MINNEAPOLIS — In no way were the Minnesota Vikings mathematically facing an elimination game against the Green Bay Packers in Week 12, but there’s no denying that it carried that type of feel into Sunday night.
In the midst of a stretch that likely will decide their playoff fate, the Vikings needed this victory — a 24-17 win over their division foe — to remain as the fifth seed in the NFC playoff picture while also owning the tie-breaker over Green Bay.
The win lifted the Vikings’ chances of making the postseason from 51 to 71 percent, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index. With back-to-back road games coming up in New England and Seattle, a pivotal win over the Packers keeps Minnesota’s playoff hopes very much alive.
All week the message stressed repeatedly out of the Vikings locker room was the sense of urgency they needed on the national stage. In prime-time games this season against the Rams, Saints and Bears, Minnesota came up empty-handed. That was largely due to the Vikings’ defensive lapses in Los Angeles and red-zone turnovers leading to missed opportunities against New Orleans and Chicago.
At times on Sunday, the Vikings looked shaky, unable to put the Packers away sooner than the third quarter. But Minnesota was able to buck its prime-time woes and grab a critical victory before heading off to continue this brutal stretch on the road.
The common denominator in Minnesota’s last two losses? Turnovers. Too many of them. On Sunday night, ball security was of utmost importance, and it paid off in the form of zero fumbles or interceptions.
“Any time you have the football in your hands, you have the livelihood of everybody in the organization in your hands,” offensive coordinator John DeFilippo said during the week. “I tried to explain that to our guys a little bit more forcefully this week. When we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot, we’re pretty good.”
Kirk Cousins also bucked his own prime-time struggles — he came into the game with a 4-12 career record in prime-time games), finishing with a 129.6 passer rating after completing 29-of-38 passes for 342 yards and three touchdowns. His success was predicated off what has worked so well for Cousins and the Vikings offense historically.
Coming in to Week 12, the Vikings ranked 21st in the NFL in the percentage of plays utilizing play-action. Cousins, whom Mike Zimmer lauded for being “terrific in the boots,” got to shine in that area on Sunday. Two of Cousins’ three touchdowns came off designs utilizing play-action: a 30-yard TD to Stefon Diggs and the use of boot action on a 14-yard pass to Adam Thielen.
The Vikings also had success with screen passes to running backs, which has not been seen too often this season. A quick screen in the first quarter to Dalvin Cook was taken 26 yards for a touchdown. That one screen pass was longer than all of the running back screens combined by the Vikings before Sunday night (15 yards on eight screen passes).
Defensively, Minnesota broke the game open in the third quarter, holding the Packers to 30 net yards on 14 plays coming out of halftime. Zimmer implemented a handful of new A-gap looks on third down, forcing Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to try to read the new look pre-snap.
A frustrated Rodgers, who saw his team’s playoff chances fall to 15 percent with the loss, was held to 198 yards passing and one touchdown. He was sacked four times, once each by Tom Johnson and Everson Griffen, and twice by Sheldon Richardson, who continues to prove his worth as a major spark behind the Vikings’ success along the defensive line.
Sunday was the first prime-time game the Vikings were favored in this season, and through the first 12 weeks of the year, Minnesota has beaten most of the teams they’ve been projected to, sans Buffalo. But none of their wins came against teams with a record over .500.
That’s a feat the Vikings hope to achieve next Sunday in Foxborough when they take on the Patriots for a chance to tighten their grip on a playoff spot.