Minnesota Vikings Best and Worst: Week 10 vs. Dallas Cowboys

More bad things

While Kirk Cousins was only sacked once on the day, the reason for that sack is mighty disturbing. On a play where Riley Reiff obviously had to block to his outside, he instead seemed worried about Pat Elflein‘s job in a one-on-one.

It’s no secret that Elflein has been struggling this season in pass blocking and with penalties, so it is frustrating to see that either Reiff completely didn’t do his job or he was so concerned about Elflein doing his job that it ended up with Cousins on his back.

Here are some other bad things to come out of Week 10 for the Minnesota Vikings:

• Does Stefon Diggs NEED Adam Thielen? Earlier this season, Stefon Diggs has been amazing. He has put together games with over 100 yards and has enjoyed multiple touchdown games. But the last two weeks, he hasn’t been playing like a number one receiver and instead players like Kyle Rudolph, Dalvin Cook, and Irv Smith Jr. have been shouldering the load. Not that three catches for 49 yards isn’t contributing, but when one of them is a miracle catch for 27 yards and he’s quiet for much of the game, that’s not a great sign.
• Third down conversions. There is a reason Dallas outgained the Vikings 443-364 in offensive yardage this game: they struggled to convert third downs. Whether it was silly penalties or failure to execute. third-down situations only saw the team convert 57% of those tries, which is not good. A few more conversions and Minnesota would have dominated time of possession even more than the nearly seven minutes they had.
• Sitting on a lead. Minnesota started out hot to this game, scoring two touchdowns early.  They only found the end zone one more time in the game and settled for two field goals. If Minnesota could be a bit more aggressive (I’m looking directly at you, three-yard pass on a free play) they could really put opposing teams in a hole.

What do you think were the best and worst things from the Week 10 game between the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football? And what else deserves a shout out for this game? Let us know in the comments section!