Vikings Have a Rare Opportunity on Monday
Generally speaking, the Minnesota Vikings are not proficient on Monday Night Football.
Vikings Have a Rare Opportunity on Monday
In the Super Bowl era (since 1966), Minnesota is 31-36 (.463) in Monday night games, the 13th-worst win percentage in such games in the last 57 years. In all football games, the Vikings have a .560 win rate since 1966, the fourth-best in the NFL.
On Mondays, Minnesota drops from the fourth-best team in modern history to the 13th-worst. Plain and simple.
And as of late, NFL schedule makers don’t even bother allowing the purple team to host Monday Night Football games at U.S. Bank Stadium. In fact, the Vikings haven’t played a MNF game at their house since 2019.
As of October 19th, these six teams haven’t played a Monday Night Football game at home since the start of 2020:
- Atlanta Falcons
- Detroit Lions
- Houston Texans
- Jacksonville Jaguars
- Miami Dolphins
- Minnesota Vikings
For some reason, the NFL enjoys slating Vikings primetime home games for Sunday and Thursday nights — not on Mondays. But that changes this week, as Minnesota will host the mighty San Francisco 49ers, a club that lost last weekend courtesy of a missed would-be game-winning field goal off the foot of rookie kicker Jake Moody. San Francisco is 5-1 through six weeks and considered by most as the best team in the NFL.
Meanwhile, home or away aside, the Vikings haven’t beaten a non-Bears opponent on Monday Night Football since Week 1 of 2017. The club is on a MNF losing streak against teams not named the Bears:
- 2023: MNF Loss | at Eagles, 24-7
- 2019: MNF Loss | vs. Packers, 23-10
- 2019: MNF Loss | at Seahawks, 37-30
- 2018: MNF Loss | at Seahawks, 21-7
Via overall Monday night performance, fans can think of it this way — the Vikings are pretty good with home cooking on MNF and terrible in road games:
Vikings,
on Monday Night Football,
Super Bowl Era:
Home: 17-10 (.630) | 10th-best
Road: 14-26 (.350) | 12th-worst
Four days before this week’s Monday night showdown, the Vikings are a seven-point underdog, the largest underwater status for a Vikings home game since 2014. If the point spread stays higher than 5.5 points, which is likely, it will be the Vikings most daunting home test in ten seasons.
Minnesota has around a 25% chance of reaching the postseason after Week 6, and with a win over the 49ers, the probability climbs to nearly 45%.
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 Sal Spice. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band).
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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