One week ago, Vikings fans threw on their jerseys with plenty of hope. They were coming off a 13-win season. They were playing Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Brian Flores was here to save the defense and the Vikings were expected to contend for a division title.
One week later, those hopes and dreams are on life support.
The Vikings are 0-2 which means they are now part of that statistic that tells you that teams that lose their first two games are basically eliminated from the playoffs. Trade rumors involving Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter have begun to swirl and Justin Jefferson’s contract situation is a time bomb waiting to go off.
With a schedule that features the Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers in the next five weeks, it seems like the Vikings are destined to get off to a 2-4 start or possibly worse. But just before you fire up YouTube to look at the 2024 quarterback class, there are still reasons to be optimistic about the Vikings this season.
1. Kirk Cousins is playing out of his mind
The ballad of Cousins is a tired one in Minnesota. He puts up big stats, performs epic comebacks and somehow never wins the big one. It has sports commentators furious and makes him the most polarizing figure since prime John Cena. (Wrestling fans know what I’m talking about here.)
But even if you’re of the belief that Cousins puts up empty stats, he’s off to a scalding hot start. In the first two games, Cousins has thrown for 708 yards and six touchdowns while completing over 72 percent of his passes. Even if his interception targeting K.J. Osborn in Week 1 was questionable and he’s lost three fumbles, Cousins is executing the offense and putting the Vikings targets in a position to succeed.
Cousins probably isn’t going to lead eight fourth-quarter comebacks this season but he’s playing as well as you can ask for. With Cousins playing for a new contract, it’s unlikely that he’ll be slowing down any time soon.
2. Danielle Hunter is being deployed correctly
One of the most maddening aspects of the Vikings’ defense last year was the usage of Danielle Hunter. Ed Donatell’s zone-heavy scheme dropped Hunter into coverage on 5.3 percent of his snaps compared to 0.8 percent in 2021 and while Flores has him dropping back on a 4.9 percent clip, he’s seeing more success than he did one year ago.
Hunter has four sacks through the first two games in Flores’s defense and his nine pressures were second in the NFL behind Josh Sweat entering Sunday’s games. While the Vikings’ pass rush has struggled overall, you could argue that Hunter could be even better when Marcus Davenport returns from an ankle injury.
Such a scenario could help the Vikings in multiple ways. If Hunter plays well, he could help the defense help maintain its pace through the first two games and help them rebound from an 0-2 start. If the Vikings continue to lose, Hunter becomes a valuable trade chip that can help them stock up for the 2024 draft.
Either way, the Vikings win and could parlay Hunter’s success into big dividends.
3. Jordan Addison looks like a star
Addison had an auspicious offseason including an undisclosed injury during minicamp and a speeding ticket for driving 140 mph on I-94 but he has flashed the form that made him one of the top wide receivers in the country at Pittsburgh and USC.
Through two games, Addison has seven catches for 133 yards and two touchdowns and appears to be the deep threat that the Vikings didn’t have with Adam Thielen over the past two seasons.
With Justin Jefferson dominating opposing secondaries, it’s only a matter of time before Addison sees more opportunities and could make an even bigger impact in weeks to come.
4. The Vikings should stop turning the ball over
While the offensive line deserves plenty of blame for its struggles the biggest theme with the Vikings has been turnovers.
The Vikings have seven turnovers through the first two games including six fumbles. While some of the fumbles could be prevented, some of them are flukes such as Ed Ingram’s strip-sack of Cousins in a Week 1 loss against the Buccaneers.
Still, the Vikings need to stop putting the ball on the turf and that should happen in the coming weeks.
5. This team is better than the 2008 Vikings
The last time the Vikings started 0-2 and made the playoffs was in 2008. That year, the Vikings benched Tarvaris Jackson for Gus Frerrotte and rode a solid defense and Adrian Peterson to a Wild Card berth.
That team lost at the Metrodome to the Philadelphia Eagles, but an argument could be made that this version of the Vikings could be better than the one that dug themselves out of an 0-2 start.
Cousins is a better quarterback than Jackson and Frerrotte, and Jefferson is a transcendent talent similar to Peterson. The defense is worse than it was 15 years ago but it has been just as serviceable as the offense was on that 2008 team. and with the possibility of some young players stepping up, this year’s ceiling could be higher.
Then again, this could also be a flashback to 2013 when the Vikings went 5-10-1 one year after making the playoffs with a young roster in 2012. But we’re trying to be optimistic here and there are enough reasons to believe that an 0-2 start won’t define what the Vikings will be this season.
