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This is from a NFL.com story but it can't be said any better or simpler:
"The Vikings now find themselves in a pretty advantageous situation. Four of their final six games are at home and they'll have three more games against every team in the NFC North. For a team that is just one game behind the Green Bay Packers in the race for the division crown, that's a promising situation. The Vikings will have every opportunity to achieve all the goals they've set for themselves.
The key is that they keep sticking with the same physical approach that has been so beneficial thus far. It's not the coolest style of football in today's wide-open NFL and the Vikings clearly have several options with the pass. But this is a team that has plenty of elements that can produce postseason success. All they have to do is keep remembering exactly who they are."
...and throw in a bye week into that. 7-3 and its going to be a ton of fun now. What kind of team is this? Let's find out.
Zimmer in the post game presser: 'We planned to use all the bullets in the gun in this game'. Why not have that mentality each week? Play like you have nothing to lose and you can take the team as far as its potential, whatever that may be. No Thielen, no Joseph and no Waynes and a road win against a winning team in prime time. The f@#$ing unpredictable NFL. smh.
Maybe get the pass D squared away at some point too...
Quote: @"BarrNone55" said:
Maybe get the pass D squared away at some point too...
Not a perfect team. 3rd and long conversions against the D last night were infuriating....and that's an understatement.
Vikings are 7-3 despite playing 6 of their 10 games on the road.
They are the only NFL team to have played 6 road games already.
Quote: @"StickyBun" said:
Vikings are 7-3 despite playing 6 of their 10 games on the road.
They are the only NFL team to have played 6 road games already.
...and some pretty good teams on that schedule, too. Despite that, could very easily be 9-1 right now if Cousins throws that ball away in GB and just ONE of a dozen bounces goes our way in KC.
Albert Breer, SI.com:
Sometimes, before an overhyped game, players and coaches will do what they can to act like this particular week is like any other week, lest anyone think the foot would ever come off the pedal in the NFL. And then afterwards, you find out the truth.
In this case, the truth is that Sunday’s game was mammoth for the Vikings. Because of the stakes, because of the stage, and because of the opponent, it was all there for Minnesota.
“We knew what the stakes were coming into the game,” linebacker Eric Kendricks said over the phone from the Vikings locker room after the team’s win over Dallas. “It’s just that part of the season. These games are crucial, especially on the road.”
And when it mattered most, Minnesota was just one of three teams on Sunday to lean on championship-level defense at the wire to get through that sort of moment.
But for the Vikings, it took plenty of failure on that side of the ball first to get there. After being staked to a 14–0 lead in the first quarter, the Minnesota D took body blow after body blow from Dak Prescott and Co. The Cowboys went 48 and 83 yards on second-quarter drives to score their first two touchdowns, then took it 75 yards to score another touchdown in the third quarter and 70 yards to kick a field goal early in the fourth.
Down 28–24 late in the fourth, Dallas appeared poised to snatch the win away from their visitors in similar, cutting fashion. The Cowboys didn’t face a single third down in covering 75 yards, going from its own six-yard line to the Vikings 19 in seven plays to set up a first-and-10 inside the red zone with 1:59 to go.
If it seemed reasonable to think Minnesota’s best chance at that point might’ve been to make sure there was enough time left to respond to Dallas’ inevitable score, the defense had other ideas.
“When they got in the red zone, the field shortened up so the amount of stuff they could do was limited,” Kendricks said. “We got hit in the mouth earlier that drive, but it’s about how we finish, and everybody was locked in, no one was flustered. No one was pointing a finger. Everybody was just locked in.”
Four plays later, the Vikings would take their place among the NFC’s top contenders.
And they weren’t going to be shy about the magnitude of this one either. As was the case in Pittsburgh and Green Bay earlier in the day, a single defensive stop carried promise to reverberate all the way to January.
Quote: @"MaroonBells" said:
@"StickyBun" said:
Vikings are 7-3 despite playing 6 of their 10 games on the road.
They are the only NFL team to have played 6 road games already.
...and some pretty good teams on that schedule, too. Despite that, could very easily be 9-1 right now if Cousins throws that ball away in GB and just ONE of a dozen bounces goes our way in KC.
exactly. if Kirk throws it away. we run into the end zone next play, get out of GB with a win
goddamn, 8-2 with 4 home games left with a rushing and receiving duo no one wants to face
"As Dallas broke the huddle in ‘11’ personnel (one back, one tight end), all five skill guys left the backfield, creating two matchups with linebackers—Anthony Barr on Jason Witten, and Kendricks on Elliott—in the opposite slot spots. And those matchups featuring linebackers in coverage, no matter how good the defenders may be, are what quarterbacks are trained to look for.
“I kind of knew that, and at the same time I knew who they trusted in the situations,” Kendricks said. “They trusted their guys, they want their guys to make plays because those guys make plays all the time. I knew I had a little bit of action coming.”
He did indeed. Prescott didn’t hesitate, taking the shotgun snap and immediately sending the ball towards the sticks on his left. By then, though, it was too late. Kendricks had already attempted to influence Elliott outside—“I tried to do my best to give him a one-way go”—and then undercut his route.
Maybe he was guessing a little. Either way, he was right.
“I had a feeling, you’ve got to have that feeling,” Kendricks continued. “But I embraced it. And I was actually, I don't know how to say it, I was excited to try to guard him.”
And with that step on Elliott, Kendricks swatted Prescott’s pass, effectively ending the game and allowing the Vikings to take a perfectly imperfect 28–24 win back to Minneapolis.
“I can’t say we played a perfect game—we didn’t by any means,” Kendricks said. “It showed, we got scored on, and it was a close game, a lot closer than we wanted it to be. But it’s gonna be like that on the road, it’s gonna be like that in the NFL and it’s about how we finish. And everybody was into it the whole time. We just gotta grind them out sometimes and it’s never gonna be pretty. But I'm very proud of how everybody was locked in.”
Kendricks was alluding to the fact that the Vikings were outgained 443–364, but in fact this was the kind of game that Minnesota sees itself thriving in. The Vikings were able to maintain control of the pace and tenor of the game with their edge in the running game—they went for 153 yards of 36 carries, while the Cowboys finished with just 50 yards on 22 attempts. It was as if they had outlasted their opponent at the end of a 15-round fight.
When I brought that up to Kendricks, I suggested it was a reflection of their head coach, that it made them a kind of “Mike Zimmer team.”
“I like that phrase,” Kendricks said. “We're tough as nails, man. Anything people throw at us we're gonna scrap, we're gonna claw, we're gonna fight. I don't know if I can say we're that kind of team yet, we gotta finish out this season. But man today, we were that team.”
They sure were"
And Linval Joseph had knee surgery.
Hopefully he comes back soon.
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