Minnesota Vikings need to keep their focus on the Cardinals

After a very tough first five weeks of the 2018 season, the Minnesota Vikings get the 1-4 Arizona Cardinals at home at US Bank Stadium this Sunday. Is there any way they could beat a Vikings team coming off a monster road win in Philly?

After NFL Weeks 1 and 2, which saw the Minnesota Vikings first dominate an over-hyped Jimmy Garoppolo and the 49ers, then travel to Green Bay for a crazy contest that ended in a tie due to now-infamous kicking failures, the Vikings got back home for what they thought was a lolly-pop Buffalo Bills team.

If you don’t know how that game began and ended, you’re lucky. It was a purple mess. Besides for the emotion of dramatically losing defensive end Everson Griffen for the game, the Vikings should remember every moment of that awful outing–and the week that preceded it, so that this Sunday does not see history repeat itself.

In Weeks 4 and 5, Minnesota fought and lost in a carnival of points against the Rams in L.A., then picked themselves up and traveled to Philadelphia, where they punched-out the World Champion Eagles in a soul-cleansing rematch of the NFC title game.

That’s a lot of living in five weeks. And for the Vikings, at 2-2-1, it’s got to be very good to get back home again.

But what Vikings team do we see on Sunday? The proud squad who marched on Broad Street last week or the sleepy and fumbling team that the Bills’ embarrassed in week three?

Yes, indeed, the Arizona Cardinals stink. On offense, where they currently rank 31st in the league, on defense, where they climb to a hardly-respectable 24th, and even in fantasy football, where Cardinals running-back David Johnson, averaging 3.3 yards per carry, has a legion of team-owners cursing him as their number one pick.

But before we make the mistake of opening the beers too soon–again–let’s take a look at Minnesota’s numbers. Because they’re kind of awful too.

The number, simply, is 22. As in league rank. Offense and defense. If that seems perplexing after considering our high-flying passing game, please refer to Minnesota’s second-lowest ranked running game going into week 6.

It’s bad. Bad as in 329 rushing yards, a 3.4-yard rushing average, and zero rushing touchdowns.

Now, let’s move over to the sunny side of the street.

It has been reported that Vikings running back Dalvin Cook will lace up the cleats and step onto the field this Sunday. His hamstring injury has created a small mob of detractors of late and if possible, Cook should disarm them as he can. With the way things have gone this year for Minnesota, it should be all hands–if physically able–on deck.

Against the Eagles, the Vikings ran 23 times for 77 yards, but several of those runs led to first downs while establishing an early lead they never relinquished, while others kept a nearly seven-minute drive alive late in the fourth quarter and set up a late field goal to make the game a two-possession contest.

It has not been mentioned much, but Vikings center Pat Elflein is again healthy and is starting in the middle of the Minnesota Vikings offensive line. This is very good. The center position is not a much-celebrated one, but Elflein makes a clear difference in all the Vikings do on offense.

Defensively, the Rams game upped the Vikings’ defensive numbers and we all know that. But after giving up all those yards and all those points (556 and 38), Minnesota will have to work on opponents hard to get back to where they want.

In Philadelphia, they proved they can do that.

This Sunday, they should prove it again against Arizona, with aplomb.

The Cardinals were 0-4 until the hapless San Francisco 49ers, without QB Garoppolo for the remainder season, gave them a gift-wrapped win last week. At home, the 49ers turned the ball over five times, took four sacks, and committed nine penalties in a 28-18 loss.

Arizona had only ten first downs for the game, 220 total yards, converted 2 out of 12 third-down plays, and held the ball for less than 20 minutes in the game.

The Cardinals are now being lead by rookie quarterback Josh Rosen, who has now taken leadership from former Vikings QB Sam Bradford, who again is suffering from some infirmity. Rosen’s completion rate, in three games, is under 50%. Future Pro Football Hall-of-Fame wideout Larry Fitzgerald has just 17 catches in five games.

It’s not looking good for Arizona, who took a 34-0 beating in week 2 against the Rams in L.A., but then lost two close home games against Chicago and Seattle. The franchise may be folding into the future, but they’re not closing their tents.

Considering the Cardinals got a win last week, it stands as only one less win on the season than the Vikings have.

The Minnesota Vikings need to be focused directly on making that number two.