Is a Slow Start Something the Vikings Should be Worried About?
Henry_Hagen
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In the National Football league, there is always one team that comes out of the gates much slower than everyone expects. In 2017, it was the Falcons who followed a Super Bowl appearance with a mediocre 3-3 start, which included home losses to the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills. What follows the slow start involves the media harshly criticizing the team from everywhere across the country, upset fans, and potentially even doubt from within the locker room which is the most dangerous for a team. I believe that the Vikings should be concerned that the slow starting team has a chance to be them this season.
Now there is the saying, “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.” but with several dominant teams in the NFC, a bad start could prove this saying wrong and be fatal for any team playing within the conference.
The first reason the Vikings should be concerned, is the difficulty of their first five games. The Vikings open the season by playing home against San Francisco, in Green Bay, home against Buffalo, a short week leading into a Thursday night game in Los Angeles against the Rams, and finally in Philadelphia where the Vikings obviously have some bad memories.
It’s safe to say that we have a difficult beginning to the season. With Aaron Rodgers in the division, the Vikings will probably need at the bare minimum 10, but more likely at least 11 wins to be the champions of the NFC North. Which is why if the Vikings get off to a dismal 2-3 start, they would unfortunately be left with very little room for error in the rest of the season if they want to repeat with a division title, and thus would also cause them to have to worry about potentially missing the playoffs with all of the playoff caliber teams in the conference. If the Vikings can make it out of those first five weeks with a 4-1 or 3-2 record, then that’s a huge success and confidence booster for the team and fans and would put the team on a good, steady track to make the postseason again.
Another reason that we could see Minnesota come slow out of the gates, is that when you have either a new offensive coordinator or new quarterback, it can sometimes take a while to develop the chemistry to produce a consistent, productive offense. Well the Vikings have BOTH a new quarterback and a new offensive coordinator. It will take time before Kirk Cousins and the rest of the Viking offense truly learns and can be successful with John DeFilippo’s scheme which of course will have many differences from Pat Shurmur’s scheme last year. If the Vikings offense isn’t fully in sync in the first five games like they weren’t against Jacksonville this past weekend, then the Vikings could be in hot water against teams like the Packers, Rams, and Eagles at the beginning of the season.
The Vikings can’t afford to see the offense that showed versus Jacksonville on Saturday. Kirk Cousins finished 3/8 with only a dreadful 12 yards through a quarter and a half. Now it was the preseason and Jacksonville does have the second best defense in the NFL. However, let’s just hope that whatever went wrong on Saturday is figured out and fixed in the final weeks of the preseason because if not, our offense could look like a hot mess until it does get figured out.
So all in all, the first five weeks of the 2018 season could potentially help the Vikings get a solid start in the quest of chasing back to back division titles, or could send panic waves throughout the organization and the entire state of Minnesota if a below .500 record is posted and for good reason, as a 1-4 or 2-3 start would be a dangerous situation with the NFC being potentially the best it has ever been in the history of the NFL. The first five weeks could become the difference between making a Super Bowl run or missing the playoffs entirely. Only one thing is for certain, it will be an intense and important start for the Vikings and could quite possibly tell the story of our 2018 season.