The Vikings had done exactly what the skeptics anticipated when they fell behind the Buffalo Bills by 17 points late in the third quarter Sunday at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y. Minnesota entered the game against one of the NFL’s top teams with a 7-1 record but carried the asterisk of having only one victory (Miami) against a team with a winning record.
As the Vikings fell behind by three scores against Josh Allen and the 6-2 Bills, the naysayers collectively nodded, knowing that Minnesota had been a pretender. Kirk Cousins might have had four game-winning drives in the fourth quarter — including one last week in Washington — but any talk of this being some type of special season for the Vikings could stop.
Only that didn’t turn out to be the case.
In one of the craziest regular-season games in the Vikings’ 62-year history, coach Kevin O’Connell’s team came away with a 33-30 overtime win that showed a resilience that was even surprising for this group. In the last minute of the game, with the Vikings trailing by four points, Cousins was stopped on fourth-and-goal from the Bills 1.
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That crushing moment was followed by Allen fumbling a snap with 49 seconds left that enabled Eric Kendricks to recover the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. That gave the Vikings a three-point lead. Allen got the ball back with 41 seconds left and guided the Bills on a five-play, 69-yard drive that finished with a Tyler Bass field goal to force overtime.
The Vikings went 60 yards on 12 plays to open overtime, getting the ball to the Bills’ 2, before Dalvin Cook lost 3 yards and Cousins was sacked at the Bills’ 15. Greg Joseph, who had missed a key extra point in the fourth quarter, hit from 33 yards.
By this point of the craziness, no one thought the game was over.
The Bills, needing a touchdown to win and a field goal to tie, reached the Vikings’ 20 before Allen’s pass was picked off by cornerback Patrick Peterson for his second interception of the day in the end zone. That sent the NFC North-leading Vikings home with an 8-1 record and even more confidence and swagger than they did at the start of the day.
They had become the first team to beat the Bills at Highmark Stadium when trailing by at least 14 points at halftime. The last time the Bills lost a home game when leading by 14 or more at the half was Nov. 10, 1968, at War Memorial Stadium.
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The game was filled with Vikings’ hiccups. Everything from Cousins’ two interceptions to Joseph’s latest miss on an extra-point attempt to a bend-but-don’t-break defensive effort that seemed very close to breaking far too often.
But that’s the beauty of these Vikings. They have flaws but somehow stick around long enough in games that it has become impossible to dismiss them. O’Connell gets much of the credit for this. In his first season as an NFL coach, O’Connell has instilled a belief in this team that they are never out of it and clearly the players are buying what he’s selling.
This is especially important with Cousins, who previous to this season likely would have had his day ruined by either of the interceptions he threw Sunday. At least that would have been true with Kirk Cousins. But “Kirko Chains” — the guy who parties with teammates on the plane ride home from wins — has become to Cousins what the Incredible Hulk was to Dr. Bruce Banner.
Kirk Cousins would put up big stats, while ultimately not being able to help his team do the most important thing: win. In the last two weeks while in difficult environments, Kirko has told the adversity to get lost and done enough to escape with victories.
His stats aren’t the same as in the past — his 71.8 passer rating Sunday was his lowest since a Week 2 loss in Philadelphia and his eight picks this season are one more than he had all of last year — but Sunday’s win gave him as many victories as the Vikings had in 2021 and his most since Minnesota made the playoffs after winning 10 regular-season games in 2019. Fans might argue that quarterback wins are meaningless, but the guess here is O’Connell disagrees.
Cousins’ confidence is only boosted by the presence of wide receiver Justin Jefferson, who had an unbelievable performance against the Bills. He caught 10 of the 16 passes thrown to him for a career-high 193 yards and a touchdown.
This included a phenomenal one-handed catch on a fourth-and-18 play late in the fourth quarter. Jefferson made the catch as he was falling backward and somehow took it out of the hands of Bills cornerback Cam Lewis, robbing Lewis of an interception and keeping the Vikings’ drive alive. We already knew Jefferson was a special player, but this is a game that will be attached to his name just as the Monday night game and Thanksgiving Day game in 1998 became attached to Randy Moss’ name.
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The Vikings’ winning streak is now at seven games with a three-game homestand (Dallas, New England and the Jets) on tap and confidence at a high. It was impressive coming back from 10 points down in the fourth quarter last week in Washington, but to leave Buffalo with this type of victory is a different story.
The Vikings will move up in many power rankings and dismissing them as a Super Bowl contender no longer will be possible.
As for being exposed on Sunday in Buffalo, the Vikings instead served notice that they can go into a hostile environment, take a punch or five in the face and still beat a Super Bowl champion. Even the biggest skeptics have to be impressed by that.
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Judd Zulgad is co-host of the Purple Daily Podcast and Mackey & Judd podcast at www.skornorth.com
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