Miracle To Murky

Less than three years ago, the Vikings were one win away from a Super Bowl with a backup quarterback. It was the culmination of Mike Zimmer’s best coaching job, turning a 2-2 start without a healthy starting quarterback into a 13-3 record complete with a first-round bye and miracle playoff win.

At that time, even if the Vikings were toasted in the NFC Championship Game by the Philadelphia Eagles, it seemed their Super Bowl window was just opening. Zimmer’s defense was fierce and entering its prime. The offense was apparently good enough to reach the conference title game with a quarterback who had never previously been a full-time starter.

Less than three years later, the Vikings are 0-2 and, if the first two contests are any indication, look like one of the worst teams in the NFL. How did it unravel so fast? How did they go from the cusp of a Super Bowl in 2017 to struggling to even play competitive football in 2020?

The answers are complex and could change as this season carries on, especially if Zimmer is somehow able to turn around this outfit. But we thought it might be instructive to look back at the major moves the Vikings made since that 38-7 loss in Philadelphia and reflect. Not all of them are inherently bad. But put together, they show how a Super Bowl window slammed shut in less than three years.

Taken together, the moves offer a glimpse into how this team went from among the league’s best three years ago to an outfit that hasn’t been competitive through two games and is now a home underdog Sunday against the Tennessee Titans. Many of the moves can be understood indivdually. They were in a precarious situation at quarterback no matter what they chose at the end of 2017. They wanted to lock up their best players to multi-year extensions, and what team doesn’t want to? Of course, there are a few that even in real-time raised questions. Why, when everyone knew the Vikings had to suffer a cap casualty, did they convince Barr to return, giving them two high-priced linebackers, a position the rest of the league has de-valued? Why didn’t they address defensive tackle earlier and more significantly?

The moves also reveal how significantly things could have changed had any one or two moves gone differently. What if they chose Bridgewater or a draft pick instead of Cousins? What if they opted to pay Barr or Kendricks, but not both? What if they had done anything to address their yearslong weakness at offensive guard?

Who knows how things would have changed with different answers to those questions. But a look back paints a picture of how the Vikings reached the cap ceiling with a top-heavy roster that relied on perfect health from starters, aging veterans, and an assumption that draft picks would be able to play well right away. And then when it was decided a defensive transformation was needed, it seems to have arrived either too late or too suddenly.