Why no one believing in the Vikings this week is a good thing

During their history, the Minnesota Vikings seem to actually perform better when the expectations are low and the majority don’t believe in them.

When Sam Bradford needed to miss time due to injury two weeks into the 2017 season, many people figured the Minnesota Vikings were immediately eliminated from being a championship contender that year.

Then after a strong start to his rookie campaign, Vikings running back Dalvin Cook was lost for the season thanks to tearing his ACL in the team’s fourth game of the year. With Cook and Bradford both out of the lineup for a significant amount of time, most assumed Minnesota was just going to be in for a long and disappointing season.

But instead of listening to all of the outside noise, the Vikings went out and won 11 of their final 12 games to finish the year 13-3 and secure the No. 2 seed in the NFC. Few could have predicted this outcome for Minnesota in 2017, except for the coaches and players in their locker room.

This is just one of the many examples in which the Vikings have surpassed their low expectations and proven their doubters wrong. Something Minnesota will be looking to do, once again, on Sunday in their first-round playoff matchup against the New Orleans Saints.

Most are just assuming the Vikings will just lay down and let the Saints walk all over them. Outside of Minnesota, good luck finding a large group of people who believe the Vikings will actually go on the road and beat a New Orleans team that finished the 2019 season with a 13-3 record.

But these feelings from outside of the locker room are something Minnesota can use to their advantage. Since hardly anyone thinks they will win on Sunday anyways, the Vikings don’t really have much to lose.

Minnesota can take risks against the Saints that they might not have taken during the regular season. And if these risks end up resulting in a loss for the Vikings, who cares since most already assumed they were going to lose anyway.

This luxury of having low expectations has worked out for Minnesota in the past. In addition to their accomplishments in 2017, the Vikings also pulled off an impressive upset during the 2004 playoffs when they were the No. 6 seed in the NFC (just like this year).

Minnesota managed to sneak into the playoffs in 2004 despite losing four of their final five games and as the lowest seed in the NFC, their first-round matchup had them traveling to Lambeau Field to take on the rival Green Bay Packers.

After losing to the Packers in both of their regular season matchups, few thought the Vikings could pull off the upset. But Minnesota scored on their first three offensive drives of the game to storm out to a 17-0 lead and they never looked back.

Few people believed the Vikings could make it all the way to the NFC Championship in 2000 with a first-year starting quarterback in Daunte Culpepper or in 1998 with an over-the-hill passer in Randall Cunningham. But Minnesota was still able to succeed during both of these seasons when their expectations weren’t very high.

What is trying to be said here is that just because all of the advantages seem to lie in New Orleans’ favor this week, it would be incredibly foolish to count the Vikings out.

Being doubted by the outside world is something that has fueled Minnesota in the past and it could potentially be what leads them to getting the upset win over the Saints on Sunday.