After their first regular-season game of the 2022 season ended with a win over the Green Bay Packers, what did we learn about the Minnesota Vikings?
As much anticipation that there was surrounding the Minnesota Vikings heading into their Week 1 game against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, there was plenty of uncertainty about the purple and gold heading into the matchup as well.
No one really knew what to expect from the Vikings in their regular-season opener against the Packers. But after all four quarters were played on Sunday, everyone wearing a purple jersey inside U.S. Bank Stadium had a gigantic grin on their face.
To kick off their 2022 season, Minnesota manhandled Green Bay on their way to an easy 23-7 victory. With the win, the Vikings have a record over .500 for the first time since the end of the 2019 season.
Kevin O’Connell was brought in to see if he could help get Minnesota over the hump and back in the playoffs this year. Well, if the Vikings continue to perform like they did on Sunday, then they’re going to do a lot more than just earn a spot in the postseason during their first year with O’Connell as their head coach.
Now that the dust has settled a bit since Sunday, what are some of the biggest takeaways from Minnesota’s impressive Week 1 win over the Packers?
Jefferson embarrassed Green Bay’s defense
Incredible is really one of the only words that can be used to describe the performance of Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson on Sunday against the Packers.
Jefferson began the afternoon with three catches for 47 yards and a touchdown on Minnesota’s very first offensive drive of the game. Two drives later, he took a 40-yard pass from Kirk Cousins and turned it into a 64-yard gain for the Vikings.
Then on Minnesota’s very next offensive drive, Jefferson added two more catches, 47 more yards, and another score to his stat sheet for the day. By the time both teams went into the locker rooms for halftime, Jefferson had already accumulated more yards (158) than any other player in the NFL during the league’s first week of games this season.
He wound up finishing the matchup with nine catches for 184 yards and two touchdowns. Jefferson added another record to his career on Sunday as his receiving yardage total is the most that any player in Minnesota history has finished with in Week 1.
Earlier this year, Jefferson said that he wanted to be regarded as the best wide receiver in the NFL by the end of the 2022 season. After one game, his goal doesn’t seem like it’s going to be too hard for him to achieve.
Minnesota’s defense embarrassed Rodgers
Whenever Aaron Rodgers comes to town, the Vikings know they’re in for a battle. But on Sunday, Rodgers delivered one of the worst performances he’s ever had against Minnesota.
After the final whistle blew on Sunday, the Packers quarterback had thrown for just 195 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception, which amounted to a 67.6 passer rating for the two-time reigning league MVP.
Aside from his young receivers not providing much help, Rodgers was running for his life all afternoon against the Vikings. Minnesota wound up sacking the Green Bay quarterback four times, and on one of these four sacks, they also forced him to fumble the ball.
The Vikings knew stopping Rodgers wasn’t going to be easy. But Minnesota’s defense stepped up to the plate and completed the challenge with ease.
Cousins looks comfortable
His numbers might have looked similar to the recent past, but it seemed like a different version of Kirk Cousins was out on the field against the Packers on Sunday.
Cousins isn’t a dink-and-dunk passer, but there have been plenty of times where he doesn’t take enough shots down the field, especially when he has receivers like Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and K.J. Osborn to throw to.
Looking downfield was not a problem for the Minnesota quarterback on Sunday, and there was even an instance where he uncharacteristically stepped up in the pocket to create more time before connecting with Jefferson for a 64-yard gain.
Cousins wound up throwing for 277 yards and two touchdowns against Green Bay. He’s put numbers up like these in the past, but on Sunday, they were compiled in a much more efficient way, and that’s thanks to the new offensive scheme
Joseph made it look easy
During the majority of Mike Zimmer’s tenure as the team’s head coach, kickers for the Vikings consistently struggled to be, well, consistent. Some wondered if Zimmer’s lack of patience for the specialist position had anything to do with Minnesota’s lack of kicking success during his time with the team and it’s becoming more and more evident that this was likely the case.
