Cracks Begin to Show As Vikings Falter, Lose to Detroit Lions

The Vikings lost after several lead changes against the Lions, 31-29. It's not a sign of greater things to come, but it puts the Vikings — no longer undefeated — in appropriate context

Photo by Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The Vikings are 5-1 and now have their fears of realistic competition in the NFC North now that the Lions, at least temporarily, hold the same record and the tiebreaker. Their 31-29 loss takes them out of rarefied territory and might impact their rankings on various power rankings sites, but nevertheless doesn’t approach anything resembling the panic button for the team.

There’s reason to believe the game contains more good signs than bad from a process perspective, though “a good loss” is always a frustrating narrative. Hopefully, that’s easier to swallow when the Vikings are already doing well.

That said, there were reasons to maintain concern in the Vikings, especially as they are now more of a playoff team than they are attempting to tread water as they wait for their first-round quarterback to come online.

Offensively, there was more good than bad — kind of an odd thing to say about an offense that scored 23 points against a good-but-not elite defense. Defensively, there was a lot to be excited about — again, an odd thing to say when the scoreboard reads 31 points allowed.

The Vikings are a good team, not a great team. Maybe they won’t be this year, maybe they will. Maybe that won’t matter. Good teams have won it all before.

Offense First Reaction

Until halfway into the fourth quarter, Sam Darnold was only pressured on 19 percent of his dropbacks — a season low. It’s easy to look at the sacks, three before that final drive, and conclude that it was a heavy-pressure game. But the Vikings did well when there was some ambiguity about whether they’d run or pass.

In pass-only situations, the pressure rate increased — as it does for every team — but still only brought that total to 31.4 percent, the second-lowest of any game they’ve experienced this season. Four of those pressures turned into scrambles for 39 yards and three others turned into completions for 72 yards.

The other four, of course, turned into sacks. One might think that the sacks were primarily on the offensive line, but a review doesn’t confirm that. They performed better than one might expect given that final line of four sacks.