Murphy: Five and whew!
The Vikings avoided a close call and now head into the bye week undefeated
By Brian Murphy
The golden horseshoes that rained on the 2022 Vikings ultimately flooded that 13-win team with vulnerabilities which exposed them as postseason frauds.
Too many magical moments and hundred-year anomalies on which to build a foundation for sustained success as it all crumbled last year over 10 losses and an early January vacation.
There was a whiff of snake oil to Minnesota’s 23-17 victory Sunday over the New York Jets and decaying quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Dread bubbled up from the London bogs and threatened to choke an undefeated season for a team projected to win less than seven games.
Careless penalties and a seized-up Vikings offense were spoon-feeding the desperate Jets momentum they couldn’t create themselves. Sam Darnold was playing messier than the soggy weather. Rodgers backed their gassed defense to the cusp of the red zone and a potential go-ahead score with less than a minute remaining.
Perhaps the old man with the golden arm had one more game-winning dagger to plunge in his old NFC North nemesis. But this wasn’t the tundra of Lambeau Field in 2014 or Ed Donatell’s onion-skin defense of two years ago.
These are the marauding Vikings of Andrew Van Ginkel, Harrison Smith, Jonathan Greenard, Harrison Phillips, Ivan Pace Jr. and Stephon Gilmore. The relentless unit defensive coordinator Brian Flores has whipped into an early season frenzy saved head coach Kevin O’Connell from an unforced loss and righteous barbecuing for failing to put away another floundering opponent.
Gilmore, the wily cornerback with a knack for big plays, made his biggest one in purple when he intercepted Rodgers inside the 10 – one of three the future hall of famer tossed, including a pick-six to Van Ginkel that gave Minnesota a 10-0 lead.
With every one of his offseason moves delivering major dividends, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah should never have to pick up a tab in the Twin Cities. His key defensive acquisitions have the Vikings peacocking as the only 5-0 club in the league.
“We’ve got so much more to go with this team, not just on the defense, and we still haven’t played our best ball, which is crazy to say, obviously,” said Greenard. “The score may not be indicative of that, but we’re putting something together really, really good, and we’re only getting our foot barely in the water.”
Get used to it Vikings fans. This team will go as far as the defense carries everyone along with it.
Darnold’s inaccuracy and ineffectiveness, coupled with the first-half loss of running back Aaron Jones to a hip injury, ground the gears of Minnesota’s disjointed offense into dust.
I suppose Darnold was due for a clunker after tossing 11 touchdown passes during sustained stretches of big-boy quarterbacking. But it’s readily apparent that Jones and his versatile ball-handling prowess is critical to the Vikings’ ball-moving ability.
The bye couldn’t come at a better time for Jones to heal, along with star tight end T.J. Hockenson, who could potentially return from 2023 knee surgery for what is trending toward a monster divisional clash against the Detroit Lions Oct. 20 at U.S. Bank Stadium.
“Wasn’t happy about how the offense played as a whole,” said wide receiver Justin Jefferson. “We definitely left yards, points out there. There’s definitely room for improvement and room to work.”
All of which sounds relatively painless when you’re rolling at 5-0 for the first time in eight years.
One could argue that was no way for an elite team to perform against an inferior opponent. On the flipside, elite teams know how to overcome adversity and put down a wounded animal even when it isn’t playing at peak performance.
Sunday’s wounded animal was Rodgers, who entered play hobbled by a sore knee and only 13 months removed from an Achilles tear that ruined his inaugural season in the Big Apple after just three snaps.
Rodgers suffered a sprained ankle when he was crushed during a third-quarter incompletion near his own end zone. He limped off and was heading to the injury tent when the Vikings shot themselves in both feet by roughing the punter and extending a Jets scoring drive that cut the deficit to one score.
“I’m definitely banged up,” Rodgers said. “Got my foot caught on a pile there. There were a lot of things that made some noises on the way down.”
The 40-year-old conspiracy theorist might have been better off skipping the return flight to New York, chomping a handful of mushrooms and pitching a tent in Stonehenge for the rest of the season. Father Time has a 999 billion-and-0 record against humanity, about which Rodgers seems to know everything there is to know.
Meanwhile, two incredible statistics continue to define the 2024 Vikings. They have trailed for all of 3 minutes, 26 seconds and outscored opponents 48-3 in the first quarter.
Playing with big leads has allowed them to take a punch and not go down whereas previous teams would have turtled under pressure.
“What I told our team is there’s going to be days like this, and when there’s days like this, good football teams find a way to pick each other up against a future hall of fame quarterback in tough circumstances,” said O’Connell.
“Not a whole lot of folks thought this team would certainly be where we are right now at the bye. It’s an easy thing for me as a coach to remind our guys of what got us here, which has just been work, total elimination and almost an ignorance to the noise; confidence in what we are as a football team and just doing the little things.”
All those little things have created huge expectations for an ascending team that is learning how to win in a variety of ways.
Five and Whew!
Brian Murphy is a former Pioneer Press columnist and long-time contributor to Purple Insider. Follow him on Twitter at Murphymedia_
A few TV/net analysts have pointed out even excellent teams have some rough spots and the key thing is having one phase of the game powering through.
Nobody wins pretty every game.
Fortuitous time for Vikings bye week.