The Minnesota Vikings have found their footing late in the season by leaning on their defense in recent weeks. The result is the team is now riding a four-game winning streak with a chance to make it five when they play the Packers on Sunday.
One of the things we like to look at, apart from their record, is where the Vikings land in power rankings. ESPN’s team power rankings show where the Vikings land, and they went up two spots after the Week 17 win. ESPN’s power rankings heading into Week 18 have the Vikings at 17th, up from 19th last week.
Advertisement
However, they remain behind the Detroit Lions (15th), Green Bay Packers (12th), and the Chicago Bears (9th).
They always include a unique angle to their power rankings, and in this one, they had beat writers discuss each team’s biggest takeaways from the season. For ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, it was the blunt take that quarterback J.J. McCarthy was not ready to be an NFL starter.
He writes, “McCarthy has struggled with his accuracy, an issue caused in part by mechanics that were so out of whack, the Vikings put him through remedial throwing sessions during their Week 6 bye. He has also proved slow to process his reads in the Vikings’ pure progression system, which throws off the timing on many of his passes. As a result, his play has been below NFL standard for most of his nine starts and is the primary reason the Vikings missed the playoffs. It is understandable, though. McCarthy was the youngest and least experienced member of the last year’s QB draft class.”
A rather blunt but honest statement on the state of the Vikings, despite them riding the winning streak they currently find themselves on.
This article originally appeared on Vikings Wire: Where do the Vikings land in ESPN’s Week 18 power rankings?