Vikings Extend Astounding Win Streak with 27-19 Win Over Saints

The Vikings are on a roll and are now in the thick of the Wild Card race with yet another win despite missing their starting quarterback. What's next?

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After their 27-19 win over the New Orleans Saints, the Minnesota Vikings somehow managed to extend their ludicrous win streak to five and are now 6-4 on the season after an 0-3 start. More amazingly, they’ve done it without their first or second choice at quarterback.

Joshua Dobbs Is An Agent of Chaos

Joshua Dobbs has twice demonstrated that, so far, he’s a different player over the two halves of the game. Last week, it was a disastrous first half performance followed by a miraculous second half. This week, it was much the opposite.

There is something different about a high-volatility quarterback playing when the season was supposed to be lost anyway. Every bad play is baked into our expectations while every good play is pure profit. Maybe that’s a bad way for a team to think but it’s hard to avoid that for fans who checked out in the first half of last week’s game against the Atlanta Falcons.

So it seems more pedantic than usual to point out that Dobbs was still making mistakes in the first half; that his style is unsustainable or that the interceptions will come in time. But, it still feels worth pointing out: Dobbs invited defenders into the ball, demonstrated some accuracy issues getting the ball to the right spot and took unnecessary risks.

He also finished the first half with 0.60 expected points per play, which would rank in the 96th percentile of all quarterback performances over a full game in the last 24 years. And it’s not as if he was buoyed entirely by big plays – he had 12.7 completions over expected when accounting for field position and throw distance.

But the first half score differential of 24-3 wasn’t going to last and the offense sputtered out as the defense gave way. Dobbs began missing his throws, struggling under pressure and seeing some of his gambles fall short of expectations.

In the second half, Dobbs finished with -0.24 expected points per play — which would rank among the worst quarterback performances of the year. That’s a truly difficult feat without a turnover.

That said, there’s much more good than bad with Dobbs. At the moment, it’s difficult to regard him as anything but a starting quality quarterback. His command of the offense was apparently so complete by the end of his second week with the team that head coach Kevin O’Connell said they used a complete gameplan with a full playbook.

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After the game, Dobbs said that despite the fact that he “isn’t paid by the hour,” he spent all of his time at the facility — eating perhaps every meal last week in the team facility.

That command showed throughout the game, but the volatility gives us a good understanding of why he may not be trusted around the league. O’Connell made the point that Dobbs’ athleticism gives them license to call more aggressive plays, so that kind of floor should always be part of the conversation when discussing Dobbs as a starting quarterback.

And none of this should take away from the heroic performance from T.J. Hockenson, playing through a rib and oblique injury. After 134 yards and a touchdown, the former Lions tight end demonstrated why the VIkings could still feel confident in their skill corps without Justin Jefferson.

Jordan Addison continued stepping up, too — with a big play near the beginning of the game to help the Vikings run up the score. He finished with 69 yards on four receptions. Nice.

Defense Frustrates But Holds Up

The Vikings first-half defense was astounding. They held the Saints to three total points, converting just one third down attempt out of five and earning 4.5 yards per passing attempt. While the Vikings had 100 percent red zone efficiency after scoring two touchdowns on two attempts, the Saints did not have a red zone efficiency in the first half – they simply did not enter the red zone.

But it fell apart a bit in the second half.

After a frustrating sequence for the defense – a near-pick called as an incompletion, a penalty seemingly called on the wrong team and a Jameis floating throw across the body in the red zone – the Saints found themselves within one score of the Vikings midway through the fourth quarter.

Certainly, the Vikings could have avoided this had they saved their challenge from the first half for a second-half review of Dobbs’ third-down scramble attempt or had Greg Joseph made his kick. Byron Murphy was in position to contest Winston’s ill-timed throw to the end zone, too.

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But none of that happened, and their play on the field wasn’t enough to give them a cushion to absorb bad calls from the officials.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to ignore a bad penalty against Danielle Hunter or a questionable penalty against Brian O’Neill on an otherwise scoring touchdown run from Ty Chandler. The spot on the previous play, ruled short of the first down after a Johnny Mundt screen, deserved scrutiny too.

Had Metellus not stopped Alvin Kamara on the short third-down throw in the subsequent drive, it may have been the game. Metellus’ pressure helped create a Mekhi Blackmon interception one defensive drive later, too.

Luckily, Metellus didn’t have to do it on his own — though one might regard him as the player of the game, at least on defense.

Hunter had an outstanding game as well and extended his league-leading sack total to 11.0 with another quarterback takedown in this game. Byron Murphy made some big mistakes but seemingly made up for them with equally large plays in the opposite direction – not just the game-sealing pick, but a crucial pass deflection along with a tackle-for-loss earlier in the game.

Jordan Hicks, despite injury, also played extraordinarily well. That, along with contributions from players like Harrison Smith and D.J. Wonnum – who had another great rep on his sack – was a big reason the Vikings were able to hold the Saints to 19 points.

Before Winston came into the game as a result of an injury to Derek Carr, the Saints were held to just three points, in big part because of the pressure they were able to generate – both from blitzes and their front four.

Once again, this should be considered a big win for the Brian Flores scheme. The turnaround they’ve made on defense has been astounding.

Vikings Continue to Roll

Even with the disappointments, there’s still reason for optimism. Justin Jefferson should come back soon and the Vikings are already doing a better job integrating Dobbs’ athleticism with the scheme.

They should also get K.J. Osborn back soon. And Ty Chandler maybe should have seen the field sooner, if the evidence we’ve seen on the field is worth anything. He’ll get that time with Alexander Mattison likely out next week after exiting this week’s game with a concussion.

The Vikings will still want to add another running back or promote DeWayne McBride from the practice squad, but there are opportunities in this stretch for the Vikings to improve.

But mostly, this week – like last week – seems to be an exercise in enjoying good luck more than anything else.