Minnesota Vikings 2018 Review: Grading the offense
By Chris Schad
The Minnesota Vikings offense started off hot, but cooled off down the stretch. How did they fare in 2018 and what lies ahead in 2019?
Coming into 2018, the Minnesota Vikings felt they had all of the pieces in place to become one of the NFL’s top offenses.
For the first nine games, they looked the part averaging 24.5 points per game and 374 yards of total offense. The wheels came off after their Week 10 bye, however, as the team plummeted to just 19.8 points per game and 308 yards of total offense.
This was shocking considering that the Vikings had just thrown a fully-guaranteed contract at Kirk Cousins last March and they had many of the same players that had been a part of Minnesota’s run to the NFC Championship in 2017.
When the smoke cleared, Minnesota fired offensive coordinator John DeFilippo and after two solid games against the Miami Dolphins and Detroit Lions (who both were toward the bottom of the league in total defense), the offense officially went belly up in its season finale against the Chicago Bears.
It’s not easy to dissect what went wrong with the Vikings’ offense, but we’ll try as we hand out our first set of grades for the 2018 season.