The Minnesota Vikings are one of 12 teams around the NFL to have never ended a season by raising the Vince Lombardi trophy in a sea of confetti.
Since their very first season in 1961, the Minnesota Vikings have been lucky enough to appear in a total of four Super Bowls. Unfortunately, the Vikings were never on the winning end of these games and the franchise is still searching for their very first Super Bowl victory.
Minnesota is actually one of 12 teams around the NFL to have never won a Super Bowl. This group, that accounts for 37.5 percent of the teams in the league, includes the Vikings, Atlanta Falcons, Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Chargers, and Tennessee Titans.
Of this group, The Draft Network’s Brad Kelly believes that Minnesota has the best chance to come out of the upcoming 2019 NFL season with their first-ever Super Bowl victory.
"“(Minnesota’s) success will seemingly come down to the play of Kirk Cousins, but he should become more comfortable in his second year with the franchise. Their path to a top seed is more clear than the others, as the NFC North winning Bears seemed destined to regress next season.With added depth to the offensive line, Minnesota’s roster seemingly has no clear weakness. That could be just enough to finally put them over the top.”"
While this is a glowing endorsement of the Vikings heading into 2019, let’s not pretend like the offensive line is automatically fixed because the team added some players during the offseason who could potentially improve the performance of the unit.
As Minnesota has learned in the past (see Matt Kalil, Alex Boone, T.J. Clemmings, etc.), more offensive line depth doesn’t always translate into better offensive line play. So to say that the Vikings have no clear weaknesses going into 2019 seems a bit far fetched.
Still, Minnesota does appear to have as good a shot to win the Super Bowl next season as any of the other teams who have yet to get a win in the big game.
Does this mean the Vikings are being viewed as a Super Bowl contender in 2019? Not necessarily, but it does indicate that not many would be surprised if Minnesota actually did end next season with a championship.