It was another heartbreaking one-possession loss for the Minnesota Vikings, as they fell to the Kansas City Chiefs 27-20.
Whether you want to blame the first-quarter fumble that turned into a Chiefs touchdown, the slew of injuries the Vikings suffered, or the poor situational awareness the team showed at times, there’s plenty of blame to go around.
Buy Vikings TicketsBut, at the end of the day, the blame game gets you nowhere. The Vikings sit at 1-4 on the season, and are now facing the grim reality that the season is likely over, for all intents and purposes, slightly more than one quarter of the way through.
Now, the front office is left in the unenviable position of figuring out what the best way to rebound from this season is. It would seem foolish for the team to be a buyer at the NFL trade deadline. Kirk Cousins time in purple is almost assuredly coming to a close, and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah needs to figure out what “life after Kirk” looks like in Minneapolis — and how they are going to navigate getting to that point. Right now the team has a top 5 selection in the 2024 NFL draft, and the 2024 class at the position looks strong.
But all of that discussion is for the future. As for the now, there weren’t a whole lot of positives from yesterday’s loss. Let’s dive into the Good, bad and ugly.
The Good: Marcus Davenport
Prior to last week, there was a lot of unease — even angst — amongst the Vikings fan base regarding the signing of free-agent edge rusher Marcus Davenport. While Davenport came over from the Saints with a lot of buzz, he had yet to get on the field, leading some to wonder if the signing was worth it, and if it would ever pay any dividends at all.
Davenport put those fears to bed with a big game against the Panthers, and he followed it up with another strong outing yesterday against the Chiefs.
While the stat sheet doesn’t blow you away, that only tells part of the story. The pressure that Davenport was able to create on Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes kept the Vikings close throughout the game. At the end of the day, Davenport was able to come away with one sack and three hits on the All-World quarterback.
Additionally, the pressure Davenport is able to produce, and the effect that has on how teams had adjusted to it, has opened the door for guys like Danielle Hunter, who was also able to notch a sack, a tackle for loss, and a QB hit.
The Vikings needed a solid performance from the defense if they were going to have any shot against Kansas City, and Davenport certainly held up his end of the bargain.
The Good: Kirk Cousins
Look bad in a win, look good in a loss. Such is the plight of Kirk Cousins this season. Cousins and the Vikings passing attack has looked good all season, save for last week against the Carolina Panthers. Cousins had his worst game of the season last week, and was, for the most part, let down by the cast of weapons around him. Yet the Vikings came away from that game with a win.
In the three games prior, Cousins was flinging the ball up and down the field, making great use of guys like T.J. Hockenson and Jordan Addison when Justin Jefferson wasn’t blowing the doors off everyone. Yet the Vikings lost each of those games, thanks in large part to costly turnovers.
That trend continued this week, for the most part. While the turnovers were minimized outside of the first play of the game, the passing attack was mostly back to its prolific self. Cousins spread the ball around, getting Addison, Hockenson, K.J. Osborn, and even Brandon Powell involved.
Cousins threw for nearly 300 yards and had two touchdowns, as the team looked much more like the team of the first three weeks than the team that faced the Panthers.
Unfortunately, the outcome was the same as the first three weeks — a potent passing attack, with only a loss to show for it.
The Bad: Kevin O'Connell
One of the big storylines of this game is going to be the L’Jarius Sneed play. And rightly so. It sure looked like there was a strong case to be made for a defensive pass interference call on that play, and Sneed undoubtedly took his helmet off — an action that is supposed to draw a flag.
However, as egregious as those calls — or non-calls — were, they don’t have near the impact on the outcome of the game as some of the blunders from Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell. There’s rarely a game where one person or play is to blame for the loss, but O’Connell bears as much, if not more, of the blame than any player or play for his mismanagement of this game in the second half.
It started with the highly questionable decision to challenge a pretty clear catch in hopes that the crew would see something no one else did and award the Vikings with a takeaway, as the came away from the play with the ball. That decision left the Vikings with only one timeout in what was sure to be a close game down the stretch.
O’Connell then compounded the issue by burning his final timeout with 10 minutes left in the game, rather than taking a penalty that, in the grand scheme, would not have cost the Vikings much.
It culminated with some questionable play-calling on the Vikings’ final drive that didn’t give Cousins and the offense much of a chance to mount a comeback. You can question Cousins’ decision-making on the final drive and make the argument that he chose the wrong targets. Given the earlier mistakes from O’Connell, I’m willing to lay the blame on the plays called, and thus the play caller himself in this instance.
The Ugly: Injuries
Injuries are a fact of life in the NFL. Every team has to deal with them at one point or another, and it’s largely a cop-out to blame injuries for a loss. Injuries weren’t the reason the Vikings lost today, but they certainly didn’t help matters.
It seemed like every quarter the Vikings were losing someone pivotal. Garrett Bradbury had to leave the game early in the third quarter with an aggravation of the back injury that caused him to miss the Vikings’ previous two games. Luckily, he was able to return to the action and should hopefully be in the clear for next week.
The same may not be able to be said about star wide receiver Justin Jefferson. Jefferson left the game late with a hamstring injury. He was visibly bothered by the hamstring as he was coming off the field, and O’Connell did not sound optimistic in interviews immediately following the game.
The official word on Jefferson is that it’s a hamstring injury and “too early” to tell his availability for next week. Losing Jefferson for any amount of time is sure to sink an already sinking ship, but we’ll know more about his injury status as the week progresses.
Then there’s the injury to Vikings cornerback Akayleb Evans. Evans was initially hurt in the first quarter of the game, going down with a leg injury that required training staff to come out and evaluate. Evans wasn’t off the field for long, though, as he returned to action just a few plays later. Whether that was a good decision or not is likely to be the subject of debate this week, as Evans would later leave the game after injuring the same leg again.
As of now, there has been no further update on Evans’ injury or his status for next week.
