What you need to know about Seattle’s Monday Night Football opponent, the Minnesota Vikings
This Monday inside CenturyLink Field, the NFC playoff picture will continue to take shape as the Minnesota Vikings take on the Seattle Seahawks. Here’s what you need to know about this week’s opponent.
A Rich Monday Night Football History
This season, the NFL is celebrating two milestones. The first is the 100th season of the NFL and the other is the 50th Anniversary of Monday Night Football which started in 1970.
The Vikings have been an important part of MNF history and have played in some classic games. Since the game’s inception in 1970, the Vikings have played a total of 62 Monday Night games and have a record of 29-33. You have to go all the way back to 1970 to see the Vikings first-ever Monday Night Game against the Rams.
Last year’s Monday Night Football affair, not so rich
This year’s game was similar to last season’s contest between the two teams. A Monday night contest in December with both teams in prime wildcard position. However, it didn’t end so well for the Vikings who were defeated by Seattle 21-7. If you’re a Seahawks fan, you have to hope that Russell Wilson will throw for more than 72 yards like he did in last year’s game.
Dual Wildcard teams
Win or lose, both Seattle and Minnesota should be just fine when it comes to the NFC Wildcard race. As of this reading, the Seahawks sit in the No. 5 spot and the Vikings are sitting at No. 6.
For the Vikings, their playoff positioning could change in a few weeks as they’ll go head to head with the Green Bay Packers who currently occupy the No. 3 seed. Meanwhile, the Seahawks are still sitting in second place in the NFC West while San Francisco remains in the top spot. Those two teams will match up in the season’s final week.
MVP Candidate at QB, and I’m not talking Russell Wilson
The first month of the 2019 season was pretty rough for Kirk Cousins, the Vikings seemed to slide away from the NFC race and were in a bad way. Since the month of October began, the Vikes have won six out of their last seven. One of the reasons for that turnaround is quarterback Kirk Cousins who has emerged as a sleeper MVP candidate.
According to the NFL’s Next Gen stats, Cousins is playing above what his expectations are and that is a major part why the Vikings are poised to make this deep run.
“Cousins has completed 70.6% of his passes this season, which is +7.2% above expectations (best in the NFL). Cousins’ performance has been no fluke. He has excelled when not pressured, which is the metric we can expect to be most stable going forward. Cousins has the highest TD rate (7.5%) when not under pressure and trails only Russell Wilson in passer rating (121.0).”
This story was originally published November 30, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
