Vikings embrace the moment, defeat the Packers 27-25 to set up Week 18 showdown with the Lions

Vikings players got back to the locker room several minutes ahead of Sam Darnold on Sunday evening, waiting for the quarterback’s return before they would start their celebration of a 27-25 win over the Packers. Darnold, who had thrown for a career-high 377 yards and finished his second three-touchdown game of the year against Green Bay, had to complete a postgame interview with Fox announcer Tom Brady, who had last visited U.S. Bank Stadium as New England’s quarterback in Super Bowl LII.

“We felt like we waited for a long time, and I certainly wasn’t going to interrupt that conversation,” coach Kevin O’Connell said.

It provided time for outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard to concoct a plan: When Darnold arrived, teammates welcomed him into the center of a huddle and followed Greenard’s direction to douse the quarterback with water bottles. Defensive tackle Harrison Phillips hoisted Darnold up in the middle of the huddle as the shower splashed the suit coats of team co-owners Zygi and Mark Wilf.

“I didn’t know what to do with my hands in that situation, Ricky Bobby-style,” Darnold said, referencing Will Ferrell’s character in the movie “Talladega Nights. “A fun moment, man, to be embraced by your teammates like that.”

Pick any detail you like about the scene: the congratulations from Brady, the six touchdowns in two games against the Packers, the celebration engineered by an edge rusher who had joined the Vikings the same week Darnold did in March. Would any of them have seemed plausible in March, July or even September? Uncertainty about Darnold was behind much of the lukewarm projections for the Vikings, whom oddsmakers gave an over-under of 6½ wins; O’Connell used the tepid public reaction as a foil, exhorting players to focus only on what they could control and turning the football cliché about “going 1-0 this week” into a rallying cry.

The team that signed 14 unrestricted free agents this past spring celebrated for the 14th time this season Sunday night, closing out the regular-season home schedule with its first sweep of the Packers (11-5) since 2017 and its seventh win at U.S. Bank Stadium. The cumulative effect, of all those 1-0 weeks, is this: If the Vikings (14-2) win one more time in Detroit next Sunday night, they will win 15 games in a season and clinch the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage in the playoffs for the first time since 1998.

However unbelievable it might have seemed to most outside the Vikings organization, the team’s accomplishments are irrefutable now. The Vikings reduced the battle for the NFC’s top seed to a one-game showdown, slated for NBC’s national broadcast Sunday night, as they try to reclaim the division title from the Lions team that took it from them at U.S. Bank Stadium last year.

They did it in a similar fashion to what they had done against the Packers in September, building a sizable lead before withstanding a fourth-quarter Green Bay comeback to win by two.

After two Packers touchdown drives made it 27-25 with 2:18 left, the Vikings needed a drive to kill the clock. O’Connell kept throwing, counting on Darnold to hit short throws to his running backs if nothing was open downfield and instructing him to go down if need be.

“We were not going to stop the clock on our own accord,” O’Connell said.

Darnold hit fullback C.J. Ham for 13 yards on first down and found Justin Jefferson for 9 yards on a second-and-11 after the Packers stopped Cam Akers for a 1-yard loss. With the Vikings needing two yards to finish the game and the Packers gearing up for a run, O’Connell had Darnold roll out, believing he would find space on the edge of the line.

He floated his throw to Akers over Kingsley Enagbare’s outstretched arms; Akers stumbled as he reached back to grab it. “That ball felt like it was in the air for absolutely ever,” O’Connell said.

But Akers cradled it as he went down, securing it against his chest as he somersaulted backward. The Vikings kneeled down three times to end the game.

“Sam threw a lot of balls tonight, and that one probably stressed me out the most out of his 43 attempts,” O’Connell said. “But what a play by Cam Akers. I hope fans understand just how significant what he’s been through has been and how he wanted to be a Minnesota Viking. He made that play when we absolutely needed it.”

The Vikings traded for Akers last year, and he tore his Achilles for the second time in his career before signing with the Houston Texans in the offseason. The Vikings traded for Akers again this year and turned to him Sunday with Aaron Jones nursing a quad contusion that led the Vikings to be cautious with him at the end of the game.

Akers scored on a 9-yard screen pass from Darnold to give the Vikings their final score of the day, breaking two tackles as he crossed the plane to make it 27-10.

“He’s always a super positive guy,” offensive tackle Brian O’Neill said of Akers. “He’s always [saying], ‘Good play, bad play, next play.’ ‘Ain’t nothing to it but to do it.’ He’s got his sayings, kind of keeping everybody in the present moment. So [I’m] really happy for him. I [tore] one Achilles; he did two. It’s pretty freaking cool to see him come back and have a big-time role.”

The Akers touchdown came after Packers cornerback Carrington Valentine intercepted Darnold, setting up a short touchdown drive that cut the Vikings’ lead to 10. But the Vikings’ response, coupled with the work their defense had done to hold Love under 100 passing yards well into the fourth quarter, made it seem as though a second Packers comeback attempt wouldn’t happen.

Love drove Green Bay 67 yards for a touchdown, though, hitting Romeo Doubs for a two-point conversion that made it 27-18 after Emanuel Wilson’s 5-yard TD run. Then, after Will Reichard’s second missed field-goal try of the day, Love hit Malik Heath for the score that necessitated the Vikings running out the clock.

The Vikings held Love to 64 passing yards in the first three quarters, playing man coverage behind a series of pressures that flustered the quarterback and left him little time to work downfield. Darnold went 17-for-22 for 184 yards in the first half, working over the middle to Jefferson and Jordan Addison and hitting Jalen Nailor for a 31-yard touchdown when Jefferson’s in-breaking route influenced safety Xavier McKinney and opened up space for Nailor downfield.

The Vikings led 13-3 at halftime and pulled ahead 20-3 in the third quarter when Darnold hit Addison for an 18-yard score on a stop-and-go route that beat safety Javon Bullard.

“It’s incredible,” Darnold said. “He just continues to surprise me with the way he can get in and out of cuts and his suddenness, his quick twitch. It’s very impressive.”

Aside from his interception while under pressure, so was Darnold again. And however improbable it might have seemed, the quarterback and the Vikings will be playing Sunday night to ensure the road to the Super Bowl comes through their raucous home environment.

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