With the last four regular-season games meaning everything to a potential postseason for Minnesota, the Sunday contest against the Detroit Lions should be looked at as a new effort pointed at a singular task. That task is playing their best brand of football and bringing a win to the fans in US Bank Stadium.

It may too late in the season to continue “accentuating the positive” with the 2019 Minnesota Vikings. Though they face only the challenge of the 3-8-1 Lions this afternoon, their recent problems on offense and defense may again appear in this game, problems that won’t just evaporate on the following Sunday.

Defensive problems like allowing 169 points and 17 touchdowns in their last seven games, giving up over 400 yards of total offense in each of their last four and being chewed up by 218 yards of rushing by the Seattle Seahawks last Monday night.

A Drop In Rank

Vikings’ head coach Mike Zimmer offered a few familiar words this week on his team’s lapse in defensive execution and swiftly-dropping league rank:

“We got to play better defensively than we did the other night,” Zimmer said. “For us to have the ball run on us like that was kind of a misnomer; it hasn’t been like that in quite awhile. We got to do a better job really all the way around. Perimeter run force, being in the right place, being in the right gaps, being more disciplined.”

Offensively, the Viking offense has also had trouble duplicating their remarkable numbers of October, averaged only 336 yards a game in their last four, with their rush attack accumulating a mere 211 yards in crucial games against the Chiefs, Broncos, and Seahawks combined.

The Vikings have indeed won six of the last eight games they have played, but each of those six wins were against teams with a losing record.

But none of that matters now. All that matters is a win over the Lions.

Purple People Eaters

After a loss in Seattle that entertained so many across the nation on MNF this week (but again created consternation among the Viking ranks), this Minnesota team now returns to the sidelines of US Bank Stadium where they will be revitalized by the roar of tens of thousands of devout Vikings fans.

They will be challenged by a team with its own problems, but one of those problems is not possessing a 8-4 record that puts them in both NFC Wildcard position as well as in striking distance of the NFC title like Minnesota.

The Vikings have been playing football with numerous injuries keeping starters out and some in limited in performance, most notably wide receiver Adam Thielen. They’ll have to tough it out today against a Lions’ defense ranked 29th in yards allowed, but it appears that Thielen is close to a return to the field–or so Ian Rapoport says--and may be suited up when the Vikings travel to Los Angeles next week to play the Chargers.

That’s good news. Meanwhile, Minnesota should use this game to get back to the things that have made QB Kirk Cousins the NFL Player-of-the-Month and RB Dalvin Cook the league rushing leader just weeks ago.

Left tackle Reilly Reiff returns from concussion protocol and this offense is healthy. Vikings OC Kevin Stefanski needs to show Vikings fans that this talented group–even without Thielen–can sustain drives and control a football game with their run-first attack.

If we don’t see it against the Lions today, somebody going to have to admit they’ve got business problems.

More Bending, Less Breaking

With an undersized QB that has one NFL start in the books, let’s hope we don’t have Mike Zimmer looking for answers to keep him from partnering up with Lions’ WR Marvin Jones for another four-touchdown game.

With both Linval Joseph and Everson Griffen starting today, it’ll be important to examine their play. Both players are essential to the Vikings playoff push and to say they have not looked their best of late is an understatement. The two defensive lineman combined for only 5 tackles in the Seattle loss; a game in which the Seahawks ran the ball 43 times.

But that was then and this is now.

Last quarter of the regular-season slate. Week One.

Time for the ‘Big Push’, as coach Vince Lombardi used to tell his exhausted–but World Champion–Green Bay Packers.

If Minnesota can prove that this game is the most important game on their schedule, that this game is the key to winning the next game and the one after that, then the 2019 Minnesota Vikings and their fans still have a lot to cheer about in December.