Five extra points: Greg Joseph not the only special-teams hero; Adam Thielen foils an interception

The race isn't over, but this 1/50^th portion the Associated Press NFL awards committee is finding it hard not to vote for Kevin O'Connell as NFL Coach of the Year. He's 11-0 in one-score games. He's pushed Kirk Cousins nine games above .500. And now he's become a Kicker Whisperer Extraordinaire after the Vikings won their second straight game by walk-off field goal, this one a franchise-record 61-yarder by Greg Joseph to beat the Giants 27-24 at U.S. Bank Stadium on Saturday. "KO never lost faith in Greg," said Pro Bowl long-snapper Andrew DePaola. Easier said than done, eh, Mike Tice? Eh, Mike Zimmer? Not long ago, Joseph missed five PATs and five straight field of 50 yards or longer. Now, Joseph has made 20 straight kicks. "Kevin kept everything the same," DePaola said. "He always put him back there and said the same thing, 'Hey, you're our guy. You got this.' If his confidence ever wavered, he never showed it around us."

Adam Thielen caught one ball for 6 yards but still made a big impact on this game. Huh? Three snaps after the Giants took a 13-10 lead, Cousins appeared to have thrown an ugly interception right to cornerback Cor'Dale Flott, who had easily jumped Thielen's route. "At that point, you're just playing DB because there was no chance of me making a play on the ball," Thielen said. "I raked at it as hard as I could to get it to move." It didn't appear initially that he did. Upon the booth review that comes with all possession changes, the interception was overturned because Thielen had managed to move the ball ever so slightly as Flott went to the ground. The Vikings scored a touchdown nine plays later to regain the lead early in the fourth quarter. "I did play some DB in high school," said the Detroit Lakes alum.

Vikings special teams coordinator Matt Daniels called the same punt block scheme that had failed a week earlier against the Colts. "This time, we pulled it off," special teams standout Josh Metellus said of his blocked punt, which came with 4:02 left and set up a 29-yard touchdown drive for an eight-point lead. "I'm just the guy who got his hand on the ball; it's really a team effort," Metellus said. "I'm appreciative of Pat Jones. I went left and Pat went around to the right and took the center and the eyes of the personal protector. Then I was able to get by the center and get the ball." Meanwhile, a week after having a punt blocked and returned for a touchdown, Vikings punter Ryan Wright had a couple of shanks. The first one went only 28 yards. The second one, he got a lucky bounce as the ball rolled to 57 yards. Wright, a rookie, also had his first touchback in 70 punts this season.

Both teams went into the game ranked seventh in turnover differential (plus-4). The Giants were tied with Philly for fewest giveaways (13) but the Vikings won the turnover battle 2-0. One takeaway came from a guy in the twilight of his career (Patrick Peterson). The other one came from a rookie in the crack-of-dawn of what could become quite a career (Brian Asamoah). "My first takeaway," said Asamoah, whose strip of tight end Daniel Bellinger conjured memories of former Bears cornerback Charles "Peanut" Tillman and how he mastered punching the ball loose. The play opened the second quarter and led to the Vikings taking a 10-0 lead on Joseph's first field goal. "We work on punching the ball every day, so I'm trained for that play," the inside linebacker said. "I hit all ball. It came out. I picked it up. I ran with [12 yards] with it." A week after playing a career-high 21 snaps on defense, Asamoah played even more on Saturday.

The first of three Vikings red-zone touchdowns was a fine example of how this team maximizes its versatile personnel. "I felt nobody around me," tight end T.J. Hockenson said of his 12-yard touchdown reception in the back of the end zone. "It was one of those things where they lost me." The Vikings used two tight ends, a fullback, a running back and one receiver on that play. Tight end Johnny Mundt was tight left with fullback C.J. Ham to his left. Hockenson was tight right with Justin Jefferson wide right. "It was 22X," Hockenson said of the call. "So, yeah, that's a run tell. And with that, we run some nakeds [bootlegs] off that. To run the naked, really fake [the run] and throw to the back of the end zone, that's a tough one to cover." Ham was the first option, but he couldn't get open. With Jefferson drawing attention on the other side, Hockenson said he was able to "take my time working on that route" as he crossed from right to left for the easy pitch-and-catch.