2023 Week 1

Minnesota Vikings vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers

By Tim Coveney 

 

The Vikings begin the season with a crushing defeat that ends all hope of relevance as potential Super Bowl champions – again. 

If we can’t beat the Buccaneers clearly, we’re going to lose every game this year and finish with an 8-9 mid table record – again. If only they’d play the starters in pre-season, everything would be fine! Jefferson’s contract doesn’t get done, and now that a 17-0 regular season isn’t possible, he’s clearly leaving, or being traded because obviously a player that is good is only going to play for a sure-fire Super Bowl winner (and we can name those).  

Ed Ingram strips his own quarterback, that’s ridiculous, we’ve never seen that before, Ingram does this sort of thing all the time, get rid of him! Kirk was Kirk – again. The O line sucks, the secondary sucks, the Vikings are 0-1 and done and it sucks.  

Reality sucks! 

Except… 

That isn’t reality. 

No seriously. 

It isn’t. 

I mean, surely the line “we’re going to lose every game this year and finish with an 8-9 mid table record” gave it away a little bit? Lose 17 games but finish 8-9? Mathematically impossible. 

But from a lot of fan chats, keyboard warriors and the like, that level of contradiction and hysteria is flying around.  

Stop. Take a breath. Let’s try and find actual objective reality. 

 

So what did happen for the Vikings week 1?

The Vikings lost a one-score game. Sure, they were favourites to win by a touchdown. Sure, the Buccaneers aren’t considered a strong team this season. But the difference between weak and strong teams in the NFL isn’t like the difference between, say the top and bottom of the Premier League. 

The parity set up in the league sees to that. So, on Sunday we saw the Buccs win by a field goal in a game where they won the turnover battle 3-0. That’s huge. And yet there was only a field goal in it. Last year the Vikings went outrageously 11-0 in one score games in the regular season. Everyone knew that wasn’t sustainable. Sooner or later, one had to go the other way. It did, in the playoffs. This year we are 0-1 in one score games. It’s inevitable that we’ll be 0-11 then, right? Of course not. This is one game. 

Sure, the upcoming schedule is tough, but we knew that already. There aren’t easy NFL games. But no team has a divine right to win any game. No team can say now that they will win the Super Bowl. Last year Buffalo were huge favourites to beat the Vikings. When Cousins was stopped short of the goal line, it was game over. Only it wasn’t. An outrageous stroke of fortune, a one in a million eventuality gave the Vikings the chance to win the game (If you don’t know or remember what happened go watch it again – no spoilers). 

Do we expect that every time? Of course not. I doubt we’ll ever see something like that again. 

 

What to do with Ed Ingram

So, we come to Ed Ingram stripping Kirk. Why was his hand up? I haven’t checked, but I suspect he’s done that as part of his mechanics in every game he’s ever played, right back through his college, maybe even high school career. Loads of other guards do the same. No one has ever seen it interfere with the snap before. It was a fluke chance, a one in a million. 

I watched the game at the Hippodrome Casino. On our way out I was talking with other fans about gambling in casinos and why people believe in streaks of luck when they simply don’t exist. The same is true here. Ingram has had his struggles but even without any changes being made, it is likely that his hand will never get in the way of the snap, ever again. No need to panic. 

 

How did Kirk play?

Kirk was Kirk. That’s a loaded phrase in any group of Vikings fans. But he threw well when he had time. Sure, he’s not Mahomes, so the Vikings join the other 30 teams who can say that about their QB. He’s not Rodgers either. But right now, that also means his Achilles tendon is intact. 

Is Kirk the future? Is he the problem? Everyone has their opinion. But he is the QB this year and he will do what he does which is to pass well, organize the team, and be one of the top 15 or so quarterbacks on the planet. Oh sorry, you wanted number 1? So does everyone, but only one team gets him. 

The O line and the secondary

Yes, there are issues. Every team has issues to fix, even the Cowboys players will be getting corrections despite shutting out and flattening the Giants 40-0. Can we fix all the problems before Thursday? No. Can we make some changes to hide some of the issues? Yes. That is what the coaching staff will spend this week doing. 

Last year the Vikings starters didn’t play in the preseason. You know what? They did pretty well. So, you can’t draw an automatic link between no preseason action and poor performances week 1. Something else went wrong, but the coaches and players are smart people. They will figure it out. 

 

Jefferson’s contract

Jefferson is in year four of his contract. The Vikings already picked up the 5th year option, meaning he is already under contract next season. Even if a deal couldn’t be done, they could franchise tag him for 2025. So, the team has control for this season plus two more.

There was no need to get the contract done this year. JJ wanted it to get a big pay rise (deserved) and the team wanted it to secure his future now. But they couldn’t finalize a deal. So, what next? What’s next is that at the end of the season the team will still want to secure JJ’s future, JJ will still want a payday and they will work it out. The team will probably lose out more on this because he will only get more expensive as other players get their deals done. But this is not a sign of acrimony between team and player. Much was made of a photo of JJ sitting looking dejected on the side-line. I bet I could have taken a photo of thousands of Vikings fans sitting on their couches looking the same at the same moment. Is it because they haven’t got a new contract with the team? Or is it because the team lost?  

 

Back to reality

The reality is we are one game into a season. That’s not enough of a sample size to draw any conclusion. You can point to any fact and make it fit your own pet theory. You might even be proved right in time. But right now, the reality is that we need to wait and see how things will pan out. Will it all be muck? Will there be a glint of gold in there? We don’t know until we play the games.

The reality is wait and see. That’s a bit boring though. Speculation is a lot more fun. Just don’t get the two mixed up. If you’re unsure what is the reality and what is the speculation, chances are that the dull option is the real one. 

Reality sucks! 

 

 

 

Author: Tim Coveney

Editors: Tommy Beauchene, Rich Dawson, Jacqui Melrose, Ella Burt