Jordan Hicks remembers last year’s game against the Minnesota Vikings, even if he doesn’t quite recall the details. He was the Arizona Cardinals’ middle linebacker last year, running a defense that gave up 131 yards to Dalvin Cook and 195 combined yards to Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and K.J. Osborn.
“We knew it was gonna be a tough game,” Hicks admits. “I remember Dalvin went crazy in the first half, and we had to tighten up. I think we did tighten up the second half. But I remember coming out of that game feeling like we snuck away with one, and feeling like we had to tighten up our run defense because of the way they were executing the run.”
Arizona won 34-33, but only because Greg Joseph missed a chip-shot field goal that would have won it for the Vikings as time melted off the clock. Still, it was one of Minnesota’s most exciting games last year. Osborn scored a 64-yard touchdown on the second play from scrimmage, and former offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak used motion to open up gaping holes for Cook. Kirk Cousins orchestrated a masterful final drive that put the Vikings in a position to win it.
It felt like a modern football game, but that didn’t last. The Vikings reverted to their archaic 1990s offense, and the result was multiple eyesores and close calls. The 14-7 loss to the Cleveland Browns in Week 4. The Detroit Lions nearly beating them in a 19-17 game in Week 5. The “Cooper Rush game” on Halloween Sunday, and the Monday Night game in Chicago that made everyone want to jump into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan and embrace the sweet release of death.
Sure, there were a few other exciting games. The 34-31 win over the Green Bay Packers, and the overtime contests in Carolina and Baltimore. But the Vikings lost enough close games, as Zimmer was wont to remind us, and it ultimately cost the cantankerous coach his job. Minnesota replaced him with sunny Kevin O’Connell, Sean McVay’s offensive coordinator on the champion Los Angeles Rams.
Games like the one in Glendale were supposed to become the norm, right? An offense that uses motion to scramble the defense? High-flying, pass-heavy action? Fighting the Air Raid with the firepower of an offense that can score 30 a night. Suddenly, we were going to see the next coming of Three Deep. Cousins was going to evolve into a Tier 2 quarterback like Matthew Stafford. The Vikings were going to use their offense to wipe opponents off the face of the planet, instead of trying to suffocate them with their defense. No more winning by slim margins. Right? Right?!?
That hasn’t been the case so far. The Vikings feel like a marginally better team than they were under Zimmer, but this is hardly the McVay offense in the tundra. Cousins is back under center, leaning into play-action. Jefferson continues to be transcendent, but opposing secondaries have kept Thielen in check. Irv Smith Jr. has been a red zone threat but hasn’t stretched the field. Cook scuffles at times.
I’m not trying to knock a 5-1 team, but there is a reason why Patrick Peterson called a leadership meeting once everyone came back from the bye week. He’s been on 4-2 teams that didn’t make the playoffs. Thielen was around when the Vikings started 5-0 in 2016 and ended up 8-8. The Vikes are in most pundits’ top five, but there’s a clear distinction between them and the top three. The undefeated Philadelphia Eagles crushed them on Monday night. The Kansas City Chiefs just hung 44 on the San Francisco 49ers, and the Buffalo Bills recently beat KC.
“The second half of the season is about to start,” Peterson declared. “Now it’s about time for us to start separating ourselves. We positioned ourselves pretty well, and a lot of guys may get comfortable. A lot of guys may be like, ‘Oh, we arrived, we made it.’ But at the end of the day, this is now. You’re starting to build up your season for that playoff run: winning games on the road, ]and] understanding that the second half of the season is when the real season really starts.”
The Vikings stand at a crossroads. One path puts them in position to be a dark horse in the NFC. But the other leads them to another .500 season. Offensive execution will go a long way in determining which road they take. Can they turn into a McVay-type team? Or will they only be better than Zimmer?
There’s no way they can keep eking out wins, especially when a lot of their victories have come against inferior opponents. The Green Bay Packers look like a mess. They sneaked one out against the Detroit Lions and didn’t shut the door on the Chicago Bears. The New Orleans Saints and Miami Dolphins hung with them despite missing key offensive players.
The Vikings need a real test. They should want to see Arizona at its best. They should embrace the full Kliff Kingsbury experience, to the extent that they feel like they’re in his tony Paradise Valley mansion. I think this team needs a little bump, someone to toss them into the deep end. Let’s see a team make them score 30. What happens when they’ve got to go deep? Do they spread the ball around? Do players outside of Jefferson get going? Does Ed Donatell’s defense do enough to give the offense an opportunity to win?
Here’s the dirty little secret: Hicks knows what they have going on. He was in the desert for three years, and now he’s a turncoat. He says he’s going to talk to Cousins later this week and tell him anything he needs to know. “I ran the defense for three years,” he said, “so I got a little bit more detailed knowledge of how they run stuff and what the certain looks are.”
Arizona may give the Vikings a game, but they have the answers to the test. At least some of them. It’s time that a team pushes them a little bit. Don’t worry if this game looks like one from last year. It’s a good thing if it does. The only difference? Maybe if Minnesota’s offense kicks into gear, this team gives itself enough room for error that it doesn’t come down to a field goal at the end.
