Vikings want to improve. Minnesota's run defense already is one of the NFL's best, but because teams had success through the air last year they often abandoned the run.

But as the Vikings prepare for their second game of the preseason tonight in Baltimore, they aren't yet focusing on trying to make sure the pass statistics look favorable.

Defensive backs coach Joe Woods said he wants to see how members of the secondary use a mix of zone and man coverages, and added that game-planning for opponents is not a priority -- in part so the Vikings' regular-season foes can't get a head start on scouting.

The Vikings, for instance, used only about 15 of 50 defensive calls against the Seahawks. Some of the calls that won't be used before the Vikings' opener on Sept. 8 at Green Bay will be a variety of blitz packages that could potentially fluster Aaron Rodgers, the Packers' first-year starting quarterback.

"You just have to remember what the preseason is for ... we have some things we have to evaluate," Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier said. "You just have to do what you've got to do to be ready for Sept. 8. That's what really matters. We want to play well in every game. But at the same time, you want to be smart about what you're doing."

Safety Madieu Williams, a key free-agent addition in the offseason, will miss six weeks because of an inflamed nerve in his neck. Rookie Tyrell Johnson is likely to step into that starting role until Williams' scheduled return about four games into the regular season.

Woods said "you've just got to move on" without Williams. One of Woods' priorities in training camp has been getting back to teaching technique. He didn't do as much of that last season because everyone was adjusting to Frazier's scheme. Frazier, who replaced Mike Tomlin after Tomlin departed to become Pittsburgh's coach, didn't overhaul things but brought his own twists to the Tampa-2 system the Vikings employ.

"For me sometimes I was more worried about schemes, making sure the guys got lined up properly, knew how to adjust," said Woods, who is entering his third season with the Vikings. "I kind of backed off the technique a little bit. So this year we're more familiar with what we're doing."

Woods is confident that familiarity and improvement will help the Vikings get better in a few key areas against the pass. This includes limiting the number of big plays against and improving on third down. Last season, the Vikings gave up 47 passing plays of more than 20 yards to rank 21st in the NFL. Six of those went for touchdowns. Opponents also converted 94 of 234 third-down situations, a 40.2 percent success rate. That ranked 11th in the NFC.

"We're just getting back to the fundamentals because a lot of guys, including myself, last year we were trying to do our own thing and really not execute our fundamentals and our technique all the way," cornerback Cedric Griffin said. "We got in trouble in a couple of games that way. This year we're going to focus more just on our man-to-man technique and our Cover-2 re-routes [of receivers] and see how that pans out for us. ... When that Monday night game comes on [against the Packers] I'm sure it will be a different story."