The Two-Minute Drill: What are the Minnesota Vikings?

By Brendan Nordstrom

“You haven’t even started studying for the test tomorrow?” you ask your friend the night before the final, which is worth 50% of your grade.

Surely he won’t do well. You’ve studied countless hours for the past two weeks, and he hasn’t even cracked open the textbook. But, alas, the grades come back, and he nearly doubled your score.

This is the 2022 Minnesota Vikings.

No matter how often people doubt their validity or skills, they always end up on top, to the frustration of many.

The Vikings were a solid 8-9 team last season, just missing the playoffs. Now they sit at 10-2 as a powerhouse Super Bowl contender. Yet, somehow, nobody talks about them that way. Instead, the discourse is how the Vikings are frauds, lucking their way to a near-perfect record. 

This upcoming week, they take on the 5-7 Detroit Lions. Just looking at their respective records, what would you think Vegas would set the spread at? Vikings +7? Vikings +14 even? Nope. The Lions are currently 1.5-point favorites. Even Vegas doesn’t respect Minnesota.

So, what are the Minnesota Vikings?

Start by taking a look at the Vikings 2021 season. Of their nine losses, the Vikings lost by one score eight times and lost by four or fewer points five times. I remember calling them “tragic,” because if they got one or two lucky bounces to fall their way, they would easily be in the playoffs.

This season is much of the same, except they have gotten every lucky bounce. Putting the record aside, the Vikings have won nine one-score games for a +10 point differential, the lowest mark for a 10-2 team in NFL history. 10 teams currently have a better differential than the Vikings, but only one has a better record.

The Vikings don’t appear in the top five of any major team offensive or defensive category, except for turnovers forced. Minnesota has the 11th-most prolific offense in the league, averaging just over 24 points per game, and posts the 19th-most yards per game in the league. The defense is nothing to write home about, giving up the 12th-most points per game and the second-most yards per game.

So, given all of that information, how are the Vikings 10-2?

The offense has a lot of stars and significant pieces. The top player is wide receiver Justin Jefferson, who makes ridiculous catches and has recorded the second-most receiving yards in the NFL.

On the ground, Dalvin Cook has recorded the fifth-most yards of any running back. Quarterback Kirk Cousins is seen as a serviceable passer, not necessarily explosive like Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen, but he also won’t constantly disappoint. His offensive weapons make the plays, while he just finds a way to give them the ball.

One hit against Minnesota is that they only beat bad teams while getting embarrassed against better teams. Sure, they can put away the weak NFC North, the New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals and Washington Commanders. But when the big, bad Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys take the field, they crumble to a combined score of 64-10. However, this can be disputed by their clutch wins against the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins. 

However, there is still the argument that the Vikings simply have dumb luck. Take a look at their game against the Bills. After Cousins failed to convert a touchdown on a fourth-down sneak at the goal line, all the Bills had to do was run the clock out. Holding a four-point lead with 50 seconds left, Josh Allen fumbled the ball in the end zone, giving the Vikings a lead and eventually an overtime victory.

Now, look at their game against the Lions. After a Viking’s turnover on downs, the Lions held a three-point lead with just over two minutes left. Eventually, they got in a 4th-and-4 situation. They elected to trust inconsistent kicker Austin Seibert with a 54-yard field goal instead of attempting a first down or pinning the Vikings deep. Seibert inevitably missed (and was cut), and Minnesota marched down to a 28-24 win. 

In both of the situations above, the teams playing Minnesota beat themselves more than Minnesota beat them. However, there is something to say about a team that can pull out these close wins. Two or three close wins are luck. Six, seven or eight wins are grit. Knowing how to win competitive games is a skill that becomes vital in playoff situations when almost every game is down to the wire. 

The Vikings need to handle themselves down the stretch, and a blow-out win wouldn’t hurt the team morale. The only real competition at the end of the season is the red-hot Lions, who have won four of their last five, and the New York Giants, who boast an impressive 7-4-1 record.

So, once again I ask: What are the Minnesota Vikings?

They are, simply put, a good team. Any team with 10 wins can’t be anything less. They are battle-tested and proven. I don’t see them getting bounced in the first round of playoffs, but they need to learn to play good teams, or they will struggle with the revamped San Francisco 49ers and the dominant Eagles.