BEWARE! THE TRAP GAME!

Let’s take a little trip back to 2018. The Vikings were going to host the Buffalo Bills in week three. The hapless Bills and their rookie quarterback, Josh Allen. Easy win! Every expert was picking the Vikings to win this one going away. No problem. Vikings fans were anticipating a stress free day of football. Then the game started. I got a bad feeling as soon as on 3rd down Linval Joseph contacted Allen’s helmet with his and gave them a free 1st down. It cascaded from there with poor offensive line play, Kirk Cousins fumbling 3 times, and Buffalo seemingly able to score at will with a short field. The Vikings couldn’t recover from 27 point first half by the Bills and barely scored a touchdown in the waning moments of the 4th quarter. It was brutal and only added to the sting of the tie game the week before at Green Bay. OK, enough reminiscing.

Looking at week three this year looks great! After a disappointing week two at Green Bay the Vikings have the struggling Oakland Raiders coming to town and …… uh oh.

Yes, the infamous trap game that any team, no matter how good can get beaten in! You see it every year and fantasy owners and pick ’em leagues get cleaned out by one smart pick that ends up biting them in the end. There’s usually no explanation other than two professional football teams take the field and one plays better than the other that day. Regardless of records or talent, it happens. After last week’s near comeback from the brink win the Vikings, and especially Kirk Cousins cannot have a bad game or the fans will turn on them quickly.

Last week after the Packers went up 21-0 in the first half the Vikings defense finally came to life and never let them score again. That’s good except they let them score quickly and put too many points up to overcome. The week before they smothered Matt Ryan at US Bank and never let up until backup player were in later and the Falcons got a couple late touchdowns in the 4th quarter. The defense needs to come out in the same fashion and do the same to Derek Carr and the Raiders offense and never let up. The Raiders have been in turmoil with the whole Antonio Brown fiasco and a team in turmoil needs to stay that way. They’ve got nothing to lose at this point since they’re moving to Las Vegas next year (maybe).

VIKINGS AT PACKERS FULL HIGHLIGHTS HERE : VIKINGS.COM

On offense the Vikings need to rebuild Kirk Cousin’s confidence from the fan base and maybe himself. Cousins is very self aware and said earlier this week that if he continues to play how he did last week that he won’t be playing here for long. He admits there was no play there in the end zone on his errant toss that ended up an interception. Sure the coaches could have kept running the ball since they’ve excelled in that aspect the first two games, but the thought was to get the Packers off kilter and thinking of all the possibilities. It’s Kirk’s job to protect the ball in that situation and just throw it away, play another down, and get the go ahead score and let the defense get back to work. Now the Vikings did get the ball back after stopping the Packers, but then they were pushing too hard and couldn’t get down the field again. Dalvin Cook is doing great at running back as he has rushed for over 100 yards in both games and almost ran the Vikings to a win as he broke off a 75 yard touchdown run early in the game and was carving up the Packers on the ground on that potentially game winning, alas failed winning drive. The Vikings also need to avoid stupid penalties. Stephon Diggs took off his helmet in the game after a spectacular throw from Cousins for a touchdown and cost 15 yards on the extra point which got blocked. Adam Thielen had an offsetting penalty before that was uncalled for. Luckily an opposing defender got caught being stupid too so there wasn’t any harm.

The Vikings should win this game and get things back on track. The roar of the home crowd and the thundering “SKOL Chant” will help. The defense needs to stay the force it is and have minimal penalties. They don’t necessarily need to win by 40 points, but they need a strong showing, especially by Cousins and the coaching staff. They need to not over think or over coach him to get him back on track and ride that rushing attack till someone stops it. To borrow from the Raiders former owner, Al Davis and his mantra: just win baby! SKOL!