London has been nice to the Vikings who are now 3-0 when playing there. Minnesota came back and held on to beat the New Orlean Saints 28-25 in a thrilling game. The Vikings got up early, leading 13-7 at the half but the Saints rallied back, taking a 22-16 lead in the fourth quarter. Minnesota drove down and scored a touchdown before the Saints and Vikings exchanged field goals. The Vikings went up 28-25 with 24 seconds and Saints got within field goal range before missing a 61-yarder on a double doink. The Vikings are now 3-1 with their only loss to the Eagles who are 4-0. This is the best start to a season the Vikings have had since 2016 when they started 5-0 (and then ended up going 8-8). With that let’s take a look at my takeaways from the Vikings week 4 win over the Saints.
Points Off Of Turnovers
The Vikings forced two turnovers today, both fumbles. The first came at the end of the second quarter after Minnesota kicked a field goal to go up 13-7. The Saints got the ball back and on their first play Andy Dalton was sacked and fumbled the ball. Minnesota proceeded to kick a field goal to go up 13-7 at halftime. The second came when the Vikings punted on their first possession. New Orleans fumbled the punt and the Vikings recovered at the Saints 44-yard line. The Vikings then drove 38 yards and kicked a field goal going up 16-7. Minnesota got six points off of their two turnovers today, a great way to take advantage of your opponent’s mistakes.
While it would have been nice to see them get ten-to-14 points, I was happy to see them just get points, taking advantage of the Saints miscues. They will likely need to get touchdowns when they get turnovers as their opponents aren’t going to have as bad of an offense as the Saints do. On the other side they did allow the Saints to score a touchdown off of a Kirk Cousins interception. This is an issue that they’ll need to fix. You can’t let teams put together a 12 play, 60-yard drive ending in a touchdown when you give them the ball.
The Offensive Line Protection Is A Concern…Again
The Vikings offensive line struggled a bit today. They allowed Cousins to get pressured, forcing him to make bad throws, even getting an intentional grounding penalty. Kirk Cousins was sacked three times for a total loss of 23-yards. Two of the sacks were on third down. The offensive line has had problems in past years, and it was looking like improvements were being made to fix that. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case as Kirk Cousins has faced decent pressure this season. While there are players like rookie Ed Ingram who are adjusting to playing in the NFL, there are other veteran players who have been around a few years. Minnesota needs to figure out how to give Kirk a cleaner pocket to make the offense even more efficient.
Defensive Inconsistency Is Still A Problem
The defense has had troubles with inconsistency and it showed again today. Going into the game the Vikings had only allowed 17-points in the third quarter and shut out everyone in the fourth. Today, they gave up 18 points (seven in the third and 11 in the fourth). This ended the Vikings scoreless fourth quarter run this season. In the first half the Vikings were dominant holding the Saints to just seven points. This is the inconsistency I’m talking about. Three games they struggled in the first half and were lights out in the second. Today the exact opposite. The defense seems like they can put together a great half, but not an entire game. Hopefully next week they can get closer to playing a full game when they host Chicago.
But The Offensive Looks To Have Figured It Out
On the offensive side, the Vikings are playing a lot better. They scored in all four quarters and only had three possessions where they didn’t score points (two punts and interception) out of their 11 total possessions. The Vikings had 344 yards of total offense with 263 passing and 81 rushing. While a better-balanced attack is needed they got the job done today and the passing game looked pretty good. They did have some drops (which they need to fix) and Cousins had some inaccurate throws that his receivers needed to adjust too, but those are small issues in the big scheme of consistency. If Minnesota can keep up this level of production on offense, they could finally start to look like the one I thought they could be at the start of the year. One that is a pick your poison and one that is hard to stop.
A Look At Next Week
The Vikings head back to Minnesota to get ready to play the Chicago Bears (2-2) next week. Chicago lost to the New York Giants (3-1) this afternoon 20-12. The Vikings will look to get to 4-1 with a 3-0 record in divisional play next week.
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