While Sam Darnold was setting off alarm bells in Jacksonville, Kansas City Chiefs fans reached for the Pepto Bismol 1,100 miles north at Arrowhead Stadium.
According to ESPN analytics, with 20 seconds left in the game, the Denver Broncos had an 80% chance to beat K.C. on the road. On third-and-seven, Denver called a timeout with the Chiefs leading 16-14 and had Bo Nix run to the right hash to set Wil Lutz up with a 35-yard field goal.
Denver ran the clock down to one second and called another timeout. Lutz entered the game having only missed one of 19 field goals he attempted through nine weeks. However, cornerback Justin Reid came screaming off the edge and threw his body in front of the ball like he was taking a bullet for a teammate.
Kansas City wins, 16-14.
“I felt like we outplayed them, but we didn’t finish,” said Sean Payton. “That one will take a while. It’ll sting.”
Kevin O’Connell has emphasized situational mastery since the Minnesota Vikings hired him in 2022. He and his staff immediately installed a situational mastery curriculum, which he brought over from the Los Angeles Rams after coaching under Sean McVay. He’s even had shirts made with “Situational Masters” and a faux Masters golf logo printed on the chest.
“It comes down to those margins and how can we be good on some plays and situations that maybe don’t always get talked about on Monday morning, but they’re winning plays and winning philosophies for us,” O’Connell said in 2022. “Those margins become even smaller, and we’re going to have to be that much better.”
The Vikings went 11-0 in one-score games and finished with 13 wins in O’Connell’s first season. However, the 9-7-1 New York Giants beat them by one score in the first round of the playoffs. Kirk Cousins threw short of the sticks on fourth-and-eight to end the game, the antithesis of situational mastery.
“He knew it was fourth down. He just wanted to put the ball in play,” O’Connell said after the game. “I was watching some of the routes down the field kind of materialize, and the pocket may or may not have been collapsing on him. He just wanted to make sure he gave somebody a chance, and [the Giants] made a play.”
It’s harder to judge the 2023 season because Justin Jefferson injured his hamstring in Week 5, and they lost Cousins for the season in Week 8. Still, they started the season 1-4, all one-score games. The Vikings rallied to win five straight after losing Jefferson in the Week 5 game against Kansas City. However, they lost six of their next seven games and finished 7-10.
Last season felt similar to 2022. The Vikings won 14 games and lost in the first round as a 2.5-point favorite again. However, they blew out the New York Giants (28-6), Houston Texans (34-7), Atlanta Falcons (42-21), and Chicago Bears (30-12). Still, they fell into old habits. They let the Green Bay Packers creep back into the game in Lambeau and nearly allowed the New York Jets to come back and beat them in London.
However, Minnesota’s opponents didn’t blow them out as frequently as they did in 2022. In O’Connell’s first season, the Philadelphia Eagles (24-7), Dallas Cowboys (40-3), and Packers (41-17 in Lambeau) ran up the score on them. The only somewhat close loss was a 34-23 contest in Detroit.
Last year, the Detroit Lions handed the Vikings their first loss, a 31-29 defeat in Minneapolis that wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Five days later, the Los Angeles Rams beat them 30-20. Still, Minnesota won nine straight before losing 31-9 in Detroit. The Rams eliminated them in Glendale a week later.
Before the loss in Detroit, Darnold’s three-interception game in Jacksonville felt like a low point in the season. The Vikings beat the Indianapolis Colts 21-13 in a game that was closer than it should have been a week after losing in L.A. They snuck by the Tennessee Titans on the road a week later and nearly blew the game in Chicago.
Reliving the 2022 season isn’t super fun, given how it ended. However, the Vikings felt perilously close to playing out the 2023 season again last year.
In 2023, Joshua Dobbs won his last game with the Vikings in Week 10. Like Darnold, Dobbs’ success seemingly came out of nowhere. However, Darnold is the better quarterback and eventually turned his season around – until the Detroit game.
Last year, the Vikings felt like they were trying to pull off a heist without a getaway car. They kept winning close games until it fell apart at the end. Still, the Rams and Lions blew them out to end their season. Situational mastery didn’t factor into the result. Maybe they would have won if they kept it close.
Setting aside their Week 18 loss to Denver, when the Chiefs rested their starters, their only loss was to the Buffalo Bills a week after the Broncos game. However, Kansas City only beat the five-win Carolina Panthers 30-27 a week later. Their next two games were 19-17 wins over the four-win Las Vegas Raiders and 11-6 Los Angeles Chargers, respectively.
The Chiefs only started winning by multiple scores toward the end of their season. Still, they beat Buffalo for the fourth time in five playoff matchups and are in the Super Bowl again. It would be nice for everyone’s sanity if the Vikings started putting teams away regularly next year. However, if Kansas City has taught us anything, situational mastery is more important than trying to win by a margin.