The Minnesota Vikings have shown a lot of struggles in situational football. While they beat the Chicago Bears 29-22 on Sunday, they did so mainly due to their success on third downs. In a piece earlier this week where Alyssa Barbieri from Bears Wire and I broke down who had the advantage on Sunday, I wrote about the Vikings’ struggles in situational football.
“The Vikings are the best in the NFL at converting first downs on early downs but sit at 28th in the NFL on third downs. One of the reasons for the lack of success has been the indecisiveness in the passing game. That will come as Cousins gets more comfortable. Same with the red zone where the Vikings are 25th in the league in converting just seven out of 15 attempts. The defense has been much better in situational football ranking 12th in third-down percentage but a low 28th in red zone percentage.”
The Vikings played much better than that on Sunday. They were an outstanding 12-15 (80%) on third down on Sunday, including an excellent 5-5 on the final drive. Going into the game, the Vikings were only 15-48 on the season.
On defense, they were solid allowing only 4-10 third down conversions, but they did allow their only fourth down attempt.
Converting situational football and not giving the ball away will significantly improve your chances of winning.