Why Vikings Don't Deserve 'Fraud' Label
Coller: Why the Vikings Don't Deserve the 'Fraud' Label Despite Concerns at 4-0
Too much nuance is being lost in the debate around whether the Vikings are as good as their record suggests.
The Vikings’ offense has been an endless point of discussion as the analysis world calls them a fraudulent 4-0 team.
If you talk about some of the reasons for the struggling offense, does that make you an apologist? A homer? Does it mean you have to tattoo Viktor Viking’s image on your calf?
When we talk about teams as being “frauds,” it usually means that they have lucked into their success and there’s no chance that it continues. There have been some unsustainable elements of the Vikings’ 4-0 start, like the fact that they have had two long touchdowns against them called back, or that Caleb Williams pulled his hamstring just as he was about to run into the end zone, and then the Vikings blocked a field goal.
Quarterbacks pulling hamstrings and opponents having 60-yard TDs taken off the scoreboard are not really a model for winning.
Vikings' defense provides every reason for optimistic outlook
But there are a lot of things that we can project forward that are sustainable. One of them is the Vikings’ defense smothering opponents’ quarterbacks. Since Flores took over in 2023, the defense has ranked 15th, 12th, sixth and third (2026) in yards per pass attempt allowed and has been in the top 10 in points allowed for three straight seasons.
This year's Vikings could very well be the best version of Flores's defense. Josh Metellus said last week that this offseason, the defense started well ahead of previous years in the install phase because of how many players have been with Flores for multiple years. It shows the players’ confidence in the scheme and chemistry with each other.
It’s also showing in the development of players who flashed before and now are playing with consistency.
A dominant defense alone can put a team in the playoffs. Last year, the Texans were only 13th in points and 18th in yards on offense but went 12-5 behind the No. 2 defense in the NFL. The Denver Broncos came within an injured Bo Nix's ankle of the Super Bowl with the 14th-best offense in points and No. 3 in points allowed. Philadelphia made the postseason as the fifth-ranked defense and 19th-ranked offense in scoring.
Certainly, you would prefer to be the Seahawks, who ranked third in points for and first in points against, but the point is that when folks say that a team is a fraud for winning with defense, well, there are a lot of examples of recent teams doing it. Maybe if this was five years ago, when scoring was going crazy in the NFL, that might not be the case, but this year teams are averaging 332 yards per game, down from 354 in 2020.
The other thing about sustainability is that the Vikings have done some stuff to win games that doesn’t get much praise because it has looked so gnarly. They are No. 7 in offensive turnover percentage. They are 15th in percentage of drives producing points (yes, most of them are field goals). They are 14th in time of possession.
And these things are happening despite the offense struggling mightily.
If we are trying to project forward, the play-it-safe football style that Kevin O’Connell has adopted has been working for a while. The Vikings are winners of their last nine games and almost all of them have looked like this year's first few. No beauty contests in the lot.
Now, nobody believes they can be a serious contender with the 32nd-ranked offense. That’s almost impossible. But there’s a lot that has happened that seems to be getting swept away in the desire to identify the team that’s most likely to fall apart.
Kyler Murray missed nearly two games. Justin Jefferson has missed both the games that Murray played. Christian Darrisaw and Donovan Jackson got hurt. Jordan Mason has been out since Week 1.
That’s a ton of talent that has been sidelined. If the Vikings were 100% healthy and ranked at the bottom of the NFL in passing yards, it would be time to sound the alarms. It’s not really apples to apples to compare them to other teams.
The point isn’t that everything is fine. They have been dreadful to watch on offense so far. Rather, it’s that the four wins weren’t completely random, lucky nonsense. The next part of the schedule will tell us a lot more about this team.
In the second half against Miami, Murray found a groove and hit 16-of-18 passes. If he gets comfortable, the offense gets adapted to him, Mason returns, Jefferson comes back and the O-line patchworks for injuries, the Vikings can find themselves going forward.
The hardest thing to admit when doing analysis is that we really don’t have a big enough sample size yet, especially with a team like this.
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