Cordarrelle Patterson may have Vince Lombardi to thank for his big game.

Though Patterson owes the rich history of the NFL, perhaps it is more accurate to say the Vikings can thank Norv Turner's willingness to engage in a time-honored NFL tradition of borrowing what works from other NFL coaches, which in this case is an adaptation on the Buck Sweep and Lombardi Sweep concepts from the 1960s translated to modern Vikings football.

It's somewhat similar to the play the Steelers called in the 2005-2006 Super Bowl against the Seahawks to give Willie Parker a 75-yard touchdown run, the famous "Power O".

Sometimes called a Toss Power Sweep, and occasionally a Crack Toss Sweep depending on who you ask and how much they care about tight end alignment, the Vikings found a way to turn one of football's oldest plays and add their own twist, all while highlighting one of the preternatural talents in the NFL.

In this case, it involved some of the toughest blocking angles one could ask of offensive linemen, all while converting a halfback into a fullback to seal the lane.

With the Vikings lined up in "12" personnel—also called "Ace" personnel—and lining up with both tight ends on the line, they were still a moderate pass alert for defenses, especially with the running back line up relatively close to the line, at six yards upfield.

Generally speaking, with three eligible receivers on one side of the field and one on the other, a "3x1" look, the defense is looking to defend against either a "Tare" route combination or a "Snag" route combination that sees Cordarrelle Patterson go deep or hit a corner route in order to take the cornerback out of the play and stress the defenders in the hook/curl zones and the flats by sending the two tight ends in either high/low routes (Tare) or splitting the near defender (Snag).

The Tare and Snag concepts are the most common route combinations when offenses line up in 3x1, so the defense tends to key in on them, especially with the backside receiver outside the numbers ("plus" alignment)) to run a complementary route, often a delayed slant.

Different defenses will respond to this look in different ways.

For some, the primary response is to either run a "box zone" where four defenders are lined up in a box and have rules for who takes which receiver based on whether or not they break outside or in, or have a pattern-matching concept that allows the outside defender (the strong safety in this case) to take whichever receiver moves outside first while the inside defender (the Sam outside linebacker) takes the other receiver, regardless of his route (moving inside or a delayed move outside), all while the corner carries Cordarrelle Patterson where ever he goes.

Other defenses, and occasionally a Williams defense, will check into a Cover-3 zone.

But Gregg Williams loves to play man coverage, even when not blitzing, and that gave the Vikings the edge in both a literal and figurative sense.

The defense is in pass alert until Patterson motions into the backfield, which carries the corner with him and reduces the number of defenders at the point of attack (making it four blockers on four defenders instead of five on five in a scenario where Matt Asiata gets the ball and runs outside).

This empties the alley entirely and makes blocking on the edge extremely predictable. Ten times out of ten, the strong safety will react to a run not by attacking the ball carrier but getting depth and moving outside, making him an easy target for either of the lead blockers to kick him out of the play. In this play, Brandon Fusco does it, and he buries T.J. McDonald.

Just like Lombardi demanding the Packers seal the lane, the Vikings ask their blockers to create a track between the red line (an imaginary line between the numbers and the sideline) and the hash marks that the runner can use to gain yards, with blockers moving defenders one way or the other out of the lane, in some ways paving a road when leading out in front of him.

Easily, one of the most identifiable features of any of the "power" series of runs or the Buck and Lombardi sweeps are the pulling guard(s), this time Brandon Fusco. But the Vikings did something here that was unique, difficult, and risky (well worth it on first down).

Though the backside defensive end is rarely blocked on a play like this, it is extremely unusual to ask an offensive tackle—or any lineman—to block a playside defender away from the play when he's one gap away at the snap. Kalil is in an extremely difficult position to get his block, and to his credit, he slows Michael Brockers down enough to get the rest of the play going.

The reason they asked that of Kalil was so that they could free up Charlie Johnson and John Sullivan to make crucial second-level blocks and double team the middle linebacker.

The risk is that the Vikings sacrificed the likelihood of a successful, albeit likely short, gain in favor of a high-yardage play, essentially forcing the run to either boom or bust instead of getting an acceptable four yards.

It also theoretically freed John Sullivan up to get off the double team and prevent the weak-side linebacker, who for most teams is the most athletic linebacker, from disrupting the play. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, but it was still good enough.

Loadholt's job was simple, and he did it well, which was to push Alex Carrington out of the play, whether that meant forcing him to overpursue or blocking him out entirely.

Both tight ends had fairly common jobs, and Rhett Ellison performed his (down-blocking the defensive end) to his consistently high standard, while Kyle Rudolph blocked the Sam outside linebacker well enough to ensure at least a ten-yard gain, which Patterson turned into much more.

As the corner rushes back into the alley he abandoned, Asiata plays his role to a T, and blows the defensive back out of the play—meaning the Vikings' initial and most important set of blocks were both mismatches in favor of the offense, allowing a guard and a fullback to take on a safety and a corner.

Adam Thielen's job on the edge is to beat the backside corner to the alley and either block the free safety or the corner trailing him. He sort of does this until Patterson outruns him to the end zone (and Thielen absorbs a Michael Brockers tackle for no well-defined reason).

You can see the whole video here.

In the end, the Vikings combined the old with the new, took some big risks and allowed their biggest playmakers the room they needed to make a difference, hopefully a steady pattern for years to come.

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