It’s finally
here…the end of the five game “cupcake” portion of the schedule.
Though, let’s
be honest here…none of these four prior games felt like cupcakes. A six point win over the Chiefs the week after
their best player went down with an ACL injury.
A nine-point win over the Lions where the Vikings couldn’t score much in
the red zone and had to overcome an early 14-3 deficit. The other two games left us to rely on
formerly-much-maligned kicker Blair Walsh to claim victory.
Yes, in
theory, the Vikings needed to win at least four of these five to show
improvement and stand any kind of chance against Green Bay in the division
race. As it stands, that’s exactly what
this team has done.
As of this writing (somewhere between the Packers game and the Vikings game), the Vikings and Packers are tied for the NFC North’s best
record. The Vikings actually have fewer
points against, if that’s important to you.
Which is
why, with “America’s Game of the Week” showdown with the Packers approaching,
it goes without saying that it is in the best interests of the Vikings and
their fans to go into next week tied atop the division as well. The Packers get the easy route, as they take
on the Lions at home, where they haven’t lost to Detroit in four straight
presidential administrations. For those
keeping score, that’s before Brett Favre fell into their lap and made them good
again. So they’ll be 7-2.
The Vikings
have a tougher road. Ever since a few
weeks ago, I have gotten more nervous about this game. Carr is no slouch; he appears to be the real
deal. Some are discussing him as a sneaky
MVP candidate. The Raiders might be only
4-4, but they look like a much better 4-4 team then the Rams were.
The Vikings
need to make the Raiders a one-dimensional offense like they’ve done with most
of their opponents this season. The
defense will really have to get after Carr or he will carve them up. They have done just fine over the past four
weeks. The question mark, once again, is
the offense. Adrian should get his
yards, but can Teddy deliver in a game where he’ll certainly need to do so?
Oakland’s
defense is not a strength like the Minnesota D.
They just got shredded by Pittsburgh last week. If Teddy can have a big game and take care of
the football, the Vikings should be able to go 5-0 to finish off the “easy”
part of the schedule. They need it,
because everything ramps up after this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment