A must-win game in Week 5? Why the Vikings badly need to beat the Browns

It's hard to call anything a true must-win game this early in the season, but Sunday's Vikings game against the Browns in London might be as close as you can get.

The Vikings are 2-2, having dropped winnable games against the Falcons and Steelers to go with a late rally in Chicago and a blowout win over the Bengals. That feels like a fair record for the way they've played so far. In three of their four games, a struggling Minnesota offense has had six points or fewer after three quarters. Both J.J. McCarthy and Carson Wentz won their first start and then lost the next one.

The reason why this feels like a borderline must-win game for the Vikings has to do with the opponent on Sunday and what Minnesota's schedule looks like after their Week 6 bye.

The Browns are 1-3 and have had one of the worst offenses in the NFL through the first month. They've now benched 40-year-old Joe Flacco and are turning to third-round rookie Dillon Gabriel, who will make his first career start against Brian Flores' defense this weekend. Facing Flores' unique scheme in a neutral-site game feels like quite the challenge for a rookie in his starting debut.

Dillon Gabriel — Peter Casey-Imagn Images

Cleveland's defense is menacing, why makes this a very losable game for the Vikings and their banged-up offensive line. Myles Garrett and company nearly beat the full-strength Bengals in Week 1 and then stunned the Packers 13-10 in Week 3. But the Browns also lost by 24 to both the Ravens and Lions, giving them a -46 point differential that is fourth-worst in football.

The Vikings are 3.5-point favorites in a game with a remarkably low over/under total. This is expected to be a defensive slugfest, so the Vikings must find a way to make a few more plays on both sides of the ball than Cleveland does. Turnovers and penalties, which were issues for the Vikings in last week's loss to the Steelers, are going to be key. The margin for error is small.

"Consistency amongst all 11 guys on our offense, regardless of who's in, is what we're looking for," Kevin O'Connell said this week. "Because we feel like when we do those things, the little things ... right and the details, snap in and snap out, and can create some momentum in the game, we can have a good day on offense."

Getting to 3-2 at the bye is massive for a number of reasons. Morale would be low if the Vikings head home from their 10-day international trip with a pair of losses. But more importantly, being 2-3 at the bye week would lead to the real possibility of a slide that takes the Vikings out of the playoff mix.

Following the bye, the Vikings host the defending champion Eagles, who are one of two 4-0 teams heading into Week 5. Then they'll travel on a short week to play the 3-1 Chargers. Then they're in Detroit to face the 3-1 Lions, who have looked like their usual juggernaut selves since a season-opening loss to the Packers.

After that, the Vikings host the Ravens, who are 1-3 but should have a healthy Lamar Jackson by that point and are still legitimate Super Bowl contenders until proven otherwise. And if you look at the rest of the schedule, it doesn't exactly ease up over the final two months, either.

If the Vikings can get to 3-2, even going 1-3 in that four-game gauntlet would put them at 4-5, which isn't ideal but isn't a death sentence. Going 2-2 or better would have them in a good spot. But if the Vikings are 2-3, they'd have to find a way to split those four games just to feel like they're still in the hunt.

The season won't be over if the Vikings lose on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. But it sure might feel like it, given what lies ahead.

"At the end of the day, we gotta win," Justin Jefferson said. "And that's the main focus. We definitely have to get that bad taste out of our mouth from last week. Seeing the film and seeing the different things that we've put out there, we hurt ourselves a lot of times. So that's definitely something that we have been focusing on this week, just making sure that we limit the turnovers, limiting the penalties, making sure everybody's on the same page."

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