Peter King Walks Back His Vikings Power Ranking, to an Extent
Dustin Baker
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Last week, PurplePTSD detailed NBC Sports’ Peter King’s lowly opinion of the Minnesota Vikings. King pegged the Vikings as the NFL’s ninth-worst team heading into 2021.
Minnesota wasn’t even the league’s ninth-worst team in 2020, so the forecast seemed bizarre — mainly because the Vikings offseason transactions indicate improvement, not obvious regression.
In his power rankings from last week, King wrote:
“The annual Kirk Cousins referendum is getting so tired. Cousins has played small in some big games, to be sure. And for the Vikings to draft Kellen Mond because they’re tired of being tethered to a gigantic quarterback cap number every year is okay. But my focus here is not on the quarterback. It’s on the part that I am sure made Mike Zimmer lose hundreds of hours of sleep last fall. The Vikings had won five of six entering the last quarter of their season and were 6-6, with their playoff fate in their hands. They proceeded to allow 37 points a game in those last four, spiraling out of the playoffs, fittingly, with a 52-33 holiday loss in New Orleans. Merry Christmas, coach Zimmer. I don’t think they did enough to turn the defense around in the offseason—though they got one of my favorite players on the free market, Giants defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson.”
Well, Vikings fans squawked — unsurprisingly. King referenced the beef in his weekly NFL column, when an Illinois resident opined:
“You have officially lost it. Not enough done to shore up the defense?? Just having Danielle Hunter, Eric Kendricks and Anthony Barr back healthy makes this a top 15 defense. Add in Tomlinson, Patrick Peterson, Xavier Woods and others will make them even better. The offensive line has been solidified with the Christian Darrisaw and Wyatt Davis picks. You can slam Kirk Cousins all you want, but check the stats over the last five years. He is right up there. I have read your column for 20-plus years and am thoroughly disappointed by your lack of research on this one.”
This gentleman, Cory Dage, summarized the disagreement aptly. And he appears quite offended by King’s low ranking.
But wait, there’s more. King repsonded in his weekly piece, reneging to an extent his grim outlook for the Vikings:
“You could be right, Cory. Minnesota did have a top-10 scoring defense in 2018 and 2019, but they won only 18 games in those two years. One of their top three players, free safety Anthony Harris, was lost in free agency and replaced by Woods, PFF’s 45th-rated safety (out of 64) among players who played 50 percent of their team’s snaps last year. Patrick Peterson plays this year at 31, and he didn’t have a good year last year. So we’ll see whether Woods and/or Peterson are much help. I don’t know how Danielle Hunter’s contract situation will impact his season. Having said that, this team will score a lot, as long as Justin Jefferson and Dalvin Cook stay healthy. I may be eating crow by December.“
What probably happened with King’s initial power-ranking placement — is a recollection of the Vikings sour 7-9 season, a generally ho-hum conviction on Kirk Cousins, and forgetfulness about Minnesota’s 2020 injuries woes. Those three elements could reasonably sling the Vikings to the bottom of the pack if one believed in their legitimacy.
It’s also interesting that King nominated Anthony Harris as a Vikings top-three player. Harrison Smith, Danielle Hunter, Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen, Dalvin Cook, Justin Jefferson, Brian O’Neill, and even Anthony Barr would probably disagree.
But if King truly believes that Harris was a top-three Vikings player in 2020, well, that explains why he’d place Minnesota at #24 in his power rankings. Both notions are a bit off-base.