The final minutes of Vikings-Saints were a frantic parade of absurdity

Through the first half of Sunday’s Wild Card Round matchup between the Vikings and Saints, it was a close game featuring two teams playing good defense. As time began to run out, though, things went off the rails in a big way.

What had been a defensive battle changed when the versatile Taysom Hill was unleashed and started gashing the Vikings for big gains in the fourth quarter. But even when Hill nearly turned the game on his own, the Saints committed some very un-Saints-like turnovers.

In a weekend of playoff games that have been very tightly contested already, Saints-Vikings went down to the wire. Here’s a breakdown of the crazy things that happened leading up to and into the Vikings’ 26-20 win in overtime.

With under five minutes to go and the Saints trailing 2017, they picked up three consecutive first downs on runs or passes to Hill. But while we were just getting started talking about “The Taysom Hill Game,” Vikings defensive lineman Danielle Hunter stepped up.

After picking up a pair of first downs on the back of Hill rushes, Brees was sacked by Hunter, who also forced the fumble. Hunter stripped the ball, which was recovered by teammate Jalyn Holmes, just before Brees’ hand moved forward to throw it. That gave the Vikings the ball at their own 37-yard-line with four minutes on the clock.

The Saints didn’t have a two-turnover game all season — in fact, they set a record for fewest turnovers in a season with only eight. That was their second turnover of the game.

2. The Saints thought they scored the go-ahead TD on a fumble-six (3:27 left in the fourth quarter)

The Saints’ fumble launched a Vikings drive that was starting to pick up steam at midfield. Then A.J. Klein forced a fumble on Dalvin Cook with just under 3:30 to go. Safety Vonn Bell picked it up, taking it all the way back for a touchdown — while doing Stefon Diggs’ celebration in the process!

But a review later showed that Cook’s knee was down, and Minnesota punted to New Orleans just past the two-minute warning.

3. The Saints’ final drive almost ended in disaster, until a FG sent it to OT (:07 left in the fourth quarter)

What followed was Brees doing what he does best: quickly moving down the field with an almost maddening calmness. But it wasn’t all perfect. Despite having a timeout, Sean Payton neglected to use it.

That came back to bite him when the Saints were called for a false start while lining up at the 26-yard line to spike the ball to stop the clock with 21 seconds left. That triggered a 10-second runoff, which left 11 seconds on the clock from inside Minnesota territory.

Using the timeout, the Saints easily could have had time to run 2-3 more plays. Instead, they threw a quick incompletion before Will Lutz lined up for a field goal. Lutz, who had missed a 43-yarder right before halftime, connected on the 49-yard try with seven seconds left in regulation.

Before overtime, the Vikings won the coin toss and elected to receive, which means a touchdown was all they needed to win the game. But the Vikings hadn’t scored until late in the third quarter when Dalvin Cook rushed for his second touchdown. After they took a 20-10 lead in the game, they ran a total of 15 plays for just 13 yards before the overtime period. The momentum was clearly in the Saints’ favor.

Then the Vikings remembered how to move the ball, converting an early third-and-1 with a 10-yard pass to Stefon Diggs, who had mostly been quiet for the rest of the game with just one catch for 9 yards before that.

Cook had accounted for the other 9 yards on that set of downs, and had an 11-yard carry shortly after Diggs’ first down.

But it was a huge play to Adam Thielen that really blew things open.

On play action, Cousins went deep to Thielen, who caught it between two defenders for a whopping 43 yards, to the New Orleans 2-yard line. New Orleans’ top cornerback, Marshon Lattimore, hit his head hard on the previous play and had to leave the field. He had spent the majority of the game covering Thielen.

Carries by Cook went for a yard and then a loss of three to set Minnesota up with a third-and-goal from the 4-yard line. But on third down, the Vikings won the game ... on a goal-line fade? Yes, the often-joked-about goal-line fade, which has failed to bring success to so many teams, was executed perfectly by Cousins to tight end Kyle Rudolph.

And that was it. A touchdown on the first possession of overtime, after a whirlwind final quarter, without Brees getting a chance to win it after regulation. The ending definitely had shades of the Minneapolis Miracle, the 61-yard touchdown reception by Diggs on the final play of the Saints-Vikings playoff game in 2018, and their overtime loss to the Rams in the NFC Championship last year.

The Saints have had some really rough playoff losses in recent years, and this just adds to that. The Vikings are on to the Divisional Round, where they’ll face the 49ers next Saturday.