Week 12 Wildcard Outlook

A season ago the Vikings found themselves in the same boat.

Sure, the trip might’ve looked a little different. The 2020 Vikings encountered rough waters early in the year before some smooth sailing against a soft middle of the schedule, while the 2021 team has had to navigate against a strong current from the time they set sail.

Yet both wound up at 5-6, narrowly on the outside of a Wild Card spot, hoping for a December to remember that would propel them into the playoffs.

In 2020, the Vikings were preparing for a 1-10 Jacksonville team in hopes of getting back to .500. This year, the Week 13 punching bag opponent is the 0-10-1 Detroit Lions.

Minnesota limped to an overtime victory against those Jaguars and staggered in their next three games to fall to 6-9 and playoff elimination. Now a similar talent core and coaching staff is trying to reverse the 2020 outcome and prove the Vikings can be more than simply mainstays on the ‘In The Hunt’ graphic.

The Vikings were not healthy last year at this time, and they face a comparable — if not worse — situation this time around.

In Week 13 of 2020, Minnesota was missing Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks, Danielle Hunter and Michael Pierce on defense, and they would soon lose Kyle Rudolph on offense.

This week’s team will be without Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen for sure. Michael Pierce is hoping to be activated off the injured reserve following a seven-game absence. Patrick Peterson is on the COVID-19 list. Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks and Mackensie Alexander are questionable. Offensively, Irv Smith Jr. has missed the whole season, and Dalvin Cook reportedly has a torn labrum.

If the weekend doesn’t go well for certain players’ health, the Vikings could be down up to seven of their preferred defensive starters at Detroit. If that doesn’t sound like 2020 déjà vu, nothing does.

The defense was what truly hit the skids for Minnesota last December, allowing 36.5 points per game in the final four games. The 2021 Vikings have a few more veterans to stabilize the defensive ship this season — Xavier Woods, Breeland, Sheldon Richardson, to name a few — but the present statistical state of the defense is barely better than it was a season before. Through 12 weeks in 2020, the defense ranked 27th in points allowed. Currently, it’s 24th. Any further injury decay could send the defense spiraling toward 2020 levels.

Why Mike Zimmer and the Vikings believe this December will be different is largely intangible. Zimmer has maintained, even when the team was floundering at 1-3 in October, that he was coaching a good football team based on their practice habits, work ethic and fight.

Fight, specifically, was a buzz word Zimmer and other players used last year, too, before the team fell off. So what makes these fighters different, Zim?

“Yeah, I feel a lot different about this team than I did at this time a year ago,” he said. “You know, they’ve shown they have a lot of heart and fight. We’ve basically been in every ballgame, could have won several others.

“I watch them every day in practice with how they go about their business. Typically, when you’re struggling, you don’t put forth the effort and don’t put forth the same study habits … you go out and put your toe in the water and see if it’s cold or not. This team hasn’t done that. They’ve been resilient.”

Indeed, last season’s team lost five games by double-digits and was thoroughly run out of the building in games against Indianapolis, Atlanta and New Orleans. Conversely, much has been made of this year’s six one-possession losses that have made this club a veritable tease. Minnesota’s point differential is plus-five. The NFC’s two other 5-6 teams are -53 (Washington) and -103 (Atlanta).

Unfortunately, playing close with winning teams like Cincinnati, Arizona, Dallas, Baltimore and San Francisco comes with no consolation prizes, as Zimmer admitted last week.

However, belief persists amongst the players that the close calls show the team’s potential.

“We just need to be consistent,” said Justin Jefferson. “I feel like we have the top team in the NFL when we come to play. If we come to play, execute our plays and have that mindset that nobody can mess with us on the field, I think we will be good. These next few games are pretty tough, they’re good teams, but I feel like we’re good enough to beat them.”

Jefferson is being generous to lump upcoming opponent Detroit in with the “good teams,” but hey, the Vikings almost blew it once to their winless rival.

Still, the schedule is more forgiving. The Vikings had a December stretch against three straight playoff teams late last year when they lost to Tampa Bay, Chicago and New Orleans in succession. Presently, their next three opponents are .500 or worse with Detroit, Pittsburgh and Chicago. Win those, get to 8-6, and suddenly there’s a changing in the winds.

But with the defense ailing, does the offense have what it takes to carry the burden?

Last year, with a mostly-healthy offense sans Rudolph, the Vikings fell behind 23-6 and 20-10 in the third quarter of their two most important games: at Tampa Bay and home versus Chicago. This year, even without Cook, they still have the key components of their passing game intact; a passing game that has shown the potential to be top-five caliber at times this season. Whether the Vikings effectively lean on those pieces may determine their December fate.

“I think if we can stay healthy and keep guys out there,” said Kirk Cousins, “I think that really helps and that is something you’re week to week trying to figure out. I believe we have a lot of the same players that were here last year and experience should help and make you a better team, a more savvy team, a more veteran team. I believe that can help us down the stretch.”

Cousins isn’t the only player to point to the added year of experience, but what more experience do the team’s leaders need? Primary offensive contributors like Cousins, Cook (if he returns), Adam Thielen, C.J. Ham, Tyler Conklin, Brian O’Neill, etc., have all spent four or more years on the team and went through a near playoff miss in 2018. Defensively, Harrison Smith, Kendricks and Barr have a combined 25 seasons of experience, while Bashaud Breeland, Patrick Peterson and Xavier Woods have all been to the playoffs on their previous teams. There are no mysteries about what needs to be done the next half-dozen games.

