National media treating Vikings like Bishop Sycamore this week
By Adam Patrick
Just about everyone in the national media is expecting the Arizona Cardinals to defeat the Minnesota Vikings in their Week 2 matchup on Sunday.
After the first week of the 2021 season, the Minnesota Vikings are sitting with a 0-1 record. One look at how most of the national media is currently viewing the Vikings though and you would think they lost by 40 points on their home field to the Jacksonville Jaguars last weekend.
However, that isn’t what happened. Minnesota lost by a grand total of three points, in overtime, and on the road against a Cincinnati Bengals team that significantly upgraded several of their position groups during the offseason.
The Vikings also shot themselves in the foot in their Week 1 loss by drawing a double-digit amount of penalties that constantly put them in unfavorable situations on both sides of the ball. Despite there being a very legitimate chance of Minnesota bouncing back with a much better performance in Week 2, no one seems to be giving them a shot against the Arizona Cardinals.
National media not confident in the Minnesota Vikings defeating the Arizona Cardinals
Heading into Sunday, the Cardinals are currently favored to beat the Vikings by at least 3.5 points according to the latest odds from WynnBET.
3.5 points doesn’t seem like enough to feel 100 percent certainty about Arizona getting a win this week. Minnesota was favored by a similar amount in Week 1 and they obviously didn’t come away with a victory.
Despite the low point-spread and the Vikings having a good chance to turn things around this week, the majority of the national media has the Cardinals leaving the field on Sunday with a win.
10 of the 11 NFL experts from ESPN, seven of the eight experts from CBS Sports, and four of the five experts from Sports Illustrated picked Arizona to defeat Minnesota this weekend.
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A lot of these experts are going to have a bunch of explaining to do if the Vikings can pull off the “upset” and get a victory over the Cardinals on Sunday.