Revenge, Denied

The Minnesota Vikings lit up the scoreboard in the fourth quarter against the Atlanta Falcons and blew the doors off to win 42-21.

Photo by Todd Rosenberg/Getty Images

The typical construction of a revenge game is when a player goes on to take their former team and balls out – showcasing why that team was wrong to let them walk. In this case, former Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins couldn’t construct any kind of revenge. But Vikings fans felt a particular catharsis watching their team play a chaotic brand of football to ice the game in the fourth quarter against their former, never-quite-good-enough quarterback.

The Minnesota Vikings and the Atlanta Falcons hadn’t done much to separate themselves for most of the game, something not reflected in a final score where the Vikings doubled the Falcons output, 42-21.

The two teams entered the fourth quarter tied at 21 points apiece. Each team had made enough errors to sap the confidence of their fanbase. The Vikings had taken the ball away on a pick and were winning the penalty battle, having only committed three for 20 yards while the Falcons had committed eight of their own for 97 yards.

But the Vikings were getting outgained, having given up 389 yards while only having advanced the ball 243 yards themselves. Much of that has to do with the Falcons’ success at creating new drives, as they ran 54 plays to the Vikings’ 35 and were outgaining the Vikings on a per-play basis.

Minnesota exploded in the fourth quarter, however, and the three touchdowns in the final frame put truth to the perception that the Vikings were just the better squad. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues the Vikings need to work on coming out of the game, but it’s nice to see the Vikings win emphatically after seemingly skating by for months now.

Forty-Two Points, Holy Shit

The Vikings’ 42 points scored were the most ever in the Kevin O’Connell era, an output produced almost entirely by the offense – they only had one possession start inside Atlanta territory. Their average starting field position was their own 29-yard line and their average scoring field position wasn’t much different; those drives started at their own 30-yard line. The missed field goal occurred on a drive that happened to start at their own 30-yard line, too.

While a team that benefits from three turnovers should normally expect pretty good field position, one of those put the Vikings on their own two-yard line and another put them at their own 35. Only the kickoff return fumble recovery put them in prime scoring position.