The Vikings Are A Hammer and Everything Looks Like A Nail

Harrison Smith has been in the league since 2012 and has played on some special teams.

The 2015 squad felt like it was the start of something when it went 11-5 and won the division with Teddy Bridgewater. In 2017, the Minnesota Vikings went 13-3 with Case Keenum and pulled off the

However, as he stood on the sidelines late in Minnesota’s 34-7 win over the Houston Texans, Smith turned to Justin Jefferson and told him that the Vikings have something special.

“It's still early, but there's teams that you're on, and you're like, ‘We got a little something,’” said Smith, “so we just want to continue like that. We got some good things going.”

Here’s a sign that things are good for the 3-0 Vikings: Jefferson and Smith were standing next to each other on the sideline.

“I'm not playing a little bit in the fourth quarter since we're up,” Jefferson said, beaming. “That's something I can get used to, for sure.”

Two years ago, most people had trouble believing in Minnesota because it won 11-straight one-score games. The 2022 Vikings finished with a negative point differential because the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys blew them out.

But the Vikings are pounding their opponents this year. They beat the New York Giants 28-6 in Week 1 and could have beaten the San Francisco 49ers by more than 23-17 if they had played cleaner football. According to ESPN, Minnesota has yet to have less than a 93% chance to win entering the fourth quarter in each game they’ve played.

“It feels real to me, fellas,” O’Connell said in his post-game speech. “It feels real to me.”

The Vikings beat the Giants without having to blitz frequently, allowing them to keep some of their best rushes off film. Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers tested Minnesota’s defense. However, it left Brock Purdy so confused that he complimented Flores after the game.

Houston was arguably a bigger test for the Vikings, and they held C.J. Stroud, Nico Collins, and Stefon Diggs to a single score.

“They have a great quarterback, all the great receivers, and we hold them to seven points,” said Camryn Bynum, who picked off Stroud in the fourth quarter. “That was amazing. For the offense to put up that many points, for us to start with the energy early and the momentum and the turnovers, and be able to turn the ball off a team that really doesn't turn the ball over, that felt good.”

Stroud hadn’t thrown an interception in 266 pass attempts, dating back to Week 11 last year. However, Harrison Phillips tipped his first pass of the game, and Kamu Grugier-Hill picked it.

Grugier-Hill is a reserve linebacker subbing in for the injured Ivan Pace. His pick got the crowd into the game, and the noise in U.S. Bank Stadium reached a fever pitch when Sam Darnold found Jefferson in the back of the end zone six plays later.

“I couldn't hear myself talk out there,” said Bynum. “So imagine for the offense having to check their protections, and we're doing certain things like that. We made it tough on them.”

Even with the doors open on a 70-degree fall day, the noise inside U.S. Bank Stadium is loud enough to give opposing teams the bends.

Shaquill Griffin played four seasons for the Seattle Seahawks, who call their fans the 12th man because they are so loud. After the game, he said that was the only place he’d played where they practiced with crowd noise because the home fans were so loud.

“So I get it,” he said with a smile. “It was nothing new for me.”

Griffin said that Houston’s receivers were so confused by Flores’ scheme that they called out the wrong coverages.

“Every time I line up against a receiver, he tries to guess what coverage we're in,” said Griffin. “And he gets it wrong.

“I think we're doing something right.”

Smith said Flores’ defense looks complicated, but the players find it intuitive because they’ve practiced it so often. It’s still effective even when they can’t communicate because of the crowd noise.

“Most people I see on social media and whatnot call it crazy, and that's the idea,” said Smith. “We want it to look crazy. It doesn't feel crazy to us – most of the time.

“It makes sense; it's not too much. There's moments where it can be, and we either work it out or we say, ‘That's too much.’ So, we're just trying to put ourselves in the best positions no matter what.”

Darnold threw four touchdowns for the first time since 2019 in his second year with the New York Jets. The Vikings used explosive plays to beat the Niners, but Minnesota moved the ball methodically this week. Jefferson didn’t have a catch in the second half, and they still scored 34 points.

The Vikings have built a team that can beat the Niners and Texans, who present different challenges. The offense moves the ball up and down the field, and the defense flummoxes opposing quarterbacks.

However, after starting 3-0, they have expectations — and they don’t play in Minneapolis again until Week 7 against the Detroit Lions.

“You can't predict the future, [that] we're going to go 3-0,” said Jefferson. “But we knew that if this team was going to come prepared like we knew we were going to come, and come out here and dominate the way we have been, we already know that people are going to start talking about us a little bit more.”

We don’t know if a team that Vegas had winning seven games can handle the pressure of winning their first three. However, the early indicators are that they can. When a team is hammering their opponents like they are, everyone looks like a nail.