The visiting locker room was predictably mass chaos after the Minnesota Vikings beat the Buffalo Bills 33-30 in overtime. Eric Kendricks was in one corner talking about his relationship with Josh Allen, who also grew up in central California. Adam Thielen admired Justin Jefferson’s improbable fourth-and-19 catch and Dalvin Cook’s 81-yard run. Former Bills nose tackle Harrison Phillips was pontificating on the merits of natural grass fields.
Minnesota’s Week 10 win in Western New York was their only underdog victory last year. Their only loss as a Vegas favorite was to the New York Giants in the playoffs. It was also their only one-score loss last year. But the Vikings’ first-round exit shouldn’t take away from that entertaining win in Buffalo. Freezing rain was swirling like a snow globe at Highmark Stadium. But the mostly-blue crowd had been tailgating since the morning. They loudly stomped their feet as the Bills built a 17-point lead late in the third quarter.
ESPN gave the Bills a 96.8% chance of winning when Tyler Bass’ 45-yard kick sailed through the uprights to make it 27-10 with 1:51 left in the third quarter. Cook reeled off his 81-yard touchdown on the next play. But ESPN’s metrics didn’t give the Vikings much of a chance after Minnesota’s 13-play, 66-yard drive in the fourth. There were under five minutes to play, and Buffalo led 27-23 after Greg Joseph missed the extra point. ESPN gave the Bills a 92.9% chance to win when Von Miller sacked Kirk Cousins on third-and-13 with 2:21 left in the game. Jefferson’s miracle catch on the next play only reduced Buffalo’s odds to 67.6%.
The Vikings ended that drive by turning it over on downs on a quarterback sneak at the one-yard line. However, Kendricks scored on a goal-line strip to put Minnesota ahead 30-27. Still, the Vikings’ defense yielded a five-play 69-yard drive that allowed Bass to tie the game on a 29-yard field goal, sending it to overtime. Minnesota started with the ball, went 60 yards, and Joseph put them ahead 33-30. The Bills got the ball to the Vikings’ 20-yard line. But reserve corner Duke Shelley (5’9”) broke up Allen’s pass to Dawson Knox (6’4”) in the end zone, and Patrick Peterson picked him off to end the game.
Most of the players who made winning plays for the Vikings in that game are gone. Jefferson remains in purple and is looking for a big payday, but they cut Cook and Kendricks. Peterson signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Shelley joined the Las Vegas Raiders. Had Minnesota started their rebuild a year earlier, they almost certainly would have lost in Buffalo. Ultimately, the front office knew that the remnants of Mike Zimmer’s regime were capable of more, and they were right. The Vikings won 13 games. However, they are unlikely to win 11 one-score games again, and the roster was getting expensive. Cue the off-season overhaul.
Minnesota’s 2022 season was kind of a Rorschach test. If you went into it believing they should burn it down, you could highlight that the Vikings often benefitted from good fortune, as they did in Buffalo. They frequently played down to their competition and lost to an underdog team in the playoffs. However, if you wanted to see what the old core was capable of and care about the results every Sunday, the Bills game validated Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s approach. Minnesota’s only home loss was the 40-3 blowout against the Dallas Cowboys the following week. The other three indicated the team’s ceiling. The 24-7 Monday Night game in Philadelphia, a 34-23 loss in Detroit, and the 41-17 disaster in Green Bay.
Still, the Vikings were never going to completely rebuild. Ownership has spent money on the roster and state-of-the-art facilities. Zimmer’s teams underachieved in the final two years, and they shouldn’t tank with Jefferson on the roster. Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell were also intent on building a positive culture after things got tense in the Zimmer era. It’s hard to do that while intending to lose. But even though Minnesota was never going to bottom out, they could have begun shedding talent last year to avoid having dead money on the books.
Thielen ($13.6 million), Dalvin Tomlinson ($7.5 million), Cook ($5.1 million), and Za’Darius Smith ($3.3 million) carry significant dead-cap hits. The Vikings also chose not to extend Cousins, who wanted a long-term deal, and he carries $28 million in dead cap next year. There is a cost to retaining a veteran-laden roster, something the front office will have to navigate in the next few years. But it seems like they’re using this season to reset the cap while still trying to win the division. It may be possible, given Aaron Rodgers’ departure and the uncertainty in Detroit. Ten or 11 wins might be enough, and that’s manageable with Minnesota’s schedule.
Unless things go completely haywire next year, pushing to win with a competitive but flawed roster was worth it. It didn’t feel that way when the Vikings were down 27-10 to Buffalo late in the third. They had just squeaked by the Detroit Lions and New Orleans Saints in Weeks 3 and 4. They failed to put the Miami Dolphins away in Week 6, and the Washington Commanders nearly beat them the week before. But Minnesota pulled off a miracle in Buffalo and bounced back from the Dallas blowout to beat the New England Patriots on a short week. It was a tone-setting win for a new regime. One that couldn’t pull off a playoff win but exorcised the demons of the end of the Zimmer era.
