The Minnesota Vikings beat the Carolina Panthers on the road in Week 6 and there are some big things to learn from the overtime contest.
Week 6 wasn’t a must-win situation for the Minnesota Vikings. However, a loss to the Carolina Panthers would have severely hurt their chances of reaching the playoffs or staying in the running for the NFC North race.
It took an overtime period of play for the Vikings to put this game away. If you are a fan of dramatic football games with emotional finishes, Minnesota hasn’t lacked in that department at all this season.
Although this game likely brought out both the best and worst in fans, the fact the purple and gold were able to find a way to win a conference game on the road heading into their Week 7 bye is huge for this team.
Before looking ahead to the team’s Week 8 game, let’s take a look at this game between the Minnesota Vikings and Carolina Panthers to pick apart five takeaways from this nail-biter of a contest on Sunday.
The Vikings play to their opponents’ level
This has been a strange season for the Minnesota Vikings. No matter if they are playing the winless Detroit Lions or the undefeated Arizona Cardinals, the team has hung in there against their opponents and took the game down to the wire.
Is that a good thing though? Minnesota seems to lack its own identity and instead plays to the level of its opponents. Of course, it’s nice that the Vikings can hang with some of the better teams in the league, but they also need to be able to put away bad teams without needing last-second heroics.
Minnesota has a lot of challenging games coming up on their schedule. After the bye, they face the Cowboys (5-1), Ravens (5-1), Chargers (4-2), and Packers (5-1). Each of those teams is currently leading their divisions and will present a massive challenge for the Vikings.
There is a real chance the Minnesota Vikings could be 3-7 after this stretch of games unless they can put together a complete game and play up to the level where they should be playing. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen and the team can rise to the occasion in upcoming weeks, but so far Minnesota has yet to deliver to the best of their ability on a regular basis.
Questions arise about Greg Joseph again
Minnesota and kickers. It’s a lot like Liz Taylor and her husbands (sorry for the extremely dated reference). The team has moved on from several kickers in recent history and used salary cap, trades, and draft picks to try to get the position right.
Greg Joseph entered the game with a questionable resume while wearing purple and gold. He missed kicks that made a significant difference in the outcome of games but still had the support from head coach Mike Zimmer that he could bounce back.
Sadly, this wasn’t a good game for Joseph. The kicker only connected on three of the five field goal attempts, missing from 50 and 47 yards out in the second half. Plus, the team made an interesting decision to go for two after a touchdown twice, leaving two points on the field by failing to convert both tries.
The Minnesota Vikings are once again in a position when points from a kicker could have sealed the game and the future of Greg Joseph has to be a question mark. Even if the team finishes out the season with Joseph, the team needs to bring in some competition at the very least for him soon.
The Minnesota Vikings have amazing pass catchers
This is a bit of a “no duh” takeaway, but sometimes a game can confirm or reinforce thoughts about a certain unit or group of players. For this game, the receivers need to get a lot of credit for this win.
In a game where Sam Darnold was having passes bounce off his receivers’ hands, the Vikings were making the most of their opportunities. The most notable of those was Adam Thielen, who caught 11 of his 13 targets in the game for 126 yards and a score.
Thielen wasn’t the only one having himself a day. Justin Jefferson caught eight passes for 80 yards including a nice 26-yardT completion. Plus, tight end Tyler Conklin had three grabs for 71 yards. Even Chris Herndon got in on the action by catching his first touchdown as a Viking.
Even with all those good performances, Sunday was about the emerging young pass-catcher K.J. Osborn. He caught six of the seven passes thrown at him for a total of 78 yards, including a 27-yard reception to end the game in overtime.
Having so many great weapons available is a huge boost for a Minnesota offense that is trying to find its rhythm this season. And it will make life easier for Kirk Cousins going forward.
Minnesota’s defense is for real
It’s tough to be excited about the Minnesota Vikings giving up 28 points to the Carolina Panthers. However, a quick look at how those points were scored will ease some of the feelings about allowing so many points.
The defense can’t be held responsible for the blocked punt returned for a score. That isn’t on them. That means the unit was held accountable for allowing 20 points, but that also includes a score after Justin Jefferson fumbled and the Panthers recovered in Vikings territory and turned into a touchdown..
Still, as a whole, Minnesota only let Sam Darnold throw one touchdown and Chubba Hubbard ran in one score with the Panthers kicker adding two field goals and the team having a successful two-point conversion.
Minnesota had four sacks on the day and held Carolina to 306 yards of offense and an average of 4.5 yards per play. More importantly, the Vikings created three takeaways on the day, including a Bashaud Breeland interception that might him get his confidence back after a struggling start to the year.
The biggest concern is the injury to Patrick Peterson near the end of the game. Thankfully, it was just a cramping issue and he should be fine to return to the lineup when the Minnesota Vikings return from their bye week.
The Vikings offense is bouncing back
Kirk Cousins is playing really good football. While his play hasn’t always translated into points for the Minnesota Vikings offense, he has been doing an amazing job at keeping the team in games and giving his receivers a chance.
Of course, the help of his pass-catchers is huge, but the offensive line deserves a big round of applause for their efforts on Sunday. Oli Udoh struggled with penalties in this game, but as a whole, the team didn’t allow a single sack on Kirk Cousins as he threw his way to a quarterback rating of 112.6.
It would be irresponsible to talk about the Vikings pass protection without mentioning this was the first career start for first-round draft pick left tackle Christian Darrisaw. You know your blindside protector did a good job if the quarterback didn’t seem concerned about pressure coming from that direction. Plus, only allowing four pressures on 49 quarterback dropbacks is a great accomplishment.
The return of Dalvin Cook was another huge boon for the purple and gold. He rushed for 140 yards on 29 carries and added a major threat to take the ball to the house any time he got an opportunity to run. He struggled as a receiver in this game, but that is usually another big part of his game.
5 biggest takeaways from the Vikings win over the Lions in Week 5
The Minnesota Vikings beat the Detroit Lions in Week 5 in an ugly game but there was plenty to learn from the division matchup.
What were your biggest takeaways from the Week 6 game against the Carolina Panthers? And what else did you learn about the Minnesota Vikings during this game? Let us know your opinion in the comments.