The Kiss of Death? League Experts Pick Vikings To Win
K. Joudry
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Minnesota does not do well when they come up against expectations. Anyone who has followed the team for any length of time should understand this reality. Well, the expectation is that we’re going to win our Week 5 game against Detroit. The league experts seem to all be picking the Vikings to get their second win of the season.
If you hop over to Vikings.com, you’ll find some of these aforementioned projections. Here is Gregg Rosenthal from NFL.com: “It’s one thing to have less talent than the rest of the league. It’s another thing to have that little talent and then become one of the most injury-plagued teams in football, as Detroit has. Minnesota’s kryptonite appears to be an effective pass rush, but that’s not a concern in this game. Jared Goff will be in position for a whole lot of yards trying to play catch-up.”
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Indeed, as we noted yesterday, the Lions are a talent-starved team, so the injuries to significant players really puts them behind the sticks. It’s unsurprising, then, that league experts are rolling with the Vikings. At the end of the Vikings.com article, there is a succinct summary of which team the site writers/experts picked. Only one person out of the nine ESPN prognosticators picked the Lions. Everyone else from ESPN, CBS, The Athletic, and MMQB picked the Vikes.
Hop over to Vikings Territory to see what purple writers think will happen. This biased crowd (of which your humble author is included) is almost exclusive picking Minnesota to win. The lone dissenter is Mr. Bob Sansevere, who has Detroit winning a close one. Let’s hope Mr. Sansevere is misguided on this one.
Here’s where I’m at, folks. Do I expect Minnesota to win? Indeed, I do. Minnesota’s three losses have been by a combined 11 points. We have been in every game we’ve lost, and Detroit is easily the worst team we’ve faced. Even after accounting for the expectations from league experts and the division-rival factor, I expect our Vikings to win the game. Moreover, I expect them to do so decisively.
Let’s get that run game going as we take a step toward .500.