Of the 14 NFL teams with a negative turnover differential, only one is currently in playoff position.
Yes, it’s the Minnesota Vikings. And yes, they’re lucky to be where they are.
The last four games have been an uphill battle because of giveaways. The Vikings committed four combined first-half turnovers and fell behind by six and nine points, respectively, against the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys. They battled back to beat Chicago, 19-13, but their comeback against Dallas fell short, 31-28.
Even more dangerously, the Vikings have committed five combined second-half turnovers the last two weeks against the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars. It’s required some baffling coaching decisions and poor execution on their opponents’ part — along with some dumb luck — for the Vikings to win those games by the skin of their teeth, a 28-27 nail-biter over Carolina, and a 27-24 overtime win over Jacksonville.
The Vikings are playing with fire, and they know. Teams that commit two or more turnovers this year are 38-104, yet the Vikings have beaten the odds and gone 3-1 over the past four weeks. Teams are 5-11 this year when allowing a fumble return touchdown, yet they beat Carolina, who had two of them, and held an 11-point lead. Teams are 5-19 when they allow a pick-six, yet the Vikings managed to come back on the Jaguars after they led by 10 following Joe Schobert‘s pick-six.
“A lot of good things have happened, but we’ve made some things really hard on ourselves as well, too,” offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak said. “The encouraging thing for me is that we’re able to play some of those things. In the past maybe we didn’t play through them. We’ve had some bad things happen to us and come right back to win the football game, so that’s part of the league, too.
“Now you try to get rid of one, try to hang on to the other, so to speak, but I think our players are honest with themselves and know that we’re going to have to play a lot cleaner. We’re playing some big-time football teams coming up the next few weeks, and we’re going to have to be at our best. We’re not going to get away with a couple of turnovers here or there, so it’ll be extremely important.”
The Buccaneers are tied for third in takeaways and have forced at least one turnover in each game since the season opener. The Vikings, on the other hand, haven’t had a clean sheet in the turnover department since Weeks 8 and 9 when they handled the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions in consecutive weeks. The Vikings are 3-0 this year when they have zero turnovers, averaging 31 points in those games, a tease of what they could be at their best.
Head coach Mike Zimmer was happy to point out Wednesday that the Vikings are still scoring 26 points per game in spite of the turnovers (26.6, to be exact). Their points per game is 12th-best in the league, which meshes with their 12th-ranked points per drive and 13th-ranked offensive DVOA.
Most teams would be satisfied with an offense that ranks squarely in the upper half of the league, but the Vikings have plenty of reason to be unsettled about their standing. They are fourth in yardage, just below offensive juggernauts like the Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay and the Los Angeles Rams. Furthermore, Dalvin Cook, Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen could all make cases that they’re performing in the top three at their position this season. There is more meat on the bone than this Vikings offense has bit off.
“We see so many glimpses of some high-efficiency,” said Thielen, “some success that we know that we could carry through 60 minutes, and if we did that then we could be a heck of an offense, one of the best in the league. Are we there yet? No, obviously not, because of those little things.
“I think coach kind of touched on it in our offensive meeting, saying how proud he was of two games in a row where things weren’t necessarily going great for us, made some bad plays and the defense scores touchdowns, and then we just turn around and go play ball and make plays and find a way, so that’s also encouraging. I think that comes back to the fact that we know that if we just stick with it, that good things will happen because we have the guys in this room, we have the coaches, we have the scheme. We just have to be clean and protect the football.”
Thielen is guilty for one of Minnesota’s recent turnovers, an interception at Chicago that bounced off his chest. Cook has fumbled three times in the last four games, Kyle Rudolph once and Cousins twice. Chad Beebe also muffed a punt, and Cousins threw an interception.
Zimmer was asked Wednesday whether he was pleased about the offense’s ranking in yardage, but his response was tepid. He realizes there is plenty more to unlock.
“Let’s talk about it at the end of the year, and let’s continue to get better,” Zimmer said. “There’s some things that people are trying to do to us now that we have to eliminate some of those things so we can continue to get better. But we have good players over there on the offensive side. Our offensive line continues to get better. I think Kirk’s doing a great job, and receivers and obviously Cookie and C.J. and the tight end’s have been playing well, so we just need to keep going.”
There is no magic word for eliminating turnovers, especially when most of them are fumbles that are exceedingly random. Because of that randomness, however, there’s reason to believe the Vikings are due for positive regression. They’ll need to be near-perfect against a stingy Bucs defense.
