5 Bold Predictions: Minnesota Vikings vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Week 14
By Chris Schad
The Minnesota Vikings will travel to face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.
Coming into the 2020 season, there were several games that fans circled on the Minnesota Vikings schedule.
While the usual rivals such as the Green Bay Packers and a visit from the Dallas Cowboys garnered attention, so did a December trip to visit the Tampa Bay Buccaneers where it was presumed that the Vikings would be battling alongside them to secure a trip to the playoffs.
As both teams enter Sunday’s showdown, that will be the case. But neither team has seen the season play out as originally planned.
For the Vikings, this year has included a 1-5 start that had some clamoring to start tanking for Trevor Lawrence. Just as it looked like Minnesota was about to be the site of a full-blown fire sale, the Vikings have rattled off wins in five of their last six games.
The results haven’t always been pretty, but the surge has Minnesota as the current No. 7 seed in the NFC playoff race.
Meanwhile, the Bucs have looked to reprise the role of the 2009 Vikings. With an aging mercenary (Tom Brady) under center, Tampa Bay was supposed to be one of the top teams in the NFC this year.
Unfortunately, the Bucs have run into some bumps along the way and they are now looking to make a late-season surge to try to make the playoffs for the first time since 2007.
Sunday’s matchup between Minnesota and Tampa Bay will go a long way in determining where these teams land in January and we have five bold predictions to see who will come out on top.