On December 15th, 2019, the 9-4 Vikings were on the road, playing a 5-8 Chargers team in Philip Rivers' last year as LA's starter. In front of a sea of purple, the Vikings forced seven turnovers and rolled to an easy 39-10 victory.
That was the last time the Vikings won a game by at least 17 points. They've played 58 times since then (55 regular season, 3 playoffs), going 29-29 without a single win by more than 16 — they beat the Packers and Bears by exactly 16 last season. Not only has the franchise been the definition of mediocrity over the past few years, they seem to always play down to the level of bad teams.
With the Houston Texans beating the Jaguars by 20 last weekend, the Vikings are now the only team without a win by 17 points since the start of the 2020 season. The Bills have done it 17 times in the regular season alone since then. 26 of the other 31 teams have done it at least three times.
Prior to 2020, the Vikings had at least one blowout win (again, we're using the arbitrary bar of a 17-point differential) in every regular season since 1987.
This feels partially like a Kirk Cousins stat, although he led the Vikings to seven such wins in his first two seasons in Minnesota. It probably has more to do with the fact that they haven't fielded a great defense since that 2019 season ended. Whenever the Vikings have seemed poised to run away from a team in recent years, something — whether it's Cousins, the offensive line, the defense, whatever — has kept them from doing so each time.
Can the Vikings end the streak on Sunday against the 0-3 Panthers and rookie QB Bryce Young?
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