Vikings 2018 Schedule Released – 2018

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Apr 20, 2018

The 2018 Minnesota Vikings schedule was released last night and it’s a doozy! While we knew for awhile who the Vikings were going to be playing, we didn’t know when those games would fall, and while the rumor that the Vikings and Eagles would be opening the season against one another ended up not being true, it looks like the drama will be no less intense as they’ll be facing each other as the first game of the second quarter of the year, which will give each team time to acclimate and put their best feet forward (especially the Vikings, whose offense may need a few games to get into high gear).

So, let’s take a look at the schedule and what it may mean in terms of the playoffs or other impossible to determine buzzwords.

One of the first reactions people had when they saw the list of opponents that the Vikings were going to be facing in 2018 was that, at least when viewed through the lens of how good these teams were last season, it was going to be quite the doozy of a year for the Vikings and really all teams in the NFC North. As we learn from year-to-year, though, you never really know how difficult an opponent is going to be until you face them, as if there’s one constant in the NFL it’s that there are no constants (outside of the New England Patriots). That having been said, one has to think that the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles will only be more difficult to beat this season, something that should terrify fans of a Vikings team that was absolutely outclassed against them in the NFC Championship game a few short months ago. So, as the intro to this piece also states, the Vikings will be facing the Eagles in Week five, which will give them more than enough time to get their ducks in a row and hopefully create a few opportunities for those ducks to perform duck, duck grey duck. The Vikings will be smack dab in the middle of what will be their hardest road trip of the season week five, as in week four they’re traveling to Los Angeles to face the equally (on-paper) stacked Rams. After that, they’ll have to jet across the country to face the Eagles in Philadelphia a game that many people thought that that game would take place week one (as the NFL likes to schedule rematches of big games early in the season). Turns out that the Eagles are going to face the Atlanta Falcons week one, and with Carson Wentz returning and also some of the people they’ve added this off-season in free agency, they’ll also be firing on all cylinders by the time the Vikings meet them week five as well. If history is any indicator, the Vikings will dispatch them relatively easily as the Vikings always seem to destroy the teams that beat them in NFC Championship games the following season with little trouble, however, this year’s game could very well be the first of two games as the Vikings and Eagles are favored to repeat their NFC Championship game on betting sites and in Las Vegas.

The Vikings instead will be opening the season at home, against the newly resurgent San Francisco 49ers. As a writer who can type faster than he thinks my initial thought was that this could be the easiest stretch of the season for the Vikings, but considering the fact that the ‘9ers ended the season on a 5-0 tear after acquiring their quarterback of the future in Jimmy Garoppolo (and also added Jerick McKinnon at the running back position), this game is looking to be not only a lot more difficult than it would’ve been this time last year but also a good measuring stick for San Francisco to see how good they really are. Let’s just hope that the Vikes come out better than they did when they were shocked by the 49ers at the start of the 2015 season in a game that they were heavily favored but came out very flat-footed. They then travel to Green Bay to face the Packers, only to return home to face the Bills before heading to Los Angeles in a stretch that if anything will at least give the Vikings a taste of how difficult the rest of the season is going to be. One has to think that if the Vikings somehow replicate their 13-3 season from 2017, that they’ll have a lot better shot of winning the Super Bowl than they did last season as they’ll be a lot more battle tested and tough, with an offense to match a defense that should be even stingier in 2018.

The second quarter of the season starts against the Eagles, in Philadelphia, followed by those Cardinals, then the Jets (with hopefully Teddy Bridgewater throwing the ball, for his sake), then the New Orleans Saints at home in a replay of the Minneapolis Miracle. The Jets were 5-11 last year and may not be much better this season, as they were one of the only other real suitors for the services of Kirk Cousins and while I was and still am a huge proponent of the Vikings paying Kirk Cousins I think that the Jets will look back at this off-season and be relieved that they didn’t end up getting him as they would’ve spent so much money to do so (as he clearly cared more about winning than money so it would’ve taken a lot more than even the Vikings gave him to get him there) that they would’ve really hamstrung their entire future in the process. Considering they still need 10 more players on that offense to really field a competitive team, it just didn’t make sense for them to spend that much money on one piece (a 29-year-old piece at that). Hopefully, things work out with Bridgewater and he is able to continue to develop and really re-start his career, but considering the way his contract is structured, I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t really see the field this season or ever again. Sadly. The Saints will be looking for redemption as well and so the Vikings should be glad that they’re yet again facing them at home as you’d have to think that with all the young pieces that the Saints have on that team, especially on defense, that they’ll be even tougher to beat this season (and let’s face it, they essentially beat the Vikings in the playoffs last year). One of the reasons that I argued for the Vikings signing Kirk Cousins was that they needed to continue to improve, especially on offense, to keep up with teams like the Eagles and Saints and considering the ability that the Saints have to score in bunches one has to hope that the Cousins lead Vikings offense will be as scary as the Harrison Smith/Anthony Barr/Eric Kendricks, Xavier Rhodes/Trae Waynes/Sheldon Richardson/Everson Griffen/Danielle Hunter/Linval Joseph-lead defense.

