The Vikings have gotten back on track with their current three-game winning streak and they have positioned themselves to stage a legitimate fight with the Detroit Lions for the NFC North title.
Minnesota played sensational football early in the year and rolled to a 5-0 start. Three of those wins came against teams that were considerably better – at least on paper – in the San Francisco 49ers, Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers. Not only did they win those games, but they also appeared decisively better than those opponents.
But with the critical part of the 2024 season at hand, the Vikings are not as powerful as the Lions. Minnesota was pushed to the limit by the Jaguars in Week 10 before coming away with a 12-7 victory. The Lions simply overpowered that team by scoring seven straight touchdowns on their first seven possessions and rolled to a 52-6 victory.
Kevin O’Connell may defend his team and tell his players how proud of them he is in every postgame speech, but he will be hard-pressed to beat the Lions in the regular-season finale if that game is going to decide the NFC North title.
The Vikings (8-2) are done with playing the AFC South cupcakes. Sam Darnold was much better against the Titans than he was against the Colts or Jaguars, but consistency has never been his strong suit throughout his career. He was able to avoid throwing any picks against the Titans, and he threw TD passes to Jordan Addison and Cam Akers. The Vikings had breathing room throughout and were able to leave Nashville with a 23-13 victory.
Darnold completed 20 of 32 passes for 246 yards even though he was under pressure throughout the game. Jeffrey Simmons and T’Vondre Sweat of the Titans were in the backfield consistently, but Darnold was able to avoid their pressure, stay upright and deliver the ball accurately.
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Pat Jones had 2 sacks for the Vikings in the win over the Titans. (Photo by Ryan Kang/Getty Images)
The defense had another impactful game and dominated with the pass rush as Pat Jones and Andrew Van Ginkel each had a pair of sacks while Blake Cashman added one more. Veteran safety Harrison Smith put the game away with a late interception and that unit had control of the game throughout.
Well, there was the 98-yard touchdown pass that Titans QB Will Levis threw to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine in the third quarter, and that was the longest TD pass in the NFL this season. It was one yard longer than Darnold’s 97-yard TD pass to Justin Jefferson against the 49ers in Week 2.
That play can be described as a fluke since there was nothing before or nothing after that threatened the Vikings defense.
Smith explained that winning in the NFL is an achievement and should never be taken lightly or diminished.
“I think at this point in my career, there’s no homecoming games out here,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what people’s records are. Everybody has Pro Bowlers, everybody can score on one play like what happened today. There’s no easy buckets. You have to be locked in, and they all count as one. That is my mindset. It’s not thinking about too much of it, just being present. It’s kind of cliché, but that’s just the reality of it.”
The Vikings will face five teams that are .500 or better in the final seven games of the season. The Chicago Bears are the only team that don’t qualify because they are 4-6, but two of those losses – to Washington and Green Bay – came on the last play of the game. If the Bears had managed to survive a Hail Mary against the Commanders and avoid a blocked field goal attempt vs. the Packers Chicago would come into Week 12 with a 6-4 record.
There are no more easy games left on the schedule. The Vikings have plenty of runway thanks to their 5-0 start, but if they are going to push hard for the division title and the No. 1 seed in the NFC, they must match their early-season form and play their best football of the year.