What's missing during Vikes' 7-1 start? Tackles

Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier spent the bye week dissecting his unit's performance from the first half of the season and one thing in particular grabbed his attention.

Too many missed tackles.

"For us on defense the biggest thing [is] being better tacklers," he said. "We're really concerned about our first half of the season tackling. We had far too many missed tackles and it really led to some explosive plays that we want to cut down on going into the second half of the season. That's probably the No. 1 area that we want to improve on. If we can do that, we'll achieve a lot of our goals."

The Vikings began the season with a goal of finishing No. 1 in the NFL in total defense. They enter the second half of the season Sunday against the Detroit Lions ranked No. 18 in total defense and No. 21 in pass defense, and missed tackles have contributed significantly to those figures.

The most important stat, of course, is the team's 7-1 record. But the missed tackles are hard to ignore, and the problem hasn't been limited to only one or two players or position.

"We're doing some good things with our run defense and we think it's headed in the right in the direction," Frazier said. "But our pass defense has to improve, in particular being able to tackle after people make a 5-yard, say, checkdown. Limiting the yards after the catch is one thing we keep harping on."

Teams obviously don't tackle in practice during the season, so they have to reinforce it in other ways. The coaching staff is stressing fundamentals and taking proper angles.

"The thing we're emphasizing is just making sure that everybody is running to the ball and not assuming somebody else is going to make the tackle," he said. "And then just taking the right angles to the football. We had some situations where we didn't take very good angles in the first half of the season, and it led to some big plays. Just some fundamental things that you do in training camp and you don't want to forget about during the season. It's something we have to get better at, which will improve our yards after catch."

Frazier said many of the missed tackles have been the result of guys not wrapping up the ball carrier.

"We've had guys who have thrown shoulders or dove at someone's legs and dropping their head," he said. "We just have to do a better job of wrapping up when we go to tackle and keeping our heads up and seeing what we hit. If we do that, we'll improve our tackling as a group."

Vikings coach Brad Childress said he believes his defense will clean up and correct the missed tackles.

"You always achieve what you emphasize," he said. "You go back and look at what you need to get better at and there's a list of things."

The Vikings certainly are excelling in other areas. They lead the NFL in sacks (31), rank No. 6 in run defense and are second in red-zone defense.

They are on pace to collect 62 sacks, which would be the second-highest total in team history since the league started officially tracking the stat in 1982. They recorded 71 sacks in 1989. The next highest total was 51 in 1992.

The pass rush and run defense have covered up some of the breakdowns in tackling, but that is a point of emphasis going forward.

Cornerback Cedric Griffin said the players obviously understand the need to eliminate those missed tackles, but he didn't sound overly concerned about it.

"Like [Frazier] said, correct some of the tackles we're missing and just try to play some technical football," he said. "But in a broad sense, we're 7-1 and if we continue to play good and like we've been playing, we'll be fine."