The third quarter of the season starts with the Lions, a team that has had the Vikings’ number really ever since head coach Mike Zimmer has been the head coach. Let’s hope that that’s something that changes in 2018 as with the difficulty of their schedule the Vikings will need all the division wins they can get, and really with the competitive nature of the NFC as well they’ll also need all the conference wins they can get (as we learned last season where home-field could’ve made all the difference against the Eagles). After the Lions, you get the first Bears game, in Chicago, a place that is always tricky. The Bears have a good young defense and a quarterback that they’re building around in Mitchell Trubisky, with a new head coach who comes from an offensive background in Matt Nagy, so it’ll be interesting to see what style of offense the Bears end up using and whether or not players like Kevin White actually ever make it on the field. The next game is the second game against the Packers, a team that could very well fall apart this season with all of the drama that seems to be building around Aaron Rodgers and his reported displeasure with the communication or lack thereof the team has made in this and really every other off-season. Sure, this is probably wishful thinking and they also did add Jimmy Graham, and some say they may add Dez Bryant, which would immediately make them an NFC favorite and also keep Vikings fans up at night. Despite that, though the Packers have more holes than the Titanic, especially on defense. That having been said, those games are always tough so luckily the Vikings will be playing them at home to cap off that NFC North stint.

The final game in the third-quarter of the schedule is a road game in Foxborough, where the Vikings will be facing the New England Patriots. The good news is that the fourth quarter could be called the easiest of the bunch as the Vikes will travel to Seattle to face the Seahawks, a team that is in rebuild mode (for them), then they’ll face the Miami Dolphins at home, the Lions on the road and the Bears at home to continue the NFL’s semi-recent pattern of closing out the season with divisional games. Divisional games are always rough but the Dolphins and Seahawks are going to be easier opponents, at least in terms of the other squads the Vikings are teamed up against. It’s hard to really gauge how good or bad the Dolphins are as they were without their quarterback last season and had to basically coax Jay Cutler to come out of retirement to show the NFL why he was retired in the first place, however, I don’t think many people are expecting the Dolphins to be a powerhouse this year even if they were 10-6 in 2016. But the AFC is a lot more wide open than the NFC is, so perhaps the ‘Phins will be 10-6 again (which would be like 6-10 in this NFC).

So, of course, a lot of this remains to be seen and the schedule could end up being a lot easier than it looks. However, it’s really never going to be easy for the Vikings as long as they play in the NFC North, as they are going against two of the best quarterbacks in the league twice a year and also traveling into Chicago a place that they’ve struggled to pick up wins at in recent years. Beyond that, the NFC has a lot of powerhouse teams, so while it’ll be nerve-racking as all get out it will be interesting to see how the Kirk Cousins lead Vikings stack up against the Rams, Saints, 49ers and Eagles. While I do expect this offense to improve throughout the course of the season, it’ll hopefully be good enough to win against those teams in week’s four and five, especially. Either way, this will definitely be an entertaining schedule that should give us fans and writers a general idea on just how good this Vikings team is by the time the playoffs roll around and considering all the professional and personal credibility I put on the line for Cousins, I really am expecting us to realize around that time that this team feels even more special than the 2017 Vikings did. By bringing in Cousins and Sheldon Richardson it feels like the team reset the narrative from one of negativity and even a question about whether or not this team can win (or how much longer the window of opportunity would be open) to one of positivity and excitement and I do believe that that extends to the team and it’s players as well. So, I fully expect this to be the most entertaining year of football we’ve had as fans since the Moss era and 2009 and while it’s looking like a really hard year the Vikings would’ve had to beat these teams eventually anyway to accomplish what the goal for 2018 is so I say bring them on!

Get your popcorn ready!

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