The Vikings’ new regime has taken a brand-new approach to the kicking game as special teams coach Matt Daniels has been praising Minnesota kicker Greg Joseph all summer, even declaring that he’s going to have the best season of his NFL career in 2022.
It’s hard to argue against this approach since it has translated into Joseph knocking down just about every single kick he’s attempted during the last few weeks.
He didn’t miss an extra-point try or a field-goal attempt during the preseason this year, and he continued his perfection on Sunday against the Packers.
Against Green Bay, Joseph converted both of his extra-point tries, and he nailed all three of his field-goal attempts, including one from 56-yards away.
If not for the excellence of their kicker on Sunday, Minnesota’s win over Green Bay probably doesn’t come with as much ease as it ultimately did.
Minnesota didn’t forget about Cook
For the last few months, we’ve been hearing all about how the Vikings are switching to a pass-first offense under new head coach Kevin O’Connell. With this in mind, some have wondered how the new offensive scheme would utilize Dalvin Cook in 2022.
So far, it looks like Cook is still going to be a major part of Minnesota’s offense. On Sunday, the Vikings running back quietly led all players with 90 rushing yards while also averaging 4.7 yards per touch.
Unlike some of Minnesota’s recent seasons, Cook gained a lot of his yards on Sunday when the team was lined up in a shotgun formation. In the past, the Vikings utilized their top running back in a more traditional ground-and-pound way. But in their regular-season opener against the Packers, Cook was more of a compliment to the team’s passing attack.
Is this going to be how Minnesota uses Cook for the entire 2022 season? It’s possible, but it’s more likely that the Vikings will have a different strategy each week when it comes to how they’re going to take advantage of his skill set.
There’s still plenty for Minnesota to clean up
As exciting as Sunday’s win over the Packers was for the Vikings in their first game with Kevin O’Connell as their head coach, they still have plenty of things to fix before their Week 2 matchup against the Philadephia Eagles next Monday.
Things could have gone much differently for Minnesota on Sunday if Green Bay wide receiver Christian Watson doesn’t let an easy touchdown pass slip right through his hands early in the first quarter.
Watson blew right past Vikings cornerback Patrick Peterson on the play, and against the Eagles next Monday, Minnesota cannot let something like this happen, especially since Philadelphia’s receivers are much more reliable than Green Bay’s young pass-catchers.
Unfortunately, stopping the run still seems to be an issue for the Vikings this season. The Packers averaged 6.2 yards per carry on Sunday on their way to 111 yards on the ground. Luckily for Minnesota, their offense did such a great job at creating a large lead, that Green Bay couldn’t afford to run the ball as much as they probably wanted to.
A large lead against Philadelphia isn’t going to be a guarantee for the Vikings, so they need to make sure they can come up with better approaches to stopping the run before next Monday when they take on one of the best running quarterbacks in the league in Jalen Hurts.
Minnesota did a lot of good things on Sunday, but they would also be the first to admit that they still have plenty to fix between now and the next game on their schedule.
Minnesota is trying to contend right now
Most figured that the Vikings at least had a chance to squeak out a win over the Packers on Sunday, but few anticipated that Minnesota would leave the field with a 16-point victory over a team that’s won at least 13 games in each of the last three seasons.
This didn’t feel like some fluke win for the Vikings. Minnesota came prepared on Sunday and they knew exactly how to attack last year’s No. 1 seed in the NFC.
If the Vikings are able to beat a team like Green Bay by double-digits, what can they do against some of the other top contenders in the NFC this year? At the very least, Minnesota proved on Sunday that they can probably hang with just about any team in the league this year if most of their roster is able to remain healthy.
New Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah mentioned during the offseason that the team was going through a competitive rebuild. With this in mind, most assumed the expectations in Minnesota this year didn’t include contending for a championship. But Sunday’s win said otherwise.
After just one game, chances still seem low that the Vikings will be among the top teams that contend for a spot in the Super Bowl this season. At the same time, it seems like Minnesota is still going to step on the field each week this year as if they are among the top contenders in the NFC, whether it’s true or not.