Vikings Take Care of Business at Home in 20-7 Victory Over Lions
The Minnesota Vikings are a significantly better football team than the Detroit Lions. That was the case coming into Sunday's game, and it held true throughout the afternoon during a 20-7 victory.
This was no thrilling, back-and-forth contest like the Vikings' recent games against the Seahawks and Cowboys. There was no halftime deficit to overcome like there was against the Broncos. For the first time since Week 8 against Washington, the Vikings simply came out and beat an inferior team without having to play a perfect game.
There is room for improvement, but overall, this was a fairly complete performance for the home team in purple. The Vikings seemed content to move the ball methodically, not taking many shots down the field or attempting risky throws into coverage. Kirk Cousins mostly dinked and dunked his way to 242 yards and a touchdown – completing 24 of 30 passes – and the Vikings' running back duo of Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison combined for 108 yards and a touchdown on 32 carries.
Defensively, the Vikings made it a "welcome to the NFL" type of day for the Lions' third-string quarterback, rookie David Blough. Blough was held to 205 passing yards, more than half of which came in garbage time. He was intercepted twice and was sacked five times, three of which came at the hands of Danielle Hunter in the first half.
One week after being gashed by the Seattle rushing attack, the Vikings held the Lions to 3.2 yards per carry and didn't allow a run longer than seven yards. Blough and the entire Lions offense could get nothing going against Mike Zimmer's defense until the game had already been decided.
The Vikings opened the scoring with an impressive touchdown catch by rookie Bisi Johnson. Filling in for Adam Thielen once again, Johnson showed some serious leaping ability to get up and snag Cousins' throw in the back of the end zone for his third TD reception of the year.
The game felt like it was decided in the final two minutes of the first half. For the first time all day, the Lions drove deep into Vikings territory and threatened to score. Trailing just 10-0 at the time, a touchdown would've made things interesting.
Instead, Blough held onto the ball too long and was sacked by Hunter. Matt Prater missed the ensuing 45-yard field goal, and the Vikings got the ball back. Cousins took his only true deep shot of the game, finding Stefon Diggs for 44 yards, and Cook punched it in for a touchdown to put the Vikings up 17.
After that, the game felt out of reach for the Lions. It was a fairly uneventful second half, with the Lions unable to get onto the board until late in the fourth quarter.
The Vikings move to 9-4 on the season and stay undefeated at home (6-0). They'll head out west next weekend to take on the LA Chargers.
