For three quarters Sunday, the Vikings defense dominated the Kansas City Chiefs, holding them scoreless and permitting them to enter field-goal range just once.
Vikings hang on to beat Chiefs 16-10
Defense leads the way in victory over Kansas City.
October 19, 2015 at 4:57PM
The offense had provided 13 points by the start of the fourth, and with the way the game was going, it felt as if that would be 12 more than the Vikings needed.
But with just under five minutes left in the game, the Vikings were suddenly hanging on for dear life against a one-win Chiefs team that was without several starters, including star running back Jamaal Charles and Jeremy Maclin, their new go-to receiver.
It took a lucky break and a late stand from their defense for the Vikings to survive with a 16-10 win at TCF Bank Stadium in a game that shouldn't have been close.
"I had to get my pacemaker readjusted after that one," coach Mike Zimmer joked.
Kansas City ceased the shutout with 13:15 left when kicker Cairo Santos split the uprights from 48 yards out. After quarterback Teddy Bridgewater threw his second interception of the game, the Chiefs advanced into Vikings territory again.
On third-and-10, the Vikings blitzed seven defenders. The Chiefs were ready. Quarterback Alex Smith fired a screen pass to wide receiver Albert Wilson, who burst through a wall of Chiefs blockers to race 42 yards for a touchdown that made the score 13-10.
"I wish I had that one back," Zimmer said of his decision to send the house.
After kicker Blair Walsh drilled a 45-yard field goal to increase the lead to six points, the Chiefs quickly crossed midfield with 4:46 left when their big tight end, Travis Kelce, caught a pass from Smith then rumbled down the left sideline for a 37-yard gain.
On the next play, though, Chiefs running back Charcandrick West fumbled when Chiefs left tackle Donald Stephenson, who was engaged with rookie defensive end Danielle Hunter on West's shotgun run, accidentally punched the ball out of his teammate's hands. Defensive end Brian Robison pounced on it to put an end to that threat.
The Chiefs got the ball back with just under three minutes left. But the defense forced four straight incompletions to close out the victory and alleviate the anxiety.
"I'm already going bald and that stressed me out a little bit more," said cornerback Captain Munnerlyn, whose hairline, at age 27, is dropping into prevent coverage.
The Vikings, stretching the field vertically more often than usual, threw the ball around with ease in the first half. Bridgewater had 176 passing yards by halftime. Electric rookie receiver Stefon Diggs, who finished with 129 receiving yards, provided big play after big play. Tight end Kyle Rudolph caught a touchdown pass.
Even though running back Adrian Peterson rushed for just 16 yards on 17 first-half carries, the Vikings moved into the red zone on three of their first four possessions. The first ended with an interception when Bridgewater opted to chuck a third-down pass into double coverage instead of out of bounds. They came away with 10 points on the others.
Kansas City, meanwhile, gained just 51 yards in the first half. The visitors didn't cross midfield until late in the second quarter and only got as far as the Vikings' 46-yard line.
In the second half, the Chiefs tightened up their coverage in the secondary and continued to pop Peterson, who averaged 2.3 yards per carry and finished with 60, around the line of scrimmage. Bridgewater threw his second interception in the fourth quarter when the Vikings led 13-3 and had a chance to put the game out of reach.
"Really, I thought in the first half we were fairly dominating," Zimmer said. "And that's the kind of game you worry about when you're really winning football games and you give them a chance to hang around and hang around. You kind of saw what happened."
But the defense, which last month helped the Vikings close out their back-to-back wins against the Detroit Lions and San Diego Chargers with authority, got the job done again.
Defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd barged into the backfield to stuff West on a fourth-and-1 play deep in Vikings territory in the third quarter. And they rebounded after the Wilson touchdown to keep the Chiefs out of the end zone on those two late possessions.
"It was amazing for us to be able to do that as a unit. That just shows how far we have come as a defense," Floyd said, referencing last year's blown leads in Buffalo and Miami.
The Vikings, with hopes of catching the Green Bay Packers in the NFC North, could not afford to give this game away to an inferior team. Thankfully, the Chiefs were just bad enough that they could pick up the win despite playing nowhere near peak performance.
It was by no means a pretty or perfect win, but the Vikings will gladly take it.
"I told them in the locker room after the game it is never easy to win in this league. I know all of the media are saying how soft the [coming] schedule is," Zimmer said. "Everybody in this league is good, so there are no soft spots in any schedules. I told our team all week long this was going to be a nail-biter and as you can tell from my nails, [it was].
Mike Conley was in Minneapolis, where he sounded the Gjallarhorn at the Vikings game, on Sunday during the robbery.
