Vikings Achieve Statistical Milestone Not Seen Since Turn of the Millennium
Sam Darnold had a nice day at the office. Arguably, it was his best day with the Vikings. The wild thing is that all of those impressive numbers occurred without Justin Jefferson going nuclear.
Minnesota’s WR1 had 5 targets turn into 2 catches for 27 yards. Pretty boring, right?
Instead, the other playmakers feasted at Soldier Field. Yes, Aaron Jones made the major mistake of fumbling at the goal line, but he otherwise had an excellent day. And then Minnesota’s WR2 and TE1 put together tremendous performances, as well.
Vikings Achieve Rare Statistical Feat
The insight comes courtesy of the team itself, which made the fact known on social media. To be clear, we’re talking about a team-specific reality rather than one that extends to the league more broadly.
Consider the initial insight: “The Vikings finished with a 300-yard passer, 100-yard rusher and two 100-yard receivers in a game for the first time in team history since Week 12 of the 2000 season.” And then the specificity about who picked up the yards: “๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ป๐ผ๐น๐ฑ (330 passing yards), ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ๐ (106 rushing yards), ๐๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐ผ๐ป (162 receiving yards) and ๐๐ผ๐ฐ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ผ๐ป (114 receiving yards) combined to achieve the feat at Chicago” (bold in original).
Dig down a bit deeper into those stats.
Sam Darnold put together a wonderful day. How often did we see Kirk Cousins struggle to get anything going at Soldier Field? Not Darnold.
By the time it was all said and done, Darnold had gone 22/34 for 330 yards and 2 touchdowns. His 116.1 passer rating is very impressive and his longest pass in the game went for 69 yards. Keep in mind that he rose to those heights while getting dinged up, leaving for a brief moment, and then coming back to lead his side to victory.
Meanwhile, Jordan Addison absolutely went off. The Vikings Gazette shared a thought about the receiver prior to the Chicago game that ended up being prescient: “In Chicago, target Jordan Addison over and over again. Doing so will help the offense, especially if Josh Oliver canโt go. Give Justin Jefferson help by reminding the defense that the other receiver happens to be a low-end WR1.”
Addison’s 9 targets turned into 8 catches, 162 yards, and a touchdown. The 20.3 yards-per-catch average is elite stuff.
Plus, T.J. Hockenson burst out, as well (much to the delight of his fantasy football managers everywhere). The TE1 also saw 9 targets. The end result was 7 catches for 114 yards. The tight end thus had a 16.3 yards-per-catch average.
The Vikings will take their elite group of weapons into a pivotal Week 13 matchup with the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, December 1st. Go ahead and sellout to corral Justin Jefferson: doing so could simply result in the other playmakers putting together a historic effort.
Kickoff is scheduled for 12 p.m. CT.
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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.