The Good Part Is Upcoming for Vikings

Dustin Baker |

Oct 28, 2024

If you’ve intently followed the Minnesota Vikings since the 2024 schedule was released in May, now is when the opponent docket was always due to soften.

The Good Part Is Upcoming for Vikings

The first seven games for Minnesota were never interpreted as easy, instead considered a murderer’s row by most, featuring four to five “non-winnable” games for a Vikings team that was only supposed to win about six or seven games in 2024.

Minnesota exited that gauntlet with a 5-2 record. It’s just that the purple team has lost two straight, and folks’ current opinion of the organization has dampened.

However, the “good part” of the schedule is upcoming. The home games are winnable or quasi-winnable, and the road opponents — sans a Week 18 matchup in Detroit — are navigable.

Here’s how the 2024 opponents stack up per the numbers:

Vikings Opponents,
per EPA/Play,
NFL Ranking,
thru Week 8:

Of course, the Rams loss, in retrospect, doesn’t look ideal by the numbers, but Los Angeles welcomed back two premier playmakers in Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua. Thereafter, Minnesota doesn’t face a team with a Top 10 anything for four weeks — the Bears’ fourth-ranked defense on November 24th.

Head coach Kevin O’Connell addressed his club’s shortcomings after Thursday’s loss at Los Angeles. “We just didn’t sustain enough, and we weren’t on the field enough,” he said.

“I mean 50 plays, again, when it’s a game like this and their offense is making some plays and sustaining drives and kind of eating a lot of clock it can feel like an awfully short game to you as an offense when you’re either scoring or going backwards, either self-inflicted or sacks, so we’ve got to just try to find a way to mitigate that.”

The Vikings will navigate life without left tackle Christian Darrisaw, who tore his ACL and MCL at SoFi Stadium — an utterly brutal blow. Week 8 games have been deadly for Minnesota in back-to-back seasons. Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles last year in Week 8.

On the whole, remember that the lethal section of the 2024 schedule is in the rearview. It’s not “smooth sailing” from here on out, but the hard part is done.

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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.