Heading into last night’s game between the Vikings and the Saints, If you would have told me that the Vikes would hold Saints quarterback Drew Brees to 120-yards passing, with just one touchdown and get the future Hall of Famer to throw a rare interception, I could have easily been enticed bet a large sum of money on the purple gang winning that ballgame.
That, folks... is why you don’t bet on sports. (Feel free to remind me of that from time to time, OK?)
Playing without All-Pros Anthony Barr and Xavier Rhodes, Mike Zimmer reminded us why he is one of the best defensive minds in the game, largely keeping the Saints high-powered offense in-check. However, the Vikings made two very large mistakes that heavily impacted the game’s outcome and quite frankly, the Saints are a better team than the once the Vikings beat twice last season.
Whether or not you thought the Vikings deserved to beat the Saints last January, the folks in New Orleans haven’t spent a lot of time crying over spilled milk. The Saints used some capital to move up in last April’s draft to select defensive end Marcus Davenport number 14 overall. With Davenport quickly coming into his own, All-Pro Cameron Jordan on the other side and Sheldon Rankins between them, the Saints don't take a backseat to ANY team when it comes to their defensive line.
Not content with that, the Saints last week traded with the Giants to add former first-round cornerback Eli Apple to bolster their defensive backfield. With last year’s NFC defensive rookie of the year Marshon Lattimore on the other side, Apple is going to be tested but tip of the hat to the Saints for making moves to add balance to their team.
With Sunday's 30-20 loss the Vikings drop to 4-3-1, matching their total number of losses for all of last season. That said, I still think this is a better team but... (cue the Debbie Downer music) I’m not sure they’re even going to make the playoffs.
The Lions come in next Sunday, before this team gets a well-earned and much-appreciated bye week. While the bye-week is always a good opportunity for players to heal physically, coming out of it is always a bit of an unknown, and the Vikings simply can’t afford to have any more costly “off days” going forward.
Coming off the bye the Vikes go to Chicago, where they always struggle. Then, it’s home to Green Bay for another Sunday Night contest before back-to-back road games against New England and suddenly resurgent Seattle.
Yikes.
What we know at this point is that the Vikings have a good football team. However, with the L.A. Rams being unbeaten heading into next Sunday’s game in New Orleans against the one-loss Saints, the Vikings don’t need to spend time worrying about hosting a playoff game. They need to concentrate on simply making the playoffs, which will NOT be easy.
Apply your favorite cliché, from “take it one game at a time” to “the most important game of the season is the next one.” Your choice doesn’t matter, because it’s all true.
The Vikings are going to have to scratch and claw and fight their way through each quarter of each game going forward, because as we saw against the Saints, this team doesn’t quite have enough talent to overcome untimely errors. Anything less than their best will have them sitting with the rest of us watching playoff football come January.