For a team that has accomplished talent on both sides of the ball, it’s stunning to consider the Vikings have spent exactly zero days above .500 since the end of the 2019 season, despite five opportunities to vault over.

“As far as hovering around .500,” said Smith, “we’ve got to break through that.”

Smith was part of one of Minnesota’s finest December playoff runs in 2012 when the Vikings took a flawed team and ran the table from 6-6 to make the playoffs at 10-6. Since Zimmer took over in 2014, the Vikings only have one winning December (2017). Anything but a winning month this time around could not only doom the Vikings’ playoff hopes but the entire regime.

“If you’re not frustrated with where we’re at, you’re in the wrong building,” said Thielen. “At the end of the day, we come to work every day, we train the way we do in the offseason, we come to OTAs, we go to training camp with the mindset of being a playoff team and being able to make a deep run in the playoffs. Now the good thing is, we are a playoff team, and we know what we can do. We know what we’re capable of. But we have six games to now go and prove it and to ultimately get in. And once you’re in, everybody’s record is 0-0, and you never know what will happen.”

There will be a time to discuss Minnesota’s chance in the NFC playoff bracket if it makes the field. But to do that, they’ll need to reverse the fortunes of last year.

Every so often on Wednesday mornings, the "two little angels" — or perhaps they're devils, Mike Zimmer says — show up in the coach's office, armed with GPS data about how hard players have worked in the past few days and which ones might be due for a break.

This week, head strength and conditioning coach Josh Hingst and head athletic trainer Eric Sugarman were united in their message: After a physical game in San Francisco, where the 49ers ran the ball for 208 yards and kept the Vikings' defense on the field for 37:07, players needed to rest.

So for the second time in 21 days, the Vikings turned their Wednesday practice — ordinarily their most important of the week — into a walk-through, betting on extra recovery over extra repetitions.

"They actually talked me into it today. I had them both in my office this morning," Zimmer said Wednesday. "They were both saying the same thing today, and usually I'm the one saying the opposite most of the time. I tell them, 'We better win, or it's...'"

Zimmer trailed off, but it's not hard to imagine what he might have said in response. The coach was raised in an era of longer and more grueling practices, and still believes on-field work is where players learn best. On Wednesday, he still sounded cautious about granting the walk-through, given the practice snaps it would cost young players.

"It's hard for me, anyway, but we do have some older players that we have to take care of," Zimmer said. "There's a fine line with some of the young guys that ... don't get as good [of] work as they would, but I think it's important that we continue to try to stay fresh. Like I told them this morning, they've been emptying their buckets for me and for them each and every week, so I'm trying to take care of them so they can do that again on Sunday."

In addition to the walk-throughs after the Ravens and 49ers games, the Vikings have given Wednesday rest days to Harrison Smith three times, Everson Griffen twice and Patrick Peterson, Rashod Hill and Adam Thielen once each.

After going 11-8 in December and January during Zimmer's first four seasons — including a 4-1 December in 2017 to clinch a first-round bye — the Vikings are 6-9 in December/January games the past three years, having lost key matchups that cost them playoff spots in 2018 and 2020 and relegated them to a wild-card spot in 2019.

In each of those seasons, their defense lagged at a key moment. In 2018, it was the Bears marching 75 yards in 16 plays, draining 9:05 off the clock and icing a game the Vikings needed to reach the playoffs. In 2019, the Seahawks ran for 226 yards and the Packers for 184 in December wins; Seattle claimed a higher wild-card spot than the Vikings, and Green Bay clinched the NFC North title on a 56-yard Aaron Jones touchdown at U.S. Bank Stadium.

And last year, with the Vikings entering December in a battle for the NFC's seventh and final playoff spot after a 1-5 start, they lost three straight, giving up 199 rushing yards to the Bears in a game that helped send Chicago to the playoffs before the Saints ran for 264 and Alvin Kamara scored six touchdowns on Christmas Day.

Just like last year, the Vikings are 5-6 heading into December, with six games left to separate themselves from a crowded NFC playoff field. They are currently eighth in the conference, trailing Washington on a tiebreaker, but their schedule includes Sunday's game against the winless Lions, a Thursday home game against the struggling Steelers and the first of two matchups with the 4-7 Bears, before things get tougher with back-to-back games against the Rams and Packers.

"Football don't start 'til November, December," cornerback Bashaud Breeland said. "That's how I look at it. The first couple weeks of games in the season, you're trying to find everybody, put in new pieces, coaches are trying to find their roster. And when it comes to playoffs, that's when you put everything together. Guys got out the kinks early in the season, played plenty of games. Now it's time to hone in and win some games."

In Zimmer's tenure, the Vikings have won at a .613 clip in October and a .645 rate in November, good for eighth and fifth-best in the league during those months. They rank 13th in December and January, with an overall mark that's dipped to .500 because of the struggles the past three years.

If it'll take four wins in the final six games to make the playoffs at 9-8, the Vikings have the schedule to get there. They'll likely get Dalvin Tomlinson and Michael Pierce back on Sunday, fortifying the middle of their run defense. Kirk Cousins, Thielen and Justin Jefferson have remained healthy, with Jefferson saying this week he feels better than he did in college because practices are less intense in the NFL.

"That's why I love this league so much," he said. "I feel like college practices are always high-energy; everybody's going 100%. It's like that in the NFL, too, but people know how to take care of their bodies, knowing how to practice, knowing which speeds to go at.