On the matter of ifs and buts...
What it means that the Vikings have lost two games on bad breaks
By Matthew Coller
When it comes to the Minnesota Vikings’ start to the season, losses to the Cincinnati Bengals and Arizona Cardinals test all the clichés.
Don Meredith famously said, “if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, wouldn’t it be a Merry Christmas?” The implication is that every team can play the if-and-but game with their record but the end result is all that matters. If there’s any team in the league that has ifs-and-buts its the Vikings, who had an 87% chance to win before Dalvin Cook fumbled in Cincy and 90% before Greg Joseph missed wide right in Arizona per Edj Sports.
Bill Parcells’s classic statement that “you are what your record says you are” is also challenged here. Are they really an 0-2 team? The other 0-2 teams include Atlanta, Jacksonville, both New Yorks and Indianapolis. The Vikings are certainly better than those clubs and their Expected Win-Loss based on points differential, per Pro Football Reference, is 1-1.
You might even select Denny Green’s, “they are who we thought they were,” depending on how far you lean on the pessimistic side. But did we think they were going to be an 0-2 team? Few people would have picked the Vikings to start the year with back-to-back losses considering both opponents were beatable.
Like rumors, there’s truth to all clichés.
But the ifs and buts cut both ways. If the Vikings hadn’t let a 20-7 lead slip away, they wouldn’t have put the game on Greg Joseph’s shoulders. If they had been called for clearly facemasking Kyler Murray on his second interception, the Cardinals might have simply put them away. Same goes for Arizona opening the door for the Vikings by failing to move the ball on their last offensive drive. If they executed on that drive, game over.
The final play shapes the way we remember the game but it doesn’t change the fact that there were plenty of other opportunities to win. Mike Zimmer told his team as much.
"After the game [Zimmer] said to the team that the game wasn't lost on the final kick,” Joseph said. “I know that I had a chance to win the game... that was what he said but I need to do better to put wins in the column for this team.”
As far as Parcells’s stance: You don’t get bonus points for losing via a last-second field goal. The Vikings have to climb out of an 0-2 hole regardless of how it happened. They now trail the Packers and Bears by a game in the division and sit in 13th place in the NFC.
There’s also plenty of evidence that they aren’t secretly a 2-0 team in disguise. The Vikings are 26th in points allowed, 25th in passing yards allowed, 27th in opposing QB rating, 22nd in rushing yards allowed, 18th in percentage of drives in which the offense has produced points and 29th in average offensive starting field position.
This team has to make the argument that its better than its record because there’s nowhere else to go.
There aren’t conversations about the future or the development of key players. In fact, the only young players we are learning about in the starting lineup are KJ Osborn, Oli Udoh and DJ Wonnum. Everybody else is established.
The coach has been around eight years. The quarterback is in his fourth season here and 10th NFL season. The front office has been in place for a decade. There are no silver linings to 0-2 when future isn’t a factor.
The tougher part of the start, beyond its natural gut-punch nature, is that the Vikings can’t bottle their QB performances from the last two weeks and let them out when they need them later.
Kirk Cousins ranks fourth in PFF grade through two games and seventh in quarterback rating. He hasn’t caused a turnover and has only been sacked four times and pressured on 26% of dropbacks, the third best in the NFL thus far.
You can look at those numbers one of two ways: A) The Vikings’ quarterback play has been pretty good and will remain pretty good B) They squandered two strong showings.
The case for A looks like this: The receivers rarely slump and it appears Klint Kubiak has figured out ways to get the ball out of Cousins’s hand quicker to help the offensive line, so they can continue to roll.
On the B side, Cousins scored an 80.9 and 82.9 PFF grades in his first two games. Here’s how many games per season he’s had that were that good or better:
2018: 4
2019: 7
2020: 4
If you use quarterback rating, Cousins managed seven games better than his current two-game rating in 2020, five in 2019 and six in 2018.
Bad luck in waning moments of the first two weeks let good showings (that can’t be relied upon every week) go to waste.
There will be bumps along the road. There will be games where turnovers and pressure and good defensive play stifles the offense. That’s why so many teams that start 0-2 struggle to make the playoffs — the room for error is cut significantly.
The layout of the schedule makes this whole thing tougher. If Detroit and Carolina were on the docket in the next two weeks rather than in Weeks 5 and 6, the Vikings might be 2-2 in a jiffy. Instead they have Russell Wilson, who they’ve never beat with Mike Zimmer as head coach, and Kevin Stefanski’s strong Cleveland Browns team.
If it gets to 0-4, nobody will remember the ifs and buts of the first two weeks. They will only see the team as what their record says.
Mike Zimmer is trying to speak the possibility of a complete slide out of existence.
“I was encouraged by the effort, the fight and the toughness that we had, from the quarterback all the way down to the defensive linemen,” Zimmer said.
Now back to Denny Green. What we thought the Vikings were is a team in the middle. A group that could have a great season if things went right or a team that could be derailed if things broke the wrong way. Through two games, they have broken the wrong way in epic fashion.
What we think they are is a team that would have a really tough time responding to those crushing blows against two Super Bowl contenders.
The plus side to facing Seattle and Cleveland in the next two weeks is that we get to find out if there’s more there than what we thought.
Coming back from 0-2 isn’t impossible. In 2008, they needed to get to 3-3 at the bye and then get hot in the second half of the season. That remains in play. But there’s no more room for ifs and buts.
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We cannot know the future, but we can endlessly talk about it. On a losing streak, the pressure builds with each game. Seattle isn't the team the Vikings want to face after a 0-2 start. However, the team looked better last Sunday. anything can happen.
We need a few of those breaks to go our way to even out the karma. Someone needs to miss a last second field goal, and someone else needs to fumble in overtime. 15 more games. The Cardinals game proves one thing. With this team, every game is winnable, no matter how tough the opponent or stadium. Just need to make that kick and its an entirely different story.