The Minnesota Vikings jumped back into the playoff race on Thursday night with a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. At 6-7, they pulled even with the Philadelphia Eagles and will watch as the San Francisco 49ers, Washington Football Team, and others battle for the final spots in the NFC.
Being the No. 6 or 7 seed in the playoffs isn’t inspiring, but it doesn’t mean that the Vikings can’t win a Super Bowl. The 2008 and 2012 New York Giants went into the playoffs as the 6-seed and won the whole damn thing. The same goes for the 2010 Green Bay Packers. Even other teams, like the 2012 Baltimore Ravens, ran the gauntlet and sparked an improbable Super Bowl run.
On paper, the Vikings have a lot of the pieces to be that team. Their offense is led by Kirk Cousins, who puts up Hall of Fame-worthy stats. Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson are enough to keep any defensive coordinator up at night. If Dalvin Cook is healthy, they have all the tools to put up 40 points a game.
For all the shortcomings on defense, the unit showed what they could do in the first half against the Steelers. Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks are like a veteran tag team ready to create havoc. Harrison Smith is one of the best all-around safeties in the game. Even Patrick Peterson is a future Hall of Famer.
Again, the Vikings have everything they need to be a loveable underdog. But it’s hard to view them as one.
This Vikings team has all the joy of going to the dentist. They play aggressively when they should be conservative. They play conservatively when they should be aggressive. And they had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the NFL entering this season.
This team simply has no charm.
It was all on display in their loss to the Steelers. While the entire 60 minutes could be a microcosm of a bizarre season, the decisions leading up to the game reeked of a team filled with desperation.
Barr, Kendricks, and Peterson all returned to help the Vikings get back to some semblance of full strength. With Mike Zimmer’s defense intact, there was only one thing left to revive, and that was the running game.
Two weeks ago, Cook was in tears as he was carted off the field in Santa Clara. The following reports suggested that he would miss the next two to three games with a pair of bad shoulders, but Zimmer quickly brushed that off. Instead, Cook placed his shoulder in a harness and received 27 carries on the night – most of them into the teeth of the Steelers defense.
Pittsburgh no longer resembles the Steel Curtain of yore, but it was a risky move in the pursuit of the No. 7 seed. Surely this aggressiveness would translate onto the field. But it didn’t.
On Minnesota’s first drive of the game, they stalled out at the 35-yard line. Facing a 4th and 3, Zimmer opted to turn the dial back to the conservative side and allowed Greg Joseph to attempt a 53-yard field goal. The drive stalled out after the ball landed just west of the Mississippi River.
But shortly after that, the Vikings showed the type of charm reserved for a Power 5 college football coach. They crushed the Steelers. They threw the ball to Jefferson. And they had Cook run untouched through the Pittsburgh defense. Hell, they had a 29-0 lead! This team can beat anyone!
However, they can also lose to anyone.
It began with Cousins, who began to melt down like a snowman in Miami. After two costly turnovers, the Steelers suddenly had new life. Ben Roethlisberger apparently had a blood transfusion at halftime and began to turn back the clock against Zimmer’s defense.
A noted defensive guru, Zimmer demanded that the Vikings sign a slew of players to fix his favorite unit. The problem is that those players were let go from their previous teams for a reason and are suddenly playing for their next contract.
Usually, a one-year deal creates extra motivation, but these players haven’t been that good. When Chase Claypool wasn’t dancing around the field, he was torching Bashaud Breeland, who ran to Twitter after the game to fight fans and like photos from someone named “The Horny Badger.”
Patrick Peterson missed a crucial tackle that allowed Diontae Johnson to run out of bounds with two seconds left. The gaffe gave the Steelers a final shot at victory. If it weren’t for the ball clanging off the hands of Pat Freiermuth, the Vikings would have blown the largest regular-season lead in NFL history.
Instead, the Vikings survived. Xavier Woods, another player on a one-year deal, threw his helmet up in the air as if they had just won the Super Bowl.
This is on-brand for a team that tenses up at the first sense of adversity. When Zimmer gets in trouble, he clings to his defense and the running game. When Cousins gets in trouble, he checks down. And when the defense is in trouble, you get the near-historic collapse we saw on Thursday.
It just looks like these guys aren’t having fun.
The teams we spoke of at the beginning of this article were ones that were galvanized by a similar goal. Both Giants teams flourished under the leadership of Tom Coughlin. The Packers embraced their underdog status. The Ravens won a ring for Ray Lewis.
Where is the Vikings’ common motivation? To make the playoffs and save their jobs? To earn another one-year contract? It just doesn’t seem like it’s there.
During the Detroit game, it didn’t look like there was anybody fist-bumping or pumping each other up, saying, “We got this.” Against Pittsburgh, everybody played like they were saying, “We better not screw this up.”
This trickles down to the fans, who walked into U.S. Bank Stadium like they were going to a funeral. Instead, they saw a team that could be an underdog but can’t quite find its charm.
