The rest of the season ...
We are 5-3-1 heading into the bye week. The rest of the schedule does not look very daunting. (I know it's the NFL and blah, blah, blah). But Cook is back. Reiff is back. So is Griff. X should get better with 2 weeks of rest. Don't know about Barr, Compton, or Sendejo. Compton is not great but is clearly better than Isidora. Would like to get Barr back. We do not really need Sendejo. And Reiff's injury may have accelerated O'Neill's ascent into the starting unit. Forget about Easton and Hughes. Get everyone else back healthy and here is what we have left:
Chicago. Chicago. Lions. Packers. Seahawks. Dolphins. Patriots.
If the Vikings truly claim to be among the elite in the NFC, then we should win 6 out of the final 7, with a toss-up at NE. Trubisky is not that good. He is more runner than passer. Lions are a joke and we play them indoors. Need to beat the Packers at home. The Dolphins at home?, please. Seattle is basically a dome game and they are a marginal team. Not bad, but a team that good teams need to beat. That leaves the Patriots in NE.
That's it. We do this and we win the division easily and host a playoff game.
We have our work cut out for us. We have been a slightly better than .500 team
to this point and we need to be decidedly better in the second half of the
season both to outpace the Bears and their easier schedule for the North and to
beat out the other potential wild card teams.
The worst part of this is that we just don’t have any margin for error
left in this season. I think if we lose
a game to Chicago, we’re probably playing for a wild card spot. If we lose too many division games, we’re
probably playing for a wild card spots.
We can probably only afford 2 total losses in the rest of the schedule
to comfortably make the WC. 9-6-1 might
do it, but that’s definitely backing into the playoffs.
Divisional games are never easy, especially on the
road. The Patriots will definitely be
favored at home and it would be a steal for us to get a win there. The Seahawks are always tough in Seattle. We’ve got a lot of winnable games in our
schedule, but none of them are going to be easy, and we could easily lose more
than we can afford. Assuming we lose the
Patriots game, we can only really afford one other loss on the schedule.
One game at a time. The Bears are good, but not great. If the Vikes can't beat the Bears, then obviously this team isn't really good enough to be considered a serious post season contender anyway.
@"HappyViking" said: If the Vikes can't beat the Bears, then obviously this team isn't really good enough to be considered a serious post season contender anyway.I'm not sure I agree with that conclusion...
Even the very best Viking teams have struggled or just lost @ Soldier Field. That 09 December game @ Soldier Field with Favre at the helm is a case in point. Win that one and Bountygate is played at the Metrodome and not in New Orleans.
Road division games are notoriously difficult.
The games that will haunt this team are Buffalo and New Orleans @ home.
@"purplefaithful" said:I see it like this: the '09 team was one of the best in team history and that loss in Chicago was their "trap" game. This '18 version of the Vikes doesn't have anymore "traps" on the schedule. They've underperformed so far, and are trying to regain their spot at being a legit contender.@"HappyViking" said: If the Vikes can't beat the Bears, then obviously this team isn't really good enough to be considered a serious post season contender anyway.I'm not sure I agree with that conclusion...
Even the very best Viking teams have struggled or just lost @ Soldier Field. That 09 December game @ Soldier Field with Favre at the helm is a case in point. Win that one and Bountygate is played at the Metrodome and not in New Orleans.
Road division games are notoriously difficult.
The games that will haunt this team are Buffalo and New Orleans @ home.
This Bears game won't be a tougher test than going into NO or LA in the first round of the playoffs. If the Vikes can't win this next game, then it proves to me they truly aren't a serious playoff contender anyway.
I think the Chicago game will tell us quite a bit about the team. The NO game showed us the Vikes aren't the best team in the NFC, but this next game will tell us how we rank in the NFC North.
Vikes have second most difficult schedule back 1/2 of season...Going to be difficult for sure, Bears are just next step.
I hope the return of Cook, healthier after the bye and just better play from the rest of the team gets us into the dance.
Of course divisional road games are tough; they are supposed to be tough. And beating a good Chicago team in Chicago will not be easy. But if the only games we can expect to win are the easy ones, then we are just another middle-of-the-road team. If we are even a marginal contender, we should expect to win in Chicago. And we cannot accept the excuse that divisional outdoor road games are really tough. Yeah, they're tough. So toughen up.
Zimmer sells this as a smart, tough, disciplined, well-coached football team. And I know we have a ton of talent - some say we have as much talent as any team in the league. Such a team cannot lose a must-win game to this Chicago Bears team. Or to Detroit. Or to the Packers at home. Or to a Seattle team that is in semi-rebuilding mode.
There is one game left on our schedule where a tough loss would be understandable: NE on the road. I'm not conceding it and I think we should expect to win it. But I get it: it's NE on the road. That's it. Otherwise, we should be in Bill Parcells mode: "Don't tell me about the pain. Show me the baby."
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