Questions Answered: Lions Game Prediction, the Bounceback, Jeff Okudah
Dustin Baker
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The following questions are about current Minnesota Vikings topics, answered by PurplePTSD. Today is the September 22nd edition, addressed in a from-the-hip fashion. If you have questions, please email them to [email protected].
Also, please note: These are opinion-based responses. Some answers will be incorrect from time to time. But we’ll try to keep that to a minimum.
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Q: What is your prediction for Vikings-Lions?
A: 34-17 Vikings over Lions.
If Minnesota doesn’t regain Week 1 form, especially against a team it usually dominates, the team isn’t very good in general. Of course, the prediction would be a different story if the game was on the road. But Week 3 is a noon game — oddly the Vikings bread and butter — and at U.S. Bank Stadium, where the Vikings typically abuse the Lions.
We believe, indeed, the Vikings are a good team and will handily beat the Lions accordingly.
Q: What leads you to believe the Vikings will bounce back, if at all?
A: We’ll take Adam Thielen’s quote, tweeted by the Star Tribune’s Ben Goessling, to heart, “When you walk in this building, there’s nobody hanging their heads. There was nobody MF-ing. It was everybody ready to talk about the game, to figure out what we can do better. Then, turn the script, flip the page and move on.”
That’s the attitude necessary to remove something from the memory bank and move on. Plus, the humbling in Philadelphia happened in Week 2, so the Vikings have ample time to exorcise demons.
If the Vikings are a playoff-caliber team, they should have the wherewithal to right the ship immediately. Otherwise, the team isn’t very good — and would be akin to the 2020 and 2021 versions with an 8-9 ceiling.
Q: Is Lions CB Jeff Okudah actually good-good now or just “not a bust?”
A: Right in the middle.
He’s not performing like a blue-chip 1st-Round pick like his draft stock, but he has a 66.7 Pro Football Focus grade. Okudah also has an impressive 64.6 passer-rating-against through two games of 2022, and that mark is fabulous.
And at 23 years old — the age of some 2022 rookies — he has plenty of time to effectuate his draft forecast from 2020.
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Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sally from Minneapolis. His Viking fandom dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).