The Vikings find themselves in a unique position heading into the 2019 postseason. While they aren’t the worst team record-wise in the playoff field, (the yet-to-be-crowned NFC East champion will have no more than nine wins), they are locked in as the lowest seed in a stacked NFC playoff picture, yet they find themselves in position to take a pseudo bye heading into the Wild Card round.
Many lower seeds are forced to scrap through the final weeks and head into the postseason already in playoff mode, but the Vikings earned their playoff berth by another team’s loss, then dropped an ugly home game to their fiercest rival two days later, crushing their hopes of a division championship. Now head coach Mike Zimmer is in uncharted territory as a head coach: Does he accept the de facto bye week, use it to get his players healthy and avoid delving too far into the playbook? Or use a preseason-type atmosphere to generate momentum heading into more meaningful games?
Early reports indicate that the Vikings are leaning toward sitting some of their starters to mitigate injury risk.
“Do you look at the entire season and look at how well the offense has played throughout the course of the year?” Zimmer pondered on Thursday. “Or do you look at a one-game situation? So that’s kind of what I’m weighing right now. Do I go with the belief that they’ve been really good all year long? Or do we go in and because we didn’t play very well the other night try to get going again?”
Zimmer has to hope Monday’s loss to the Packers was an anomaly. Kirk Cousins threw for 122 yards, the lowest total of his career when passing 20 or more times. Adam Thielen was held without a catch for the first time in three seasons, excluding his injury-shortened game at Kansas City in Week 9. The offensive line allowed Cousins to get sacked five or more times for the third time this season. The running game produced its third-worst output of the season sans the injured Dalvin Cook.
Problematically, the players the Vikings need to generate their peak offensive efficiency include Thielen and Cook, who have both battled injuries this season. Cousins has never missed a game due to injury since becoming a full-time starter, but memories of the last time the Vikings had to start a backup on the road in the playoffs — Joe Webb at Lambeau Field in 2012 — might be enough to discourage them from putting Cousins in harm’s way.
Playing a lackadaisical afternoon game against a mediocre Bears team may not do much to add confidence heading into the playoffs, but at least it can’t send morale any lower. The Vikings have seemingly been thrown into disarray the last three times they’ve faced the Bears — not something they need in a potentially fragile state after being embarrassed by the Packers.
“The most important thing is how you play in the playoff game,” said Zimmer, “if you’re talking about the playoffs.”
The last team to win a Super Bowl without a bye week was the 2012 Ravens, who won a home game and two road games before beating the 49ers in the Super Bowl. The Vikings will try to become the fourth team in history to win three road playoff games before winning a Super Bowl, joining the 2005 Steelers, 2007 Giants and 2010 Packers.
Unsurprisingly, a couple of those teams were extremely good on the road in the regular season. The Giants were 7-1 in their eight road games leading up to the playoffs, while the Steelers were 6-2.
A couple of those teams had winning streaks heading into the postseason. Green Bay was forced to win its final two games of 2010 to reach the playoffs, while Pittsburgh rattled off four straight to end the 2005 season, including a win over the Vikings at the Metrodome.
“In January, momentum is everything and you go back and look at Wild Card teams that have won the Super Bowl, played in the Super Bowl, they usually have momentum at the end of the season,” said tight end Kyle Rudolph, “and we’ve talked about it around here a lot and you hear it often in this league, it’s just about playing your best football in January and getting hot at the right time.”
Or, more specifically, getting a quarterback hot at the right time.
In the 2007 regular season, for instance, Eli Manning threw 20 interceptions, but only threw one in four playoff games as the Giants shocked the previously-perfect Patriots to win the Super Bowl. Joe Flacco was middle of the pack during the 2012 season in most measurements, then went off for 11 touchdowns and zero interceptions during the Ravens’ Super Bowl run.
Cousins had a much better regular season than either of those two. Out of his five years as a full-time starter, Cousins is set to post his best-ever adjusted yards per attempt, passer rating and touchdown-to-interception ratio while winning a career-high 10 games and four on the road. By most metrics, he is a top 10 quarterback. But to win the Super Bowl, Cousins will need to rattle off a four-game winning streak under the greatest pressure. He’s put together three winning streaks of that length in his career, including Weeks 5-8 this season.
“I think momentum’s a big part of football,” Cousins said, “and as much as I’d love to tell you that it’s just about between the white lines, I think emotion and momentum matter. I think that’s not just from game to game but from within a game. And you’re always trying to find ways to get it and keep it. Part of getting momentum or having a great locker is winning.”
But winning may be secondary against the Bears on Sunday. Even if Cousins desires to play and get his mojo back, Zimmer has to take the quarterback’s surroundings into account as well. If Cousins plays, Zimmer would be obligated to play the starting offensive line to give Cousins the best protection, and potentially the starting skill players if the offense really wants to get rejuvenated. He faces the same conundrum on the defensive side of the ball.
“For instance, one player wants to play, then maybe I have to play a bunch of players so that it’s effective around him,” Zimmer said. “Anthony Barr, for instance, let’s say him. If he wants to play and I play him, then OK, do I need to make sure that [Linval Joseph]’s in there and Shamar [Stephen] so that something doesn’t happen to one of them? It’s not just about one player, it’s about the group really.”
Dakota Dozier is staying late after practice to snap to Sean Mannion. Dru Samia next to him at right guard.
Could be foreshadowing for Sunday.
— Sam Ekstrom (@SamEkstrom) December 26, 2019
The signs are pointing to Zimmer turning the bye week into a reset period and relying on the resilience his team has shown throughout the year. The Vikings are 4-0 coming off losses.
“When you have good leaders, when you have a good core group of guys and guys that work hard and take the losses personally and don’t start pointing fingers,” said Thielen, “I think we have a lot of guys that the first thing they do is look at themselves. I had several teammates talk about it after the game how frustrated they were with their play, me included. That’s a great thing to have, and I think that’s what good teams do. They look at themselves, they say, ‘What can I do better?’ And they move forward, they get back, and they have a different attitude when they go on the field.”
