3 things the Vikings need to improve heading into Week 6

Creating turnovers

The Vikings did finally get a turnover against the Giants late in the game. Anthony Barr made a beautiful diving interception of a Daniel “Danny Dimes” Jones pass and that all but sealed the victory for the Purple.

The problem was Minnesota had about three other opportunities in this game to get a turnover and they could’ve put New York away much earlier in this contest if they would’ve cashed one of those in.

Mike Hughes had two chances to come down with a pick. The first was when Hughes was in tight coverage against one of the Giants receivers and he went up and actually caught the ball, but then it popped out on the way down. The other opportunity came when he made a diving attempt and the ball ultimately hit the turf, causing the would-be interception to turn into an incompletion.

Harrison Smith has also had a couple of close calls in recent weeks when it came to getting turnovers. Smith tried to scoop and score on a fumble against the Chicago Bears in Week 4, but that one got away from him and the Bears ended up jumping on it. Last week against New York, he went up and tried to high point a Jones pass, but he couldn’t hang onto it on the way back down to the turf.

The Vikings need to start cashing in on these turnover opportunities. Minnesota will need turnovers to win ball games against their tougher opponents.

Some of these missed chances can be chalked up to bad luck. But if the Vikings’ defense can keep putting themselves in situations to come up with the ball, the luck will eventually begin to even out.