On the Vikings Menu? The Most Dominant QB They’ve Ever Faced.
Dustin Baker
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Rolling out of a bed of misery on Monday from the Minnesota Vikings loss on Sunday – it has to get better, right?
No, not necessarily.
There is, however, solace in the fact Minnesota will play three games consecutively at U.S. Bank Stadium. When fans are present at the venue, the Vikings are the NFL’s second-best home team since the glass edifice opened. Minnesota was 24-9 (including playoffs) from 2016 to 2019 at home, trailing only the New England Patriots in the fans-present homefield advantage metric. The Vikings will play three games at home before heading to North Carolina for a date with the 2-0 Panthers in Week 6.
And the current task at hand gets no easier. The Vikings will indeed have home cooking upcoming, but the first traveler to U.S. Bank Stadium in 2021 is Russell Wilson and his Seattle Seahawks.
The Vikings are “due” to topple Seattle, playing three games in Seattle over the last three years – 2018, 2019, 2020. This is the reason you hear “why do we always play at Seattle?” questions when the schedule releases each April. The Vikings have not squared off against the Seahawks at home since the 2015 playoffs when Blair Walsh decided the team need not advance to the Divisional Round of the postseason.
Usually, a good quarterback like Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, or Deshaun Watson would inspire the regular fear on a Sunday. Those players are so dynamic gameplans must be in tip-top shape out of the gate.
But Wilson is a different animal.
As the quarterback of the Seahawks, Russell Wilson’s Seahawks have never lost to the Vikings. They’re 7-0. Minnesota gets close annually to finally thwarting the pacific birds, to no avail.
Therefore, facing the barrel of an 0-3 start to this season – which is next to impossible for a team with Super Bowl hopes to overcome – the Vikings face the quarterback who has unprecedented success against them. Only Tom Brady’s dominance over the Vikings approaches Wilson’s impeccable feat.
Here’s the gang of undefeateds:
QBs Never to Lose vs. the Vikings:
(min. 3 starts)● Russell Wilson (7-0)
● Tom Brady (6-0)
● Ken Stabler (5-0)
● Peyton Manning (4-0)
● Jay Schroeder (4-0)
● Phil Simms (4-0)
● Don Meredith (3-0)— Dustin Baker (@DustBaker) July 10, 2021
And Wilson still has roughly ten years to go in his career. To date, he’s had no problem conquering the Vikings. The only saving grace following Minnesota’s slap-in-the-face loss to the Arizona Carindals in Week 2? The game isn’t in Seattle, a notorious house of kooky horrors for the Vikings since Wilson took over the franchise.
What’s more, Seattle just got upended by the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. Wilson and friends led by a score of 30-16 with 13 minutes left in the game. Much like the Vikings – but to a more reasonable degree – the Seahawks choked away certain victory to Tennessee. So, they will be pissed and borderline desperate to keep pace with a ghastly good NFC West set of division mates.
If the Vikings want to wholly turn around a lousy, depressing start to 2021, this is a just spot for it. Vanquish the quarterback whose team found a way to beat you seven times in a row. A win by the Vikings would end two streaks – the weird string of 2021 heartbreaks to the Bengals and Cardinals and the Wilson supremacy.
The game will be close; that’s a prerequisite for Vikings football in 2021. And, the Seahawks are one-point favorites over Minnesota per oddsmakers. You probably didn’t unfasten your seatbelt, so keep that thing on. You’ll need it on Sunday. Again.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sally from Minneapolis. His Viking fandom dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).