As the Pittsburgh Steelers took possession of the football on Thursday night with 2:26 and no timeouts remaining, a familiar dread set in. You all felt it. As with nearly every game this year, the Minnesota Vikings had inexplicably let the game come down to its final moments. As Ben Roethlisberger completed pass after pass, I’m sure we all flashed back to Jared Goff‘s soul-rending completion to Amon-Ra St. Brown just four days prior.
However, this time, the Vikings forced an incompletion and the clock hit 0:00. Minnesota won by eight and improved to 6-7 on the season. It ended differently but felt just as dissatisfying. The Vikings shut out the Steelers for 43 minutes of the game, and yet, somehow it came down to the last play.
While the Vikings escaped one of the most embarrassing collapses in recent memory, they almost didn’t. In fact, nobody in the history of the game has even come close to a comeback like the one Pittsburgh almost inflicted on the Vikings. So it’s almost just as bad, right?
I don’t think so. After taking a moment to calm down and imbibe whatever substance you need to, you can look back on the game and see that the Vikings earned that win, as much as it doesn’t feel like it.
The game wasn’t as close as it seems
This was technically the Vikings’ 12th one-score game of the 2021 season. They are chasing a record in that regard, but of all the one-score games the Vikings have played in, this one wasn’t quite as close. For whatever it’s worth, ESPN’s win-probability model had the Vikings as 82% likely to win the game at their lowest point in the second half.
I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t believe that 82% since the game came down to the final play yet again. However, it didn’t quite come down to the final play. If Pat Freiermuth had caught that final pass in the end zone, the Steelers would have had to line up for a two-point conversion. As Mike Zimmer said, that’s a 50/50 proposition. Historically, it’s closer to 48% but close enough. If the Steelers converted on that, it would have forced overtime, another 50/50 proposition. Since the Steelers needed both coin flips to win, it makes for a 25% chance for the Vikings to lose after we grant the Steelers a touchdown.
Minnesota had a lot more work to do to blow this game. Never put it past the Vikings to squander an opportunity, but they weren’t that close in this case. Not yet. Without the context of the Vikings’ cosmic ability to invite improbable embarrassments, this game was out of reach for the entire second half. Without the prior baggage that comes with being a Vikings fan, most of us would have felt safe to turn it off.
The Vikings had to dominate for some time to get to that point. As catastrophic as their collapse was, they should be credited for building enough cushion to render that collapse insufficient. Minnesota controlled the game in all three phases for the better part of three quarters. It takes a lot to overturn that kind of domination. In your head, itemize all of the Vikings’ mistakes that let the Steelers back into the game. The interceptions, the penalties, the defensive breakdown — that long, long list still wasn’t enough to turn the game into a loss.
No, seriously – the Vikings dominated
On offense, the Vikings put up 300 yards in the first half. Dalvin Cook rushed for 205 yards with a bum shoulder behind massive, wide-open lanes. Jordan Berry didn’t get his cleats dirty until just 51 seconds remained in the first half. Both K.J. Osborn and Justin Jefferson eclipsed 75 yards on the day, with Osborn notching most of that on a breakaway fourth-quarter touchdown.
On defense, the Vikings allowed only three first downs in the entire first half, one of which came by penalty. The Steelers went three-and-out on three of their six first-half possessions. The Steelers turned it around, largely aided by mistakes from the Vikings’ cornerback rotation. But the defense held firm, with five sacks and a turnover on the game. It shouldn’t have gotten to the final play, but Harrison Smith punched the ball out of Freiermuth’s hands to end the game.
On special teams, Dede Westbrook logged an average of 10.3 yards per punt return. Jordan Berry was playing against the team that spurned him for a 263-lb. rookie. He pinned the Steelers at the four with the game on the line. Greg Joseph recovered from a possibly disastrous night, going 6 for 6 after missing a 53-yarder and an extra point. He also only kicked two returnable kickoffs on the night, both of which ended behind the 20.
It was a three-phase walloping. While it got a little squirrely at the end, there’s no doubt as to who was the better team in this game.
The Kirk Cousins Chaos Meter
The Cousins Chaos Meter measures Kirk’s chaotic nature throughout a game. Sometimes, Cousins is too happy to check down, leading to an anemic offense. Sometimes, he stocks the game with baffling gaffes and turnover-worthy mistakes. The perfect amount of chaos is somewhere in the middle.
This week, Kirk lands firmly in the yellow. It’s a mixture of some chaotic moments, some conservative moments, and some explosive ones. But most of the key moments in this game were perpetrated elsewhere. The rushing offense out-produced the passing offense by EPA on late downs in particular. The bad moments, such as Cousins’ two interceptions, weren’t really on Cousins either. One bounced off Justin Jefferson’s hands (though you could nitpick Kirk’s accuracy), and the other came as the result of K.J. Osborn stumbling on his route. Cousins missed a lot of throws. But too many of them were affected by pressure to cast indiscriminate blame on him for that.
The yellow area of the chaos meter is for games that Cousins did not drive either way. They didn’t win because of him, they didn’t win despite him, and they didn’t lose. Cousins didn’t really inject the chaos into this game. It came from elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with games in the yellow area. It’s labeled “game manager,” but there’s no shame in being a game manager in a game the team won. In fact, that’s the entire thesis of game management. Tom Brady is the most famous game manager of all time. It’s a label Cousins should wear proudly.
Perhaps a clutch meter would be more appropriate. Cousins’ touchdown to Osborn in the fourth quarter may only be overshadowed by his 3rd and 7 strike over the middle to Dalvin Cook. He seemed to play his best football when the game got close. It just so happened that the game wasn’t close for very long.
Let the joy of victory wash over you. Wins never come easy in the NFL, and this win was easier than it looked. Like Zimmer said after the game: The team that played in the first half can beat anyone. The team that played in the second half can’t beat anyone. The Vikings are inching closer and closer to the consistency required to make a true push in the playoffs. Thursday night marked one more step. There are no moral victories, but there are also no moral defeats. The Vikings did plenty to take home a crucial win.
