The Minnesota Vikings have finally reached the playoffs, but will the New York Giants spoil their plans for a deep run?
The Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants weren’t supposed to be here. Entering this season with rookie head coaches, expectations were modest. If either of these teams didn’t make the playoffs this year, there wouldn’t have been much of a reaction, and both teams would have dove head-first into the offseason.
Instead, the Vikings and Giants will meet on Sunday in the Wild Card round of the 2022 NFL Playoffs. It will be the second time these teams have met in the past month, and both teams have taken an unconventional path to get to this point.
The Vikings entered this year stuck in an 8-to-9 win purgatory but have broken out under Kevin O’Connell. Minnesota’s locker room is closer than it was a year ago, and the Vikings have benefitted by posting an 11-0 record in one-score games and the third season with 13 or more wins in franchise history.
The Giants entered the season in a deeper purgatory. Since their last playoff win in 2016, the Giants averaged four wins per season and went through a carousel of coaches, including Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur, and Joe Judge. Brian Daboll put an end to the Giants’ losing ways, coaxing them to nine wins and spreading his own brand of optimism throughout the Northeast.
Playoff football is always impossible to predict, but here are five bold predictions for when the Vikings meet the Giants in the playoffs.