Giant Narrative Flip

Vikings 28
Giants 10

Okay, can everybody calm down a little bit now?

After a week that felt like a month, with the latest round of anti-Cousins rage, the podcast apology, and the Diggs drama, the Vikings went out there today and mostly dominated the Giants, for their 3rd convincing win of the season.

Everything clicked. The offense was efficient and diversified right from the start. Kirk came out firing and kept it up the whole first half. He had nearly 300 yards by halftime. A lot of that was to Thielen, who had just a monster game. And Dalvin was running strong too. Each fed off the other. Kirk got outside the pocket a lot, and had time to really look downfield. We probably hit more mid-range plays than the first 4 weeks combined.

The highlight of the day on offense was the 98 yard drive in the 2nd quarter. Pinned deep by a punt, the Vikes went right down the field, with several big plays, finishing with a perfect lob to Thielen for the touchdown. It was 10-0 and the game was never in serious doubt again.

We did allow a long kick return, and then Daniel Jones did hit a long TD pass after this. But that brief momentum was immediately squashed by another scoring drive. It was just a field goal, but it kept up the good O vibes.

We got the ball back again, and again drive right down the field. Then Dalvin broke loose and was about to go in for another score when he got stripped of the ball. Giants recovered at the 1. That's the kind of huge momentum swing play that could have sent the whole thing crumbling.

Instead the Zim Reapers immediately swung it back. Practically the entire defense buzzsawed through the Giants line to tackle their poor running back in the endzone for a safety.

Then after the free kick, you guessed it, the offense went right down the field again. This drive would have resulted in 6, but Diggs for some reason refused to do a simple block at the end of a long Dalvin run that would have given Cook a touchdown. We couldn't punch it in and only go 3. It was 18-7 at the half but should have been more. Thankfully the Diggs laziness and Cook's fumble did not prove at all to be game changing mistakes.

The 3rd quarter was kind of amazing. The Giants go down the field, helped by a preposterous horse collar tackle call on Rhodes(he grabbed the jersey in the middle of the.back, nowhere near the neck), but we gold em to a field goal. Then, on the field goal we get called for an absurd personal foul for rushing the snapper, or something. Whatever. Replay showed we didn't do shit. But the defense held the Giants AGAIN and they still only got the 3.

Then after we drive for another Thielen touchdown to basically put the game away, the Giants drive again, and again did so due to atrocious calls. One was a DPI on Waynes that at worst was mutual contact. Zim challenged, but lost. That's the seedy trick of this new PI rule. You can call a ticky tack flag initially, but it needs to be incontrovertible to overturn.

Then Rhodes gets called for illegal contact cause a Giant receiver ran right into him. We've now been fucked on this exact play twice. The Diggs TD in Green Bay was stolen away cause our guy ran into their guy, and now this time their guy ran into our guy. And both times we get flagged. Wrongly.

But justice prevailed again, as Danielle Hunter burst through on 4th down and engulfed Jones for the sack. So that's THREE goal line stands in one quarter. Amazing. This was the best collective game by this defense all year. Special note to Barr, Hunter and a career best game by Mike Hughes.

I do like that on top of everything else we were able to slow down the media's already very annoying Daniel Jones hype train. He might wind up being good but the media already had gim.in Canton.

But most enjoyable is turning the mood around with the Vikings. Now, I know nothing will ever satisfy the Cousins haters. I could retire if I could monetize all the people who were already saying "it was just the Giants." Whatever haters. These games still count. If you will only trash them for losses while giving them no credit for wins you're just a piece of shit. Kirk played an outstanding game today. A week after playing probably his worst game as a Viking he played arguably his best. He won't need to be doing any apologizing to Thielen this week. It's almost as if the Bears are simply a really bad matchup, particularly in the house of horrors, and using such a game as your sole barometer for what this team is is fucking asinine.

As for Diggs, well, he's clearly getting diva-ish. It's not necessarily a dealbreaker. Randy Moss was always a diva. Cris Carter was a diva. If the other players and coaches can deal with his shenanigans then no worries. I'm more worried about him not making that block for Dalvin, or his questionable effort on a pass today that might have been a TD if he had tried to actually go get the ball. We'll see. This could just be a blip.

This was a big win, and now we need another one. Philly comes to town next week (get your full beer can projectiles ready). The Vikings certainly can win that game. Of course if we do beat the Eagles they'll only be 3-3 and not a winning team, so Kirk will get no credit. It's going to be an awfully big game though. Gotta keep pace with the Packers, who are starting to look like a team that will get every conceivable break all year. But there's a clear path for this team to get to 6-2.