The Minnesota Vikings fell to 4-5 following a 27-19 defeat to the Baltimore Ravens on November 9 at U.S. Bank Stadium. Their offense struggled, flagged for eight false start penalties in front of the home crowd.
Second-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy looked to carry momentum from his outing against the Detroit Lions, but ran into difficulties, finishing 20 of 42 for 248 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.
Minnesota will need to turn the page to Week 11, and they will have their second meeting of the season against their NFC North rival, the Chicago Bears, who are coming off a win in Week 10 and are 6-3 after their victory over the New York Giants.
Although the game is still a few days away, former NFL coach Dave Wannstedt has sent a warning to the Vikings’ defense ahead of their contest on November 16.
“The last two minutes of the game, I’ll tell you what, the first thought that comes to my mind is Caleb Williams almost performs better when he’s under pressure than when he’s in the flow of the game, if that makes sense,” Wannstedt said on November 9 on Marquee Sports Network. “You talk about avoiding the rush. I think the guy avoided six sacks today. Not just sacks where guys ran by, I’m talking about where they had a hand on him.
“It’s just incredible what he can do to keep a play alive. And these are unscripted plays. If you’re a wide receiver, tight end, or running back on our team, we’re going to call the play in the huddle. This is it. This is what we’re all trying to do. Everybody got it? Good.”
Vikings Need to Fix a Major Issue
While the Vikings’ defense are receiving a warning, the offense have issues to fix if they want to get a win and climb back to .500. According to ESPN, the eight false start penalties tie for the second-most in a single game since 2000.
After the loss to Baltimore, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell shared his thoughts on the false start issues that the team had.
“Well, I think we got to have a conversation as a group,” O’Connell told reporters postgame. “What transpired? It doesn’t feel like all eight of those were the same scenario, the same sequence. We try to eliminate them all.
“That’s been a huge point of what we think it’s going to take to win the game every week, whether it’s Monday or Wednesday or Friday, talking with the team about eliminating those self-inflicteds, and we didn’t do that in any way, shape, or form. We’ve got to fix it. We’ve got to understand what was different today than what had been something we felt like we eliminated from maybe early on in the season.”
Vikings Could’ve Defeated Ravens
Even with the false starts and Jefferson barely making an impact, Minnesota stayed in the fight and had a chance to even the score on its last drive. That opportunity slipped away, though and they head into the Bears game riding a loss.
After the game, O’Connell spoke about how the result sat with him, admitting he was still carrying the weight of the offense’s mistakes well after the final whistle.
“To have the football with a chance to tie the game there at the end was an encouraging thing considering how many things we did we can’t do if we want to beat a good football team like that,” O’Connell added. “The players fought, they tried to overcome some things we did to ourselves.
“Losing the turnover battle 3-0 and the penalty situation, which we have to get fixed immediately — specifically the eight pre-snap [penalties] — not acceptable in any way. We got to fix it, and we will.”
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