Following their disappointing 17-3 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings have fallen in nearly all the NFL power rankings once again. They’re near the bottom of the league’s 32 teams in several rankings that came out after the past weekend’s games.
Despite the return of rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, the Vikings offense continued to sputter. Bridgewater was sacked eight times by the top-ranked Lions defense and Bridgewater threw three interceptions.
They also struggled to get either of their receivers involved much, Cordarrelle Patterson caught just a pair of passes and Greg Jennings caught just three.
Vikings coach Mike Zimmer was so frustrated he vented in a postgame press conference that the team needs to be more disciplined, before backing away from those comments on Monday.
One theme that showed up in many of these rankings is the continued struggles of the Vikings offensive line.
While much of the focus has gone to how the team hasn’t protected the quarterback, ESPN’s Ben Goessling points out the Vikings running game has been just as inconsistent. Goessling notes that Jerick McKinnon and Matt Asiata gained just 35 yards on 13 carries last week.
Here is the roundup:
NFL.com bucked the trend, actually moving the Vikings up to 25th from 26th, last week.
“What an ugly, ugly home loss for the Vikings, who only move up because they’ve beaten St. Louis (and the Rams stunk on Monday night). Minnesota’s offensive line was clearly overmatched against Detroit, and definitely misses Brandon Fusco. The unit misses a lot of blocks, too. Teddy Bridgewater was sacked eight times. He was knocked down another 485 times.”
FOX Sports dropped the Vikings a couple of spots from last week, slotting Minnesota in at number 23 on their list.
“Despite the return of Teddy Bridgewater, the Vikings offense continued to struggle. After several years of success along the offensive line, things have taken a turn for the worse in 2014 and this game was a prime example of that – Bridgewater was sacked seven times and pressured on over half his drop backs.”
Pete Prisco of CBS Sports has the Vikings 25th, while his colleague Pat Kirwan has them 26th. Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner has Minnesota 24th.
ESPN again comes in on the low end, ranking the Vikings 27th.
“Teddy Bridgewater was sacked eight times, the second most in a game this season (Chad Henne 10 in Week 2). Buffalo’s pass rush (sixth in sack percentage) won’t be easier.”
A sign of things to come on Sunday against Buffalo?
