The Minnesota Vikings held up their end of the bargain on Sunday. With a win over the Green Bay Packers, the Vikings punched their ticket for a showdown next week. Regardless of the results of tomorrow night’s game, the Lions and Vikings are going to have a winner-take-all battle for not only the NFC North crown, but the top seed — and a first-round bye — in the NFC playoffs.
Through three quarters, it looked like the Vikings were going to cruise to victory over their division rivals, potentially even giving them a chance to get some players a little rest heading into the season-ending showdown. However, it really wouldn’t be a Vikings game without some late-game dramatics, would it? The Vikings have had a penchant for one-score games during the Kevin O’Connell era, and that’s exactly what we wound up with on Sunday.
After the Packers fell into a 17-point hole in the fourth quarter, they reeled off 15 unanswered points to pull within two. It was a commendable effort, but it wasn’t enough to play spoiler, as the Vikings could hang on in the end and avoided snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The win gives Minnesota their ninth-straight victory and our ninth-straight Victory Monday edition of Studs and Duds.
Stud: Quarterback Sam Darnold
Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-Imagn Images
Sam Darnold has had a career resurgence this season with the Minnesota Vikings, and has put up by far the best numbers of his career in head coach Kevin O’Connell’s offense. Darnold topped the 3,000 — and now 4,000-yard mark for the first time in his career and topped both the 20 and 30-touchdown pass marks for the first time in his career.
Darnold set a new career high in passing yards with his 377 yards on Sunday against the Green Bay Packers. He also achieved a quarterback rating over 100 for the 13th time this season, one more than he’d had in the entirety of his career before this season.
Pretty good for a quarterback most had written off as a dud. Darnold has played so well this season, the talks of Minnesota holding on to him for another season and delaying the J.J. McCarthy era have grown to a fervor. Time will tell what the Vikings do at quarterback, but Darnold has made it a difficult decision, if not a full-blown controversy.
Dud: Kicker Will Reichard
Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-Imagn Images
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