Mike Zimmer went out on his terms two years ago. The Minnesota Vikings beat the Chicago Bears 31-17 in Week 18, winning a meaningless game that worsened their draft position in 2022. Justin Jefferson entered the game needing 124 yards to break Randy Moss’ single-season receiving record. He finished 17 yards short. “I don’t care about records,” Zimmer said after that game. “I care about wins.”
The Vikings replaced Zimmer and Rick Spielman with Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in the offseason, and they went 11-0 in one-score games to finish 13-4. However, Adofo-Mensah traded the No. 12 pick in 2022 instead of drafting Jordan Davis or Kyle Hamilton, and Minnesota’s 2022 class hasn’t been productive.
A year later, the Vikings finished 10-7 after going 6-8 in one-score games. They were also 6-8 in one-score games during Zimmer’s final season. But they lost in Week 18 this year and will benefit from that. Minnesota objectively should have lost in Detroit. They earned a better draft position by losing and could have played a last-place schedule if the Bears had beaten the Green Bay Packers.
The Vikings didn’t try to lose in Detroit. They played their starters, including Jefferson, knowing they had a 3% chance to make the playoffs. But by 2:40 pm, Minnesota’s chances had dwindled to near zero. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Carolina Panthers 9-0, and the New Orleans Saints had a 24-point lead over the Atlanta Falcons. The Vikings needed Tampa or New Orleans to lose to make the playoffs.
But by playing Jefferson, O’Connell allowed him to finish the season with 1,000 yards, his adjusted goal after suffering a hamstring injury in Week 5. Jefferson entered the Lions game with 882 yards and finished with 12 receptions for 194 yards and a touchdown. By finishing with 1,076 yards in 7.5 games, Jefferson became the third player in NFL history to finish with over 1,000 yards in 10 or fewer games. He’s also the fifth player in NFL history to have four consecutive 1,000-yard seasons to start his career.
This season was far too similar to 2021 for anyone’s liking. Both teams finished 6-8 in one-score games and missed the playoffs. Both teams lost games they could have won late in the season to qualify for the playoffs. But the Vikings lost a game they should have lost in Week 18, Jefferson eclipsed 1,000 yards receiving, and O’Connell has maintained a better team culture. Like Zimmer, O’Connell likely cares more about wins than records. However, he probably would like to have a better draft pick and an easier schedule next year while keeping his franchise player happy.
Still, the Vikings put themselves in a difficult position entering Week 18 because of how the season started. They started 0-3 mainly because they kept turning the ball over and finished with a -12 turnover differential. They finished the year 4-0 when they won the turnover battle, 2-0 when they tied, and 1-10 when they lost it.
The Vikings also entered no-man’s land after Jefferson’s injury. They squeezed out a victory in Chicago after Jefferson injured his hamstring and won five straight games, including after Kirk Cousins injured his Achilles tendon in Green Bay. Minnesota would have started 1-5 if they had lost at Soldier Field and probably would have tanked. Instead, they traded for Joshua Dobbs at the deadline, and he led them to victories over the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints.
But Dobbs returned to orbit in Denver and crash-landed in Minnesota’s 12-10 loss to Chicago on Monday night football. The Vikings only won one more game, the 3-0 snoozer in Vegas, and finished the season having lost six of their last seven contests. They enter a pivotal offseason and must figure out how to compete in the NFC North, which has gotten more competitive. This year, the Packers, Bears, and Lions beat Minnesota at U.S. Bank Stadium. Jordan Love looks like Green Bay’s franchise quarterback, Chicago will have the first-overall pick next year, and Detroit won the division for the first time since 1993.
The Vikings will likely try to compete again next year. Cousins and Danielle Hunter have said they want to return, but Harrison Smith was non-committal after the game. Jefferson said whether he signs long-term and who Minnesota’s future quarterback will be are up to management. “I feel like with my play and all of that,” he said, “everything is going to happen the way it needs to happen.”
Jefferson can say that because he did his job. But management must ensure that they do theirs. They must decide whether to re-sign Cousins and Hunter, try to bring Brian Flores back, and ensure he has enough talent to run an adequate defense. And they have to sign Jefferson long-term. The Vikings did themselves a favor by losing in Detroit. However, they ended the season without being good enough to make the playoffs but weren’t bad enough to secure a top draft pick. Minnesota did the right thing by losing in Detroit, but they enter the offseason with uncertainty because they lacked direction this season.
