Dec 8, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins (18) and Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell talk after the game at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images.
The Minnesota Vikings own an 11-2 record after 14 weeks, needing just one more win or Los Angeles Rams’ loss to stamp a ticket toward the postseason.
The Atlanta Falcons arrived in Minneapolis for a December showdown Sunday — and lost 42-21.
Here’s why the win was so damn important for the Vikings. The reasons are ranked in ascending order of importance (No. 1 = most important).
The Vikings didn’t have Christian Darrisaw, Ivan Pace Jr., Stephon Gilmore, Mekhi Blackmon, Patrick Jones II, or J.J. McCarthy on the field versus Atlanta — and it just didn’t matter.
As it did in September, Minnesota won shorthanded, chipping off the Falcons rather handily once it got rolling in the 4th Quarter. “Next man up” wasn’t just a slogan on Sunday.
If a time could be selected for an NFL team to get hot, it’s right now in the thick of December.
The playoffs are one month away, and some teams of NFL past have pressed the “go” button in December and never looked back. It’s unclear if the Vikings will wholly follow suit, but Sunday’s decisive triumph proved that the purple team will at least nibble at joining the club.
This is precisely the moment to hit a groove.
Until Sunday against the Falcons, the last time that Minnesota played dominantly was a Week 4 matchup at Lambeau Field — in the 1st Half.
That’s two and a half months.
Few bellyached about the half-dozen wins since then, but make no mistake, the Vikings hadn’t spanked anyone since the 1st Half of the Packers game on October on September 29th.
The drought is over.
Minnesota scored 42 points versus the Miami Dolphins in 2019, marking the last time any rendition of Vikings had crossed the 40-point mark. Put simply, down the stretch of Mike Zimmer’s tenure, plus the first 2.5 years with Kevin O’Connell in charge, the Vikings didn’t have the juice to run up the score.
That all changed against Kirk Cousins’ team in Week 14.
Listen: the Vikings could’ve lost on Sunday, and the sky would not have fallen. A 10-3 record inside a season when the club was forecasted for six or seven wins by oddsmakers wouldn’t have felt doomsdayist.
Still, defeating Kirk Cousins — in resounding fashion — symbolically punctuated his time in Minnesota. Cousins is gone and is not coming back. His replacement, Sam Darnold, bullied him, diming 5 touchdowns to no interceptions, while Cousins had no touchdowns to 2 interceptions.
In 2024 — Cousins’ first campaign without the Vikings logo on his helmet since 2017 — the veteran passer has 17 touchdowns and 27 interceptions + fumbles. Minnesota needed to clobber Cousins to resolve “the stuff in the basement,” as described in the 2006 film Rocky Balboa, and that happened.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.