49ers No. 1 priority vs. Vikings should be stopping Dalvin Cook

The San Francisco 49ers host a well-rounded Minnesota Vikings squad in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, but stopping running back Dalvin Cook should be the top priority.

On paper, the San Francisco 49ers hosting the Minnesota Vikings for Round 2 of the 2020 NFL playoffs looks to be a distinct advantage for the former. After all, the No. 1-seeded Niners and their 13-3 record are favored by seven points over the 10-6 Minnesota Vikings, according to the Action Network.

But the Vikings just knocked off the high-powered New Orleans Saints at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in the Wild Card round, showcasing the very real possibility another upset is in the making at Levi’s Stadium in the divisional round.

If San Francisco wants to stop that from happening, it needs to stop the Vikings’ top weapon, running back Dalvin Cook.

Yes, Minnesota has a lot of other offensive weapons. But the vast majority of what offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski’s unit wants to do goes through Cook. The 2017 second-round NFL Draft pick has an innate impact on both the Vikings’ success, as well as that from quarterback Kirk Cousins.

For starters, Cook had a career-setting year in 2019, rushing for 1,135 yards, 13 touchdowns for an average of 4.5 yards per carry, while also adding 519 receiving yards en route to his first Pro Bowl. These efforts, plus the Vikings’ switch to a more-balanced offensive attack, helped erase any notion Cook was heading towards “bust” status.

More importantly, however, is Cook’s effect on the rest of Minnesota’s offense. The Vikings won all but one of the seven games, including the Wild Card win over New Orleans, in which Cook had more than 90 yards rushing. Outside of an early season loss to the Green Bay Packers, when Cook rushed for 154 yards on 20 carries, the Vikings offense typically goes as well as Cook goes.

And there’s a direct correlation to Cousins’ efforts, too.

Like many quarterbacks, Cousins thrives off play action which, for the amateur football fan, tends to only work when an offense’s run game has been established. Case in point, Cousins enjoyed an outstanding 125.5 passer rating on play-action passes, according to Pro Football Focus, compared to 97.7 on standard drop backs. Tack on the Vikings boasting two legitimate wide receiver threats, Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen, those extra couple of steps generated by defensive backs biting on play fakes can be detrimental to San Francisco’s efforts.

The 49ers run defense is at a bit of an anomaly from 2019. The team allowed an average of 4.5 yards per carry, which ranked 23rd best in the league. But according to Football Outsiders‘ DVOA metric, the Niners ranked 11th against the run.

A key wild card for the Niners here is the potential return of linebacker Kwon Alexander from what was initially determined to be a season-ending pectoral injury. Alexander isn’t quite as prone to biting on play fakes as the linebacker who replaced him, Dre Greenlaw, and the experience Alexander brings should be one element the 49ers defense will enjoy in the divisional round, should Alexander be good to go.

In contrast, the Vikings failed to reach 100 yards rushing in four of their six regular-season losses. So it’s not hard to draw the correlation between the 49ers stopping the run and an eventual victory in the divisional round.

The 49ers and Vikings kick off on Saturday, Jan. 11 at 4:35 p.m. ET from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.