After falling short against the Bears, the Vikings are singing a different tune.
In the hours before the trade deadline, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah sat in his office trying to decide what to do with the Minnesota Vikings.
Adofo-Mensah’s exact thought process is unknown, but it’s possible that Creed’s noises had some influence. The rock group from the early 2000s gave them the song for their current winning run. According to reports, Adofo-Mensah was listening to it in his office as he considered his options close to the deadline, and a well-known line most likely inspired what transpired next.
“Can you lift me up?”
At U.S. Bank Stadium on Monday night, Creed was nowhere to be seen. The Vikings, who were 6-6 on the season, had just suffered a loss to the Chicago Bears. They currently lead the Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams, and New Orleans Saints by a half-game for the NFC’s final playoff spot.
Though, in retrospect, Creed might not have been the best choice, the defeat is not the end for the Vikings. Alternatively, they might have been reflecting on what might have been while listening to a different song as the game ended on Monday.
Kenny Rogers’s 1978 classic “The Gambler” depicts a man who meets a gambler while riding on a train. The gambler reads the man’s bad poker face and explains he can tell he’s out of aces before giving him his outlook on life.
You might be wondering how this relates to the Vikings, but Adofo-Mensah can learn a lot from it in his upcoming second season.
Adofo-Mensah perceived a chance for the Vikings to “hold” in many respects. Before Kirk Cousins suffered an Achilles injury, the Vikings had won three straight games after emerging from a 1-4 start. The Vikings acquired Josh Dobbs at the trade deadline because they were a team on the rise and it wouldn’t make sense to stifle that momentum by holding onto assets for the future.
But even though Dobbs prevailed in his opening two contests, the Vikings had a chance to “fold.” Minnesota’s plans were thrown off by Cousins’ injury, and Justin Jefferson’s hamstring was worse than first thought. The Vikings could only withstand their own reality for so long, even with their arsenal of offensive weapons and improving defence under Brian Flores.
This didn’t stop Vikings fans from enjoying Dobbs’ first two outings for Minnesota. By leading the team to a 6-4 record and the driver’s seat in the Wild Card playoff race, fans were looking ahead – or in this case, counting their money – to the type of playoff run the Wilfs have dreamed about.
The prime example is that of the 2007 New York Giants. After entering the playoffs with a 9-7 record, the Giants pulled off three-straight upsets on the road with wins in Tampa Bay, Dallas, and Green Bay before the most improbable upset in NFL history against the 18-0 New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
The goal of just getting into the playoffs has been the ethos of the franchise but also comes with some flaws. While a team could theoretically get hot, it’s more likely that the superior squad with home-field advantage wins.
Of the 40 teams that competed in the Super Bowl over the past 20 years, 21 had home-field advantage in the postseason, and 72.5% of the teams were ranked first or second. Only two of the 20 champions—the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2005 and the Green Bay Packers in 2010—won the Super Bowl as six-seeds, with five of them finishing as the fourth seed or lower.
They all had things the Vikings don’t have, like a quarterback, even if they were to rely only on those anomalies. Nick Foles was in charge of a force that had secured home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, even though he was able to lead the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl in 2017.
The Vikings might have been in the Wild Card race and fallen behind Detroit, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, three strong NFC contenders, if Dobbs had taken over as head coach. Adofo-Mensah, clutching an off-suit No. 2 and No. 5 card, pushed his chips to the table, sensing that the football gods were hinting that this wasn’t their year.
The most likely scenario following their loss to the Bears on Monday is that they sneak into the playoffs and get destroyed by a legitimate contender. It almost seems like there is no point in continuing.
No NFL team is willing to tank – especially one with Flores as their defensive coordinator – but the chance to lean into the future was there. Instead, the Vikings remain in purgatory with 12 of the last 20 seasons ending between seven and 10 wins and not even a Super Bowl appearance to show for it.
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