If You Want to Wager on the 2022 Vikings, Now Is the Time.

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The Minnesota Vikings had a golden opportunity with a new general manager and head coach to choose a rebuilding path after two consecutive seasons of mediocrity in 2020 and 2021. They did not.

Instead, the Vikings, now led by Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell, decided to renew all-in stakes for a seventh straight season. After Minnesota realized in 2015 it had a good roster, each season thereafter brought playoff-contending aspirations.

The problem leading up to the 2022 NFL Draft and a week or two after was that nobody else really agreed. As of May 20th, Minnesota has +4000 odds to win the Super Bowl in 2022, a rather slim chance for a team that claims it’s “in it to win it.”

Recently, though, NFL experts have started to glance at the Vikings as a team to monitor this autumn. Former Detroit Lions quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky is sold on Minnesota as a playoff team.

ESPN’s Football Power Ranking Index decided this week that the Vikings were the league’s 13th-best team. NFL.com analyst and Green Bay Packers enthusiast Cynthia Frelund ranked the Vikings offense as a Top 10 unit. And ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, who covers the Vikings, predicted Minnesota would reach the 2022 playoffs.

These are all nuggets of enthusiasm that were nonexistent before the draft. The world is coming around.

Therefore, there’s a reasonable chance that the hype continues into the summer as NFL brains realize the Vikings actually have a formidable roster.

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Of course, the Vikings have not won a Super Bowl in 61 years of existence, so don’t pretend this article is a proclamation or prediction as such. But a February triumph has to occur at some point, right?

A first-year head coach hasn’t won a Super Bowl during his maiden voyage since 1989 — 33 years ago. That was George Seifert, and he was gift-wrapped a dynastic San Francisco 49ers team. Jim Caldwell led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl appearance in Year One but fell short to the scandalous 2009 New Orleans Saints.

For now, the Vikings hold approximately the same odds to win at all as the New England Patriots.

Overall, the +4000 Super Bowl moneyline is quite steep for a person believing in the potential of the 2022 Vikings.


Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. 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).

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