How the Vikings finally solved the Seahawks pass blocking

The Seattle Seahawks had no trouble on defense against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 13, even pitching the extremely rare NFL shutout.

The offense was another story altogether.

The Vikings figured something out on defense, getting to Sam Darnold in a way that no team had until today. The Seahawks have been one of the best teams in the NFL at protecting their quarterback in 2025.

That’s a pretty foreign sentence in Seattle sports.

But it’s true – at just 11 sacks heading into Sunday, and a 3.6% sack rate, this has been one of the best pass protection units in franchise history.

Minnesota was not impressed. The Vikings sacked Sam Darnold four times in the first half, one causing a fumble, resulting a dismal display of long field goals for over an hour.

How exactly did Brian Flores’ defense get almost 40% of Seattle’s sack total in one game?

Largely by exploiting confusion on the right side of the line.

And yes, Anthony Bradford is involved. But he wasn’t the primary culprit.

It’s common knowledge that Minnesota blitzes at the highest rate in the league. They did their fair share of that this week as well, but it was specifically overloading – and subsequently confusing – the right side of the line that caused the most havoc.

Here’s two plays from the second quarter:

In both the above plays, the tight end lined up outside of RT Abe Lucas were to blame. The first was Nick Kallerup, the second A.J. Barner. Kallerup ended up uselessly double teaming the cluster in the middle with Abe Lucas. Barner failed to recognize that Zach Charbonnet had help deep, getting beat badly on the inside spin.

There’s also a severe talent deficiency over there. That part hasn’t changed in years. A keen eye might have noticed that Anthony Bradford was out on the first offensive drive to start the 4th quarter. That drive was subsequently killed by replacement Christian Haynes absolutely stonewalling the opposing rusher.

And by stonewalling, I mean he looked like a wall of stones. Unmoved and unbothered by anything life may throw at it, including – but not limited to – an defensive lineman.

The play was so bizarre I had to watch it a couple of times, as Sam Darnold threw it away and ran a little loop in his own end zone, presumably out of frustration. In the distance, Haynes was standing still doing a remarkably accurate impression of an Anthony Bradford whiff.

To the Seahawks’ credit, Darnold was not sacked in the second half. A small amount of credit is due the players, but it was also apparent that the play calling had changed. More screen passes and running back targets emerged as part of the shift.

That’s two out of three weeks where a team has been able to affect the passing game more than the average Seattle opponent. The Los Angeles Rams did it through multiple disguises, as evidenced by Darnold’s responses. This time, the less-stable right side of the line was exploited.

Darnold refrained from matching Max Brosmer in interceptions, which was a nice change. Still, offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak has a bit of a delicate situation that needs to be finagled against the NFL’s elite defenses.

Fortunately, the Seahawks don’t face another one of those until the Rams rematch.

On the other side, Seattle’s four sacks of their own brings their season total to 40, just one behind the Atlanta Falcons for third in the NFL.