The Past

Perhaps the best part of the last game the Packers played against the Vikings was that we all didn’t have to hear that stupid horn sound echo across the stadium.  With the football stadium at Mall of America covered in snow due to a collapsed dome, the Packers and Vikings played at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Stadium for much of the 2^nd half of the 2014 season and probably lost some home field advantage due to it.  The Packers managed to squeak by the Vikings 24-21.  Aaron Rodgers had a relatively quiet day with 209 yard and 2 TDs but Eddie Lacy did a ton of damage, rushing for 125 yards and a touchdown while adding another touchdown through the air.  On the other side of the ball, rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater did fairly well, throwing for 210 yards and 2 TDs but also gave an interception away.   

The Present

(All statistics courtesy of Football Outsiders, click here for a detailed description of DVOA and DYAR.  And as always defensive DVOA is the inverse of offensive DVOA so negative numbers are better.)  

As you might have guess, losing to a statistically inferior team such as the Lions will drop a team in the rankings; the Packers have now fallen to 8^th in overall DVOA, slipping two spots from their loss to the Panthers.  The biggest drop was on special teams which slid 7 spots to take its place (as is usual with the Packers) at the bottom of the league. 

While losing to previously undefeated teams such as the Broncos and Panthers wasn’t a huge hit due to their previous strong performances, losing to a weak team in midst of a rebuild is a huge vote of no confidence. 

Add that with a Vikings win last week means that the division is officially a 50-50 split between the Packer and Vikings.  The Vikings saw a almost 30% jump in winning the division while the Packers saw a drop of nearly 15%.  While the Packers are still hold the lead in winning the division and making the playoffs, this weeks game could very well decide the Packers playoff chances; Beat the Vikings and at the very worse the Packers have beaten more common opponents, lose to the Vikings and the Packers have to rely on winning the last game of the season. 

In terms of the Vikings statistics, it’s kind of like the Lions but better.  While they aren’t particularly good at anything (save maybe special teams) they aren’t miserable at anything like the Lions.  While Adrian Peterson is obviously the focal point of the offense, surprisingly the Vikings are only an average running team, ranking 11^th in the league.  Ironically, Petersons DYAR (defense adjust yards per rush) is ranked 24^th in the league while James Starks is ranked just behind him at 26^th (Eddie Lacy is 30^th for those interested).

The Future

The Vikings seem to have finally progressed out of the “win-it-all” period with Brett Farve at the helm to a young team with lots of potential, but so far not a lot to show for it.  Perhaps most importantly, the Vikings hope they’ve finally found their franchise quarterback in Teddy Bridgewater; while I don’t think he’s going to become the best quarterback in the league by any means, he’s likely the best quarterback in the division outside Rodgers. 

Getting Adrian Peterson back this year should also help the sophomore signal caller, but the Vikings have to know that the writing is on the wall for Peterson and they should start trying to find ways to win without him sooner rather than later.  Peterson has two years left on his contract but only $3 million is guaranteed each year and only by the 3^rd day of the league year, meaning the Vikings can take their time and cut Peterson without incurring any dead money.  The league has always considered Peterson’s contract something of an outlier, much like Calvin Johnson’s contract has been untouchable by all other free agent wide receivers, Peterson’s is the same but much worse since the running back position is valued so low by the league. 

The Vikings have a couple players down the line they’d probably like to resign, namely Sharrif Floyd and Harrison Smith and perhaps Matt Khalil depending on how they view his rookie year versus everything else so far.  Luckily the Vikings are pretty much average in terms of future cap space and the release of Peterson will likely also give them a lot of leeway in how they want to attack free agency.  Of course, the Vikings might give a sentimental contract to Peterson and ruin it all but even the Vikings have to know that running backs simply aren’t worth that much and Peterson is past 30 with a ton of wear on his tires. 

Overall, my personal opinion is that the Vikings are the team in the division that should worry the Packers the most in the next couple years.  Detroit is a complete mess top to bottom and will likely be entering a full rebuilding mode that should last several years.  Chicago still has to figure out what it wants to do with Jay Cutler and they’ve got too many older players taking up too much valuable cap space.  While the Vikings don’t have much to show for their current rebuild, they probably have the highest potential to catch the Packers.