The Vikings are who we thought they were

The Minnesota Vikings entered the playoffs as the No. 3 seed in the NFC, and — at 13-4 — as owners of the third-best record in football. And yet, they received about the same amount of hype as you would expect a Kirk Cousins-led team to receive.

It is not hard to see why there was more talk about the Vikings being fraudulent than there was about them being a legitimate Super Bowl favorite. They entered the tournament with a negative scoring differential on the year (-3), while ranking in the middle of the pack in expected points added on both offense (16th) and defense (16th).

A deep run for the Vikings seemed improbable, and almost everybody outside of the Land of 10,000 Lakes was in agreement on that. Turns out, that perspective was the correct one: the Vikings lost their playoff opener to the New York Giants with a final score of 31-24.

So, in the words of legendary Vikings (and at that point Cardinals) head coach Dennis Green:

THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!

The Vikings earned their 13 regular season wins by playing some of the most opportunistic football in recent memory.

You probably remember them overcoming a 33-0 halftime deficit against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 15 to complete the greatest comeback in league history. That game ended three points in Minnesota’s favor and was therefore one of 11 one-score victories the team celebrated this season.

Going 11-0 in such games was unheard of. It also was not sustainable; something the Vikings found out in the first round of the playoffs.

Hosting the 9-7-1 Giants at US Bank Stadium, the Vikings were in another tightly contested game. They trailed by 10 points in both the second and third quarters, but managed to come back to tie the game at 24 in the fourth. They did fall behind 31-24 a short time later, but with 7:47 left on the clock had plenty of time to do what they did in every close game this season: find a way to win.

This time, however, Minnesota ran out of luck.

The Vikings responded to the Giants’ fourth-quarter TD by going three-and-out. Their defense then allowed New York to drain more than three minutes off the game clock, and it sure looked like, yes, this would be the day their improbable streak came to an end.

But being the 2022 Minnesota Vikings, they were handed some unexpected chances again. First, Giants wide receiver Darius Slayton dropped an easy third-down pass that had the potential to ice the game in his team’s favor. After they received the ensuing punt, the Vikings benefitted from a highly questionable roughing the passer call.

But instead of the ol’ “Ah s--t, here we go again!” the Vikings received a dose of reality: that their record was propped up on beating the odds time and again. Eventually, the odds slapped back in the most disappointing of moments.

Minnesota drove up to its own 48-yard line but back-to-back plays within the two-minute warning sealed its fate. The first was Cousins throwing behind K.J. Osborn on a third-and-8. The second was this:

“You think you have a chance on that third-and-8 call. You think you have a chance, and unfortunately we just didn’t end up coming down with that one, for whatever reason,” said Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell after the game.

“Then, on that fourth down, just trying to get some eligibles vertical and the ball ended up going underneath like we had done multiple times — T.J. underneath the coverage for catch-conversions — they just were able to make a play. But the intent was to continue having a chance to win the football game with pushing the ball down the field.”

On that fourth down, the ball ended up being pushed a mere three yards down the field. That was not enough to convert on fourth-and-8, ending the Vikings’ game, season, and winning streak in one-score games.

That streak was what got them to that point in the first place. In the end, however, their own mediocrity finally got the better of them.