The View from the Top
One of the most challenging aspects of our human condition is the ability to admit when one is wrong. While coming to grips with the fact that we were mistaken can be very therapeutic, many of us find this skill curiously elusive. Oftentimes we are too egotistical (if only on a subconscious level), our psyches too fragile to confess to an ever-increasingly hostile and unforgiving outside world that we do, in fact, not know everything.
Fortunately, this writer has a certain level of expertise in the field of being wrong, and has honed an ability to “own it” over the years.
The Minnesota Vikings beginning the 2024 NFL Season 5-0 was not something this writer had on his proverbial bingo board. Coming off a disappointing 2023 season that saw the 2022 NFC North Division Champion’s record plummet to 7-10, and an offseason filled with major roster departures, heartbreaking tragedy, and a tight salary cap situation, very few saw a successful 2024 campaign on the horizon.
Las Vegas agreed, setting the Vikings’ over/under for wins at a paltry 6.5.
This writer took the under. And had them 1-4 into the bye.
Gone was 6-year starting QB Kirk Cousins, who signed a massive deal with the Atlanta Falcons, and replaced by QB Sam Darnold, the third overall pick in the
2018 draft who has spent most of the six years since wallowing in mediocrity on terrible teams, amassing a 29-37 record with barely more touchdown passes than interceptions.
The Vikings’ secondary was a major question mark. S Harrison Smith was another year older, CB Byron Murphy, Jr. was coming off an up-and-down season in 2023 after signing with the Vikings as a free agent, and the team was getting very little from high draft picks S Lewis Cine and CB Andrew Booth, Jr. Tragedy then struck on July 6 when promising 4th-round rookie CB Khyree Jackson was killed in a car accident. Less than three weeks later, 2nd-year CB Mekhi Blackmon tore his ACL in one of the first workouts of training camp and was lost for the season.
Add to that 1st-round QB J.J. McCarthy, who had all but won the starting job in training camp, tearing a meniscus in his right knee and being lost for the season, outside expectations for the 2024 Vikings were understandably low.
But, as the great Chris Berman always says, “that’s why they play the games.”
The Vikings start to the 2024 season has been nothing short of historic. They’ve trailed less than four minutes *combined* through the first five games, leaving three likely playoff teams and a future first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback in their wake. They trounced the New York Giants, dominated the San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texans, and built big first-half leads against the Green Bay Packers and New York Jets before hanging on for one-score victories. Darnold was NFL Offensive Player of the Month in September, and DC Brian Flores’ defense is on pace to create 44 turnovers. Free-agent LB Andrew Van Ginkel has already scored two defensive touchdowns and looks like the knows the snap count and exact play call half the time. Rookie K Will Reichard hasn’t missed a kick, and the offensive line is playing as well as it has in years.
The WR room boasts WR Justin Jefferson, arguably the best WR in the league. RB Aaron Jones has carried the momentum of a fantastic finish with Green Bay in 2023 with him to Minnesota. The Vikings are still waiting to add TE T.J. Hockenson back into the offensive mix. Hockenson, a 2019 first-round pick, is now considered week-to-week in his recovery from a 2023 torn ACL, and may be ready as soon as the Vikings’ week 7 home matchup against his former team, the Detroit Lions, coming out of the bye.
This unlikely, yet utterly convincing 5-0 start has left much of the sports media world running to catch up. A team that was not expected to compete in 2024 is not only competing, but dominating good teams, building huge leads, and scoring in multiple ways with a balanced offense, a resurgent, dynamic defense, and special teams that are firing on all cylinders.
Still, the NFL season is a grueling marathon, and tends to humble even the hottest teams in as little as a single week. As a lifelong Vikings’ fan, this writer knows all to well the heartbreak that can come crashing down on teams that once seemed invincible. The 1998 Vikings, with QB Randall Cunningham, WR Cris Carter, and rookie WR Randy Moss took the league by storm, running roughshod over everything in their path until losing at home to the Falcons in the NFC Championship Game. The 2009 QB Brett Favre-led Vikings seemed like a team of destiny until losing the “Bounty-gate” NFC Championship Game to the New Orleans Saints.
One really needs to look no further back than 2016, when this same Vikings team started 5-0 ahead of a week-six bye, and proceeded to lose eight of their remaining eleven games and missed the playoffs entirely.
Trust me, no one in Minnesota is counting any of their proverbial chips.
This impressive start does leave us in a position to nitpick a currently undefeated operation, and while this team has shown streaks of completely dominating play on both sides of the ball throughout most of these early games, there are a few “red flags” that are worthy of discussion heading into the bye and before a key divisional showdown with the supremely talented Lions.
