Minnesota Vikings Best and Worst: Week 9 vs. Kansas City Chiefs

More bad things

The Vikings are at their absolute best when they can find a balance of run and pass. In the past, the recipe for success has been running almost as much as they throw the ball, but that wasn’t the case on Sunday.

Dalvin Cook, Alexander Mattison, and even Ameer Abdullah struggled to move the ball during their 25 carries in this game. That frustrated the Minnesota offense, which moved away from the run and put the pressure on Cousins to throw 38 times.

Here are some other bad things to come out of Week 9 for the Minnesota Vikings:

• A cold start. The Vikings got the ball first in this game and did absolutely nothing with it. One pass was a little ahead of Cook while the other passes were dropped by Thielen and overthrown for Treadwell, resulting in a three-and-out.
• Aggravating an injury. Adam Thielen didn’t get to stay on the field long in this game. He aggravated his hamstring injury in this game, forcing him to the sideline where the decision was made to keep him there. Hopefully, this isn’t a major setback for the game-changing receiver.
• Completion percentage. Cousins gets praise for throwing three touchdowns, but there were several of his passes that either got away from him or just weren’t on the mark. 19 of his 38 attempts were incomplete, and that’s just not going to get the job done against a team as talented as Kansas City.
• Offensive line play. If a flag was thrown against the Vikings in this game, odds are that it was on one of the offensive linemen. Holding, hands to the face, and being illegally downfield was just the start of their problems. And even more humiliating was that Pat Elflein was once again pushed back so far that he ran into Kirk Cousins. Yuck.

What did you think were the best and worst things that happened on the field for the Minnesota Vikings during Week 9 of the 2019 NFL season? Let us know your opinion in the comments section!