Minnesota Vikings at Philadelphia Eagles: Week 7 review and grades

The first loss of the Minnesota Vikings season left a nasty taste in fans mouths. It also gave the media plenty to tear apart. Let’s see what went wrong in week 7.

The Minnesota Vikings came out of the bye week looking like a much different team than the Minnesota Vikings team that fans watched dismantle the Houston Texans in all 3 phases of the game, 2 short weeks earlier. If there is anything that needs to be discussed at next seasons bye week it’s that the Viking are now 1-7 the last 8 seasons coming off the bye. All things considered on the scale this Minnesota Vikings team has set for itself, that’s no excuse.

The Vikings offense and special teams definitely dropped the ball, literally and figuratively against the Eagles. It was a dismal performance. The defense on multiple occasions handed the Minnesota Vikings offense the ball, just to come back out on the field moments later. This game had more ups and downs than a mountain range.

The game itself is actually an oddity in many ways. In a manner of speaking, Minnesota had no business losing this game. The Vikings gained more first downs and more total yards, and actually the one surprising statistic is the team owned time of possession by 5 minutes. The big difference in the game was Sam Bradford was sacked 6 times, and the Minnesota Vikings were not able to gain 2 yards rushing on two consecutive plays, turning the ball over on downs.

Philadelphia tried to give us this game, lady luck and their defense were not about to let it go. Carson Wentz mishandled a couple of snaps, threw a couple picks, but the ball always seemed to, again literally and figuratively bounce back to the Eagles. The uncharacteristic fumble by Marcus Sherels on special teams coupled with the Eagles kick off return touchdown buried the Vikings. It’s hard to believe but the Eagles did to the Minnesota Vikings, exactly what the Minnesota Vikings have done to everybody else.

Let’s see how this game grades out…