1: Aaron Jones’ health
Jones was knocked out in the second quarter of the Vikings’ 23-17 win over the New York Jets in London this past Sunday with a hip injury. Though he was first deemed questionable to return, he came out of halftime without his helmet, and the initial prognosis is not what the Vikings had hoped.
The bye comes at a good time, as it gives Jones an extra week to recover, but HC Kevin O’Connell wasn’t exactly optimistic about a week-7 return for the star running back.
“It looks like we’ve avoided a long-term injury, but I’d classify him as week-to-week at this point,” O’Connell said in his Tuesday press conference. Jones, who turns 30 in December, has an extensive injury history, and the team will undoubtedly take it easy with his recovery.
The offense took a noticeable step back after Jones’ departure. RB Ty Chandler was largely inefficient in relief of Jones on Sunday, but will have time to practice with the first-team offense ahead of the Lions game should Jones not be ready to return. Chandler did handle primary RB duties late in the 2023 season, so he does have experience handling a larger workload. For the Vikings’ early season success to continue, their offense needs to avoid becoming too pass-happy, as O’Connell is sometimes wont to do.
2. Sam Darnold’s regression
It’s hard to know if Darnold’s early season success, or his struggles the past game and a half for that matter, are a trend or mirage. As stated above, Darnold was good enough to earn NFL Offensive Player of the Month honors for September, an award very well-earned by his league-leading (at the time) 11 TD passes. However, his play eroded in the second half of the Green Bay game, which may or may not have had something to do with the Vikings’ inability to adequately protect a 28-0 lead.
His play against the Jets was equally unimpressive, completing just 14 of 31 passes for 179 yards, no touchdowns and a bad interception. The Jets do have one of the stingiest defensive units in the NFL (though star CB Sauce Gardner was knocked out of this contest), and that certainly had something to do with Darnold’s performance. But this is now six consecutive quarters of subpar quarterback play, and one can’t help but look back at the past six years and wonder if this isn’t some sort of regression to the mean.
3. What was that you said about a 28-0 lead??
Late in the first half at Lambeau Field, Darnold hit Jefferson for a nifty 14-yard touchdown connection that put the Vikings ahead 28-0 with 5:28 remaining in the half. The Vikings’ defense held firm again, and the Packers punted with 39 seconds remaining. WR Jalen Nailor retreated inside the 10-yard line and made an ill-advised, over-the-head attempt to field the punt, only to muff it and watch the Packers recover it at the 4-yard-line. Two plays later, and after Packers HC Matt LaFleur nearly got himself ejected, Packers’ QB Jordan Love hit WR Jayden Reed with 15 seconds left for a touchdown that cut the lead to 28-7.
After a scoreless third quarter, a turnover-prone Vikings’ offense and a gassed Vikings’ defense allowed the Packers to close to within 28-22 with just over ten minutes remaining in the game. The Vikings would finally put together a decent drive, resulting in a 33-yard Reichard field goal, but after another Green Bay touchdown, had to rely on TE Josh Oliver’s recovery of an onside kick to preserve a 31-29 victory.
A similar sequence would unfold again against the Jets, as the Vikings’ built a 17-0 lead late in the first half led largely by a furious defensive effort that frustrated Jets’ QB Aaron Rodgers. But again, a 4th-quarter turnover and ensuing Jets touchdown cut that lead to 20-17 with just over six minutes left. Again the Vikings would drive for a Reichard field goal, and a late interception by CB Stephon Gilmore sealed it deep in Vikings’ territory.
It was a pair of second half collapses that the Vikings have become all too accustomed to in recent years. That’s what made the first three victories so convincing. They pummeled the Giants on the road by 22. The win over the 49ers ended up 23-17, but was an ill-timed Jones fumble inside the one-yard-line from being 27-7, and they ran away from a very good Texans team, winning by 27.
These past two performances, though both ending in victories, showed a far more familiar trend of a team that has, in recent history, had a very hard time putting teams away. Many a loss has been snatched from the jaws of victory by a franchise that just hasn’t figured out how to slam the door in games they are winning. The Vikings will need to regain that “lights out” mentality if they hope to stay atop a wide-open NFC.
Still, at the end of the year, it’s not how your team got the wins, it’s how many did they get? And as of now, the Vikings have more than anyone not named the Kansas City Chiefs, who just happen to be the two-time defending Super Bowl Champions.
The Chiefs and the Vikings met in Super Bowl IV.
Not saying. Just saying.