An examination of the stats — without a peek at the final score — would lead you to surmise there was little chance the Vikings beat the Detroit Lions on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Justin Jefferson, the Vikings’ top wide receiver, caught only three passes for 14 yards on six targets and had a couple of drops. Kirk Cousins threw for 260 yards, completing 24-of-41 attempts, but had only 151 yards passing early in the fourth quarter.
Dalvin Cook rushed for 96 yards but left the game because of a shoulder injury late in the third quarter. Cook also lost the ball on that playing, giving it back to the Lions at their own 42 and leading by 10. Minnesota was only 2-for-9 on third down, and the Vikings gave up 139 yards on the ground, making it the third consecutive game in which Ed Donatell’s defense surrendered more than 100 yards rushing.
The performance earned the Vikings a chorus of boos on more than one occasion from many of the 66,638 in attendance. Somehow, it also earned them a victory that was capped by a late-game drive led by Cousins that started at the Vikings 44-yard line and included a 28-yard pass to K.J. Osborn and then another 28-yard strike to Osborn for what proved to be the winning score with 45 seconds remaining in 28-24 victory.
“I’m so proud of our guys,” said first-year coach Kevin O’Connell, whose team trailed by 14 points in the first half before rallying to tie the score and then trailed by 10 points entering the fourth quarter.
O’Connell will have plenty to pick apart during Monday’s film session, but on Sunday he preached the positives of a victory that came six days after his team laid an egg in a prime-time loss at Philadelphia.
Among the most important things was that on a day in which Cousins’ confidence appeared shaken, he was able to overcome adversity and complete the comeback by hitting Osborn on a perfect pass.
There will be many who point out that Cousins again didn’t play like a guy who is carrying a $31.4 million salary-cap hit. But the fact Cousins orchestrated a winning drive for the second consecutive year against Detroit at U.S. Bank Stadium and didn’t almost end up fighting his head coach has to be considered major progress.
Last season, the Vikings rallied for a 19-17 victory over the Lions on Oct. 10 in a game that ended on a 54-yard field goal by Greg Joseph and featured a very odd interaction between Cousins and former head coach Mike Zimmer. Cousins got in Zimmer’s face after the winning field goal and Zimmer shoved Cousins. It appeared as if the two were going to come to blows. Zimmer and Cousins’ relationship, which was somewhere between hostile and nonexistent, made the potential for fisticuffs seem very possible.
O’Connell was hired to try to get the best out of Cousins. There were many who hoped that Cousins could have the same success under O’Connell that Matthew Stafford experienced under coach Sean McVay and O’Connell, who was the Rams’ offensive coordinator, as Los Angeles won the Super Bowl last season.
But nobody knows exactly what O’Connell’s presence will mean to Cousins, other than the fact that O’Connell actually wanting to work with the veteran quarterback has to be considered progress. What O’Connell managed to get from Cousins and his team on Sunday was an ugly victory in a league that features several ugly wins (and losses) each week.
Style points don’t matter in the NFL, other than making highlight packages. What does matter is hanging around in a game like the Vikings did on Sunday and then pouncing on an opportunity when a team like the Lions does something dumb. That’s exactly what Lions coach Dan Campbell did when he decided to have Austin Seibert attempt a 54-yard field goal with Detroit up three and 1 minute, 14 seconds left. Seibert missed wide right, his second miss of the day, and the Vikings had life.
“I thought Kirk was fantastic on that final drive,” O’Connell said. “Able to execute some things that quite honestly we didn’t necessarily have up on the call sheet but we found a way to go out there, all 11, and execute. And I thought the O-line had a huge final sequence there giving Kirk time to attack there. K.J. (Osborn) obviously showing up huge.”
Would the Vikings have won this game a year ago? It’s hard to say, considering they did rally to beat the Lions at home. But there was little satisfaction that came from the victory and there was even a feeling that Zimmer might have been fired if his team had lost. Sunday was a different story.
O’Connell gave an impassioned postgame speech in the locker room about how resilient his team was as players reacted with cheers and smiles. There will be time for criticism on Monday, but Sunday the Vikings coach wanted to celebrate the fact that he had shown faith in his team, particularly Cousins, and the result was a second home victory.
“I knew that I didn’t want to be in a situation where we kind of dinked and dunked,” O’Connell said. “I wanted to score a touchdown. I wanted to finish this game for our fans, put maximum pressure on those guys, quite honestly how they did the rest of the day with how gritty and tough of a football team that is.
“That’s when you just have to continue working, put your head down. Adversity is only going to be one snap away in this league for you individually, collectively, per side of the ball. You just got to meet the moment, rely on your leadership, trust the guys around you in those huddles to get it done. That’s what I think you saw today.”
The fact you saw it from Cousins, when it mattered most, is exactly why O’Connell is the Vikings’ coach.
