Vikings Wisdom: Don’t Take the Cheese
In what feels like a lifetime ago, Mike Zimmer was the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. Some of the wisdom that Zim passed along is that a team shouldn’t take the cheese.
What happens when a mouse encounters a too-good-to-be-true scenario of a beautiful piece of cheese plopped atop a strange looking device? Thwack! Going for the cheese leads to a poor outcome for Mr. Mouse. So, too, could the Vikings put themselves in a bad spot if they fall into the trap that’s being put in front of them in recent days.
The Vikings and The Cheese
Social media has been awash with praise for the Minnesota Vikings following their decisive 42-21 victory over the Atlanta Falcons in Week 14.
Sam Darnold? An MVP candidate. Kevin O’Connell? A QB expert who is in the running for Coach of the Year. Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison? The best receiver tandem in the NFL. Brian Flores? Likely to be hired away due to his brilliance as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator.
Make no mistake: none of these opinions are off base. Arguable, perhaps, but by no means outlandish. Adding them all together all at once, though, could have a counterproductive effect: convincing the Vikings that they’re as good as people think they are.
Minnesota finds itself at 11-2 as the Week 15 game nears. Basically no one had that on their purple bingo card back at the beginning of September. I, for one, predicted that we would see 10-7 out of the Vikings. At the time, I thought I was being optimistic. Instead, I was underselling just how strong this team was going to be. There are four games left and I’m already wrong.
Even more impressive is the +99 point differential. Kevin O’Connell has never head coached a team with a point differential that’s in positive territory. Rather infamously, the 13-4 season back in 2022 involved a -3 point differential. Last season’s 7-10 record involved being -18.
The point, folks, is simply that Minnesota doesn’t look like a fluke. The team is earning wins behind a 9th-ranked offense that’s averaging 26.1 points per game. Meanwhile, the defense is holding opponents to an average of 18.5 points against per game, good for 6th in the NFL. Can these top-ten facets of football lead the Vikings into the postseason and into success once there?
At best, our current vantage point merely offers hints and guesses, clues and prophecies. Maybe Minnesota keeps rolling; maybe Minnesota stumbles. Anything feels possible for the 2024 Vikings, a team that’s been a lot of fun for fans to follow.
What’s clear is simply that buying into the hype in Week 15 would be misguided. More challenges await. The final goal hasn’t been accomplished. The team would thus be wise to see the cheese and just keep on walking.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference helped with this piece.
K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter, as a co-host for Notes from the North, and as the proprietor at The Vikings Gazette, a humble Vikings Substack.
