The vibes in the Minnesota Vikings locker room were immaculate.
Kevin O’Connell stood in front of his team, waiting for the arrival of his new quarterback, who had just engineered a 31-28 comeback victory over the Atlanta Falcons. The Vikings had recovered from a 1-4 start and were in position for the final playoff spot in the NFC.
Joshua Dobbs was the quarterback O’Connell was waiting for, and he had arrived in Minnesota just over 72 hours before the game. The team O’Connell addressed drastically differed from the one he led in Week 1. Justin Jefferson was in street clothes, injuries had sidelined several key offensive players, and Kirk Cousins was back in the Twin Cities recovering from an Achilles injury.
The Vikings had no business winning in Atlanta. But they are 5-4 because they are the team that won’t die.
The story of the 2023 Vikings has been a roller coaster of emotions. The Vikings began the year looking to prove their 13-win season last year wasn’t a fluke. The main reason people didn’t believe in the team was due to their 11-0 regular-season record in one-score games and their eight fourth-quarter comebacks, which tied an NFL record.
The pundits believed there was no way the Vikings could keep up that kind of success. They also felt vindicated when the Vikings couldn’t complete a ninth fourth-quarter comeback in a Wild Card loss to the New York Giants last January.
The loss triggered an avalanche of moves for the Vikings, where they got rid of some key contributors. They released Eric Kendricks, and he signed with the Los Angeles Chargers. They also released Adam Thielen, and he signed with the Carolina Panthers. They eventually moved on from Dalvin Cook, and he signed with the New York Jets. The Vikings either traded other players like Za’Darius Smith, Patrick Peterson, and Dalvin Tomlinson, or they left in free agency.
Pressed against the cap, the Vikings filled the void with younger players and cheap veterans. It was the same way the Vikings had tried to rebuild in 2020 and 2021. But losing key players left them short of their goals, and they finished with a combined 15-18 record and missed the playoffs in both years.
O’Connell’s arrival helped the same group reach a different level in 2022 because of the locker room culture. Under Mike Zimmer, the Vikings never got back up when opponents knocked them down. But when opponents knock them down under O’Connell, they have fought their way back to the top.
That was the basis of each of the comeback wins. The Vikings got down by 17 points in Buffalo and fought back for a 33-30 overtime victory. Minnesota trailed 33-0 at halftime before stunning the Indianapolis Colts for the largest comeback in NFL history.
These types of wins made podcasters and national pundits scream “FRAUDULENT” until their faces turned purple. But they’ve established a culture that has led to their biggest comeback to date.
Things did not start well for the 2023 Vikings. They fumbled too much. They made too many mistakes. And they buried themselves in holes they couldn’t climb out of with self-inflicted mistakes. The variance of one-score games swung in the opposite direction, and the Vikings started 1-4.
The uncertainty surrounding the team’s future made the start even worse. Cousins was entering the final year of his contract. The Vikings failed to sign Jefferson to a massive new extension before the season. The defense couldn’t keep up against Justin Herbert, Jalen Hurts, and Patrick Mahomes. Then, the injuries started to pile up.
Marcus Davenport was the first to go with an ankle injury that kept him out for the first three games. Then he suffered an aggravation that has sidelined him for the foreseeable future. Jefferson suffered a hamstring injury in a Week 5 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, and Cousins suffered a torn Achilles three weeks later in a win over the Green Bay Packers.
At any moment, the Vikings could have decided to mail it in – especially with a deep quarterback class in next year’s draft. Instead, they fought their way back even as more injuries piled up in the win over the Falcons.
Jaren Hall started the game and looked good before he suffered a concussion on the opening drive. K.J. Osborn also suffered a concussion he sustained on a violent hit at midfield and left on a cart. Cam Akers was serving as the emergency quarterback, and he left the game in the third quarter with an Achilles injury. The Vikings were already without Christian Darrisaw, whose groin injury worsened as the weekend progressed.
Mix in a quarterback who was learning his teammates’ names on the sideline moments before he went into the game, and Minnesota had no business winning this game. But, once again, you can’t kill this version of the Vikings.
Dobbs put together a spectacular relief performance, completing 20 of 30 passes for 158 yards and two touchdowns. The Vikings fell behind by eight points twice and appeared to come up short when Tyler Allgeier scored a five-yard touchdown to put Atlanta up 28-24 with 2:08 to go.
The Vikings could have given in there. Instead, they put together an 11-play, 75-yard drive that included a fourth-and-seven conversion, with Dobbs scrambling for a 22-yard gain. When Dobbs found Brandon Powell for the game-winning score three plays later, the Vikings had come back from the dead only five days after everyone exchanged their pumpkins for Christmas decorations.
It was the type of win the Vikings were known for under O’Connell and why the locker room was so joyous after the game. Dobbs welled up with tears while thinking about playing for his fourth team in the past two and a half seasons, and O’Connell congratulated his successful debut with a game ball.
Nobody had any business being in that moment. But the Vikings did because they are the team that refuses to die.
