If you fancy offensive football, then Monday night’s matchup between the high-scoring Buffalo Bills and suffocating Minnesota Vikings probably offended you.
Buffalo eventually pulled away in the second half, emerging with a hard-fought 23-6 victory on Nov. 9, one that improved the Bills’ record to an AFC-best 7-1. Minnesota, meanwhile, looked as incapable as ever of mounting any kind of offensive attack, and the Vikings’ futility – and second straight loss – knocked them out of first place in the NFC North.
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Yet the ramifications of this particular game could very well go far beyond what occurred on the field at U.S. Bank Stadium. Monday night’s widely dispersed winners and losers are as follows:
Surely one of these teams could – and should – be encouraging the Vikings to take a veteran quarterback off their hands ahead of the league’s Tuesday trade deadline in a bid to get Minnesota’s offense merely elevated to subpar.
It won’t go down as one of the Bills QB’s more memorable games. But he didn’t get KO’d by the Minnesota D, either, and made enough plays to keep Buffalo on a track toward the AFC’s No. 1 playoff seed.
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As the Vikings come back to the pack − and the Pack − after losing their second in a row following a 6-0 start, the surging Chicago Bears have taken over first place in the division … though they’re only one game ahead of the fourth-place Green Bay Packers.
Minnesota’s all-time leading rusher (11,747 yards) and the 2012 league MVP was inducted into the Vikings’ Ring of Honor on Monday night … though hard to figure why coach Kevin O’Connell didn’t put the likely first-ballot Hall of Famer into the lineup. (And, yes, “AD” looks like he could still play, even at 41.)
