NFL
By Steve Rogers
The Minnesota Vikings find themselves and their season on life support. Their season has quickly spiraled in the wrong direction. Misques mostly in the fundamentals like holding onto the ball and not giving up turnovers on fumbles every week have plagued this offense this year. You can make a case that if not for five or six fumbles this Vikings team could legitimately be sitting here with a 4-1 record. However, they have continually shot themselves in the foot with fumbles week in and week out, which is a leading cause of their 1-4 record. That is tied with five other teams with the third-worst record in the NFL. Turnovers are the main on-field reason for the Viking’s struggles this year.
There is another major factor that is affecting the product the Vikings are showing on Sundays, and that is the uncharacteristically poor coaching decisions. Have there been head-scratching play calls? Some are sure, but it’s the glaring inability to handle key time clock management that has really hurt this Vikings team to this point of the season. Not just once either it happened at least twice already. Has the breath of fresh air head coach Kevin O’Connell and his staff brought into this franchise last year staled already?
This week the Vikings’ uphill battle to stay relevant in the NFC took another hit as superstar wide receiver Justin Jefferson was put on IR with a hip injury. Even though Jefferson has continued to put up record-setting pace numbers the team has stumbled to a lowly 1-4 record. Now they must go on without him for at least the next four games. That may be easier said than done as they face three of the next four games on the road. Two of those road games are NFC North battles between the Greenbay Packers and the Chicago Bears, along with a trip to the dirty south to take on the Atlanta Falcons. Do the NFL scheduling gods give the Vikings a break for their lone home game in this stretch run? Of course not in fact they get the opposite they get the all-world beating and my pick to represent the NFC in this year’s Super Bowl is the San Fransisco 49ers. The doctors are saying that Jefferson’s timeline might actually be four to six weeks.
The first challenge for the Vikings is to head to Chicago and face the Bears. It is also the first NFC North divisional rivalry game. So here we are the battle of the bottom of the North with both teams sitting at 1-4 on the year. Things might not be going the way that the Vikings thought this year but they have been that much worse in Chicago. The saying goes that you don’t have to look too far to find someone who has it worse than you. For the Vikings, they have to look no further than across the field at the Bears. Pretty much anything and everything has gone wrong for Chicago this year. The Bears are so busy trying to put out their own internal issues they hardly have time to worry about the actual game plan each week. It appears as though the rebuild in Chicago might need to be re-rebuilt already!?! The Bears played their best game of the year last week as they stomped on the Washington Commanders 40-20. Justin Fields had his best game maybe as a pro and wide receiver DJ Moore had a career day going over 230 yards and three trips to the end zone. Clearly, they will try and build off that momentum.
Vikings 3 Keys to Victory
The first thing that the Vikings need to do is take care of the football. No more bad turnovers coughing up the ball. The self-inflicted wounds need to stop. Secondly, Kirk Cousins needs to step up as the captain of this offense and team and say jump on my back guys let me carry us through these trying times. Cousins needs to give the majority of his throws in the direction of tight end T.J. Hockenson in place of Jefferson. Not just for that but the Bears have been struggling to deal with tight ends all season. I expect Hockenson to have a big game. Cousins needs to keep feeding rookie wideout Jordan Addison he is a stud and a playmaker in the making. Thirdly the Viking’s defense needs to rattle Fields and keep him bottled up, letting him loose allows him to create offense.
Prediction
This will be a hard-fought battle between long-time rivals. It probably will look better than their records might indicate. This will be one of the better games on the schedule this week. In the end, I think the Vikings manage to stop the bleeding and get a much-needed win in Chicago. Final score 27-24. Skol!
