Written By Tom Schreier
If you would have told most Vikings fans at the beginning of the season that Minnesota would enter Week 6 at 2-3, most people would have said, Yeah, that sounds about right. After all, the team got the toughest part of their schedule right off the bat. The St. Louis Rams were a nice warm-up, but the New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons and Green Bay Packers were no joke — and the results proved as such.
“We are only 2-3, not 0-5,” said an exasperated Mike Zimmer after seeing his team get throttled by the Packers 42-10 in front of a national audience last Thursday. “It feels like it today, but trust me, the sun will come up again.”
Before losing to the Packers, the Vikings beat up on Atlanta’s poor defense, showcasing how powerful their offense can be with Teddy Bridgewater at the helm and Jarius Wright and Jerick McKinnon operating at full force in offensive coordinator Norv Turner’s complex, creative offense. “Basically our whole offense was clicking,” said McKinnon of the Atlanta game. “Fortunately my number got called on some plays where I could make something happen, and really it was just the whole offense working together.”
But the Patriots, Saints and Packers are the class of the NFL and decidedly showed that the Vikings are in a tier below them this season. Sure, New England capitalized on Minnesota’s mistakes, New Orleans got the benefit of a premature quarterback change — the Vikings probably wanted to give Bridgewater more time to learn on the sidelines — and Green Bay got Ponder when Bridgewater couldn’t recover in a short week, but even at full strength it’s hard to consider the Vikings contenders. All three of those teams could win the Super Bowl this year — unless, of course, the Patriots completely collapse, which seems unlikely at this point — and Minnesota isn’t quite there yet.
The Vikings get a bit of a breather, however, in the next four matchups before the Week 10 bye: home against Detroit, on the road at Buffalo and Tampa Bay, then home again versus Washington.
The Detroit Lions may have improved over time, but they have historically been undisciplined and have two stars — Calvin Johnson and Reggie Bush — who could miss the game or be hampered due to injury. “I think a lot of it has to do with their front four,” said wide receiver Greg Jennings when asked about Detroit’s success this year. “They create a lot of issues up front, they get a lot of pressure on the quarterback, they make the quarterback hurry and rush throws because of the pressure that they know that they’re going to be under, so I think that takes a lot of stress off of their secondary.”
The Buffalo Bills are coming off a win in Detroit and are surprisingly leading the AFC East at 3-2, but picked up one of those wins over the lowly Miami Dolphins and are led by the one and only Kyle Orton due to the struggles of rookie quarterback EJ Manuel. And the team’s Week 8 and 9 opponents, Tampa Bay and Washington, only have one win apiece this year.
Suddenly this matchup against Detroit becomes a watershed moment for the team. The Lions are beatable, for sure, but not the pushover they were in the past. They have a formidable front four, and Matt Stafford, whatever you think of him, is a serviceable NFL quarterback at the very least. “I think his numbers speak for themselves,” said defensive end Brian Robison in praise of Stafford, who has thrown for 1,407 yards and has a quarterback rating of 89.3 through five weeks. “Honestly, you can call it the offense, you can call it Megatron — you can call it what you want — but the bottom line is he has numbers. And numbers don’t always tell the whole story, but for that offense he’s been the quarterback that they need.”
Things don’t get any easier after the bye week, as Minnesota will play the Bears in Chicago, and then get the Packers at home, followed by a matchup with Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. Then they get the Jets, who have become what the Lions used to be. At 2-3, the Vikings are right in the thick of the division race. “It’s just a very tough fought division,” said Jennings, who played seven years in Green Bay before joining the Vikings in 2013. “Records never really matter, and I think that that’s safe to say across the league. Any time you’re playing a division opponent, it doesn’t matter if a team is 0-fer or a team is undefeated; anything can happen within a division rivalry.”
Records will matter in the big picture, however, if the team cannot capitalize on the next four games, and the Detroit contest specifically. After all, if the Vikings slip up now and enter the bye with the sub-.500 record, the Bears and Packers are capable of putting this team out of its misery after the bye week.
“It’s a division game, it’s an important game, but it’s still just one win, and that’s the way we have to approach it,” said Robison of Sunday’s game against the Lions. “You can’t have one game weigh more than other games, they all weigh the same and you have to treat them the same.” Fair enough, but these next four games seem awfully important right now if the Vikings want to compete for a playoff spot at the end of the year.
Tom Schreier can be heard on The Michael Knight Show from 2-3:00 on weekdays. He has written for Bleacher Report and the Yahoo Contributor Network. Follow him on Twitter @tschreier3.