With each win, the Vikings pull away from the pack and build their margin for error

The Vikings on Sunday proved again that they could beat a mediocre team with a bad or backup quarterback, that luck is the residue of play design, that you can win a certain division these days by mastering the fourth quarter.

Eight games into Kevin O'Connell's head coaching career, the Vikings have the second-best record in the NFL and a 4½-game lead in the NFC North over the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears, who are one game out of last place.

Against Washington, the Vikings didn't play particularly well but won 20-17 because they had the better coach and quarterback.

They have yet to be outscored in a fourth quarter. Their cumulative fourth-quarter advantage is 70-37.

When a league is geared toward parity, every team is going to have talent. The coach and quarterback have to pull your franchise away from the muck in the middle, and on Sunday, that's what O'Connell and Kirk Cousins did.

Anyone still promoting Taylor "Horseshoe" Heinicke as an NFL starter isn't watching the games. The Vikings' defense, which has made its reputation by bending and not breaking, treated Heinicke like kindling.

If not for a beautiful lead block by an official on Vikings safety Cam Bynum that turned a possible Bynum interception into an unearned 49-yard touchdown from Heinicke to Curtis Samuel, Heinicke's stats would have looked like Josh Freeman's during his woeful Vikings experiment.

Two plays later after that fourth-quarter interception, Cousins threw a beautiful pass to Dalvin Cook for a 12-yard touchdown that tied the score at 17-17.

Before Heinicke threw away the game, his coach, Ron Rivera, threw away two timeouts in the second half, one called because he wasn't ready to call a play on fourth-and-1. Without those timeouts, the Vikings were able to run the clock down before kicking the game-winning field goal.

Rivera's team was in that predicament because one of his players roughed the Vikings' snapper on a previous field-goal attempt — the kind of unforced error that should be coached out of players long before they play a game.

Once again, the Vikings were lucky to face an opponent that was either injured or mediocre — or in this case, both. Heinicke is playing only because starting quarterback Carson Wentz is hurt — and when Wentz is your starter, you're not a serious franchise anyway.

Cousins, under intense pressure much of the game, managed to throw for 265 yards and two touchdowns, along with an interception. The interception came as the result of a forced pass to star receiver Justin Jefferson in the end zone.

Don't believe the Vikings are living a charmed life? As they were finishing off Washington, the Buffalo Bills, next week's opponent, were trying to come back against the New York Jets, and star Bills quarterback Josh Allen was having his elbow bent unnaturally as he tried to throw a pass. Allen said he feels some pain "but we'll get through it."

Luck and timing aside, there is a practical advantage to a 7-1 record, one that doesn't care that the 2022 Vikings have zero victories over winning teams with healthy quarterbacks.

Less than halfway through the schedule, they have a significant margin for error. They can afford not only a loss, but a slump. They can afford to have an official cost them a game, which almost happened against Washington. They can err on the side of caution when deciding whether to rest key players.

The Vikings probably won't think that way, not with a top seed within reach, but that's their comforting new reality, after having the good fortune of enjoying a reunion with Horseshoe Heinicke and Sunken Riverboat Ron.

The Star Tribune did not send the writer of this article to the game. This was written using a broadcast, video news conferences and other material.