What Should the Vikings’ Expectations Be the Rest of the Season?

Last season, the Minnesota Vikings missed the playoffs with a 7-10 record after making it there in 2022 at 13-4 as division champions.

Had Kirk Cousins not suffered a season ending Achilles injury in their eighth game of the season, they very likely would have made it back to the playoffs. Perhaps as division champions again.

While they lost star pass rusher Danielle Hunter, they also added Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, Shaquill Griffin, and Stephon Gilmore via free agency. They also drafted Dallas Turner in the first round and had Brian Flores returning for year two as defensive coordinator.

Many expected the defense to be even better this year. All was enough for expectations to be higher, right? Not true, actually. Many expected them to miss the playoffs once again due to uncertainty at the quarterback position.

It was time for both Minnesota and Cousins to go their separate ways, but his production certainly was not expected to be easy to replace. Sam Darnold was on three different teams in six seasons. He clearly had not panned out as the third overall pick he was in 2018.

Aaron Jones was signed after being released by the Green Bay Packers. He no doubt has always been better than Alexander Mattison, but once again quarterback was the main hurdle. T.J. Hockenson also was expected to miss time and has still not made his season debut.

Even some of the biggest and most optimistic fans of the team did not expect a playoff berth or even a winning record.

Fast forward to this season. Minnesota is off to a surprising 5-1 start. The question now is: what should we expect the rest of the season?

The loss this past Sunday at home to the Detroit Lions was a tough one. Yes, Detroit is very good so therefore there is no shame in losing to them, but had they won they would have had a lead over them right now in the division and would have had the current head-to-head tiebreaker.

Those two teams will face each other again in Detroit in the regular season finale. Minnesota will very possibly need to win that game to win the division, or maybe Detroit will have a two-game lead and will not need to even play their starters.

At the moment, the expectation should be that Detroit will once again win the division and Minnesota will be the wild card. Could Minnesota still win the North? They certainly have a shot, but their chances would have been that much better had they won on Sunday (they nearly did).

While losing Aidan Hutchinson is a massive blow for Detroit, they are still a very good team and should be considered the NFC North favorites at the moment.

Minnesota has a very bright future. They are loaded with young talent and will have $76 million in cap space next season. Making the playoffs as a wild card team and perhaps even advancing would make this a good season given they missed the playoffs last season and were not expected by many to make it this year.

Of course, the further they go the better. A win last Sunday would have definitely raised the expectations even more and energized the fanbase even more.

Still another 11 games to go, though, and there is the trade deadline. Maybe Kwesi Adofo-Mensah gets a good a defensive tackle, which would be very huge for this club.

The most difficult part of the schedule is now done for them. They have a favorable schedule the rest of the way. Finishing with a 13-4 record is certainly possible if they can mostly stay healthy. Whether that record would be enough to win the division or not though is another question.

Winning 10 or more games did not seem like a possibility at all before the start of the season. Even nine wins would have kind of been pushing it.

Regardless of whether this team wins the Super Bowl or loses in the first round of the playoffs, fans should be excited about the direction of this team. This season has been an added bonus so far.