Top 7 storylines to know for Bills vs. Vikings

One of the big storylines in this game is the fact that Bills running back James Cook will face his brother, Vikings running back, Dalvin Cook. The two have had this game circled on their calendars since Cook got drafted by the Bills in April. The Cook brothers never got to play each other in college because Dalvin got drafted in 2017 and James didn’t start playing college football until 2018.

When James scored his first NFL touchdown in Week 5 against the Steelers, Dalvin said he was excited for more to come.

“Happy for him,” Dalvin said. “First of many, that’s the first thing I’m going to tell him.”

The Bills defense will have their hands full trying to limit Dalvin Cook on the ground as he has the 10th most rushing yards in the NFL with 608.

“When he gets the football, he can score from anywhere on the field, unlike some backs who may break a 15 or 20-yarder,” Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier said of Cook. “I mean, he can take it 80, 90 yards from anywhere. He’s an explosive back, and he is a good receiving back as well. He can catch the ball out of the back field. So he is multidimensional, they keep him on the field on third down.

“He puts a lot of pressure on your defense as a runner as well as his ability to be able to catch the ball on screens and other routes out of the backfield as well.”

Heading into Week 8, the Bills had the best run defense in the NFL allowing under 80 rushing yards per game. But in the last two weeks, the Bills have allowed an average of 191 rushing yards per game.

Both the Packers and the Jets accumulated more than 100 rushing yards against the Bills in the second half of the game. Defensive players have noted that both teams started running the ball more in the second half when they were losing. The Bills know this is something they’ll have to fix ahead of Sunday’s game.

“There’s no secret to it, there’s no magic to it, when it comes to stop…