Kirk Cousins, Vikings stand up to 49ers defense in season-altering 22-17 upset

Kirk Cousins has built his quarterbacking approach on a love of the mundane, grounding himself in a they-all-count-the-same ethos designed to deflate some of the buildup about whatever big game lay ahead. But in a Vikings offensive meeting on Sunday, the day before their Monday night matchup with the San Francisco 49ers, Cousins let slip that this one was, in fact, different than the rest.

"I felt like in the offseason we needed to play our best games against the best defenses," Cousins said. "You measure yourself against the best, and when the schedule came out in May, I just looked at Philly, looked at San Fran and a couple others ahead where you say, 'These are going to be some of the best defenses we play. That's got to be our best football.' I just challenged the team and said, 'Understand here it is: This is a challenging group and we've got to be at our best. And not just in the big picture, but our best in how we motion, how we handle snap counts, how we prepare the details. We've got to be at our absolute best.' I tried to challenge them from that standpoint. I felt like everybody was up for the challenge."

The 49ers, who'd flattened the Vikings in their one trip to the NFC divisional playoffs with Cousins, had irked them over two days of joint practices last year with taunts and hits the Vikings felt were beyond the pale. They'd built years of playoff success as the kind of menacing team the Vikings have often struggled to handle, and they came to U.S. Bank Stadium at 5-1 and as seven-point favorites, threatening to send the Vikings to their first 0-4 home start in franchise history.

Instead, as right tackle Brian O'Neill put it, the Vikings met the bully in the middle of the schoolyard.

With a pair of Camryn Bynum interceptions on San Francisco's final two drives, the Vikings stopped the 49ers' attempts to come back on Monday night, holding on for a 22-17 win and improving to 3-4 for the season. Cousins completed 35 of his 45 passes for 378 yards, working with clean pockets for much of the evening against a 49ers pass rush that seemed poised to pressure him.

The quarterback, derided throughout his career for his Monday night record, has now won three of his last five Monday night starts; his 107.2 passer rating was his third-best in a Monday game, and his best for the Vikings.

"I think his message was really received clearly by our offense," coach Kevin O'Connell said. "That carried over to the whole team. That's leadership. We could go for the next 35, 40 minutes about the way he played individual plays where he was overcoming some circumstances, moving within the pocket, trusting the protection, and seeing the whole field. Against that team, that's big time quarterback play in my mind."

Wide receiver Jordan Addison caught seven passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns, while leaving for much of the fourth quarter to receive treatment for cramps. It was the first two-touchdown game of Addison's career.

The Vikings faced a 49ers team that was without wide receiver Deebo Samuel and left tackle Trent Williams, and held San Francisco to just 325 yards of offense. Running back Christian McCaffrey eluded Byron Murphy Jr.'s tackle attempt for a 35-yard touchdown catch in the second half, but rushed fo only 45 yards on 15 attempts as the Vikings limited the 49ers' third-ranked run game.

The first Monday night game at U.S. Bank Stadium in four years began with a charged atmosphere, as a sizable contingent of 49ers fans dotted the stands and Vikings fans made their phones part of a pregame light show. When Alexander Mattison opened the game with a 19-yard run — the Vikings' longest of the season — it quickly whipped up the home fans.

Two plays later, the Vikings turned the ball over on their opening drive for the fourth time in five games.

Cousins threw over the middle for Addison, but when the receiver tried to fight off press coverage from 49ers cornerback Charvarius Ward and secure the ball cleanly, Ward snatched it from the rookie for an interception that gave San Francisco the ball in Vikings territory less than 90 seconds into the game.

But the Vikings, who won the turnover battle for the first time this season last week against the Bears, came back with what might have been one of their most important takeaways of the season. Harrison Smith and Bynum forced a McCaffrey fumble when they sandwiched the running back, giving the Vikings the ball back.

"I just saw the ball come out and it was a big mess: everyone jumping on each other," Bynum said. "I am just glad we picked it up because earlier on in the season we forced some fumbles, and the ball didn't bounce our way, but today it did."

Given a second chance to strike first, the Vikings overcame a two-yard loss on the drive's first play and netted 89 yards on 10 plays, finishing the drive with a Cousins-to-Addison touchdown pass that came when the Vikings put the rookie in a bunch set with T.J. Hockenson and Brandon Powell. The play design set up a free release for Addison, who caught the pass over linebacker Dre Greenlaw for the game's first score.

After Akayleb Evans broke up Brock Purdy's third-down pass for Jauan Jennings and Jake Moody missed a 40-yard field goal, the Vikings drove to the goal line with a chance to take a 14-0 lead. But they had to settle for a short Greg Joseph field goal when Fred Warner tipped a throw for Powell that Cousins believed would otherwise have been a touchdown, and then the 49ers cut the Vikings' lead to 10-7 with McCaffrey's first touchdown of the night.

The Vikings got a touchdown before halftime, though, in a play that felt like a fortuitous dyad to all of the bizarre turnovers they've had this season.

On a third-and-6 from the Vikings' 40, Cousins threw deep for Addison, targeting a one-on-one matchup with Ward as the 49ers blitzed him. Had Cousins thrown the ball away from the defensive back and led Addison toward the middle of the field, the receiver might have raced in for a touchdown. But the throw was behind Addison, and Ward looked like he was going to end the drive with another interception.

But Addison wrested the ball away from Ward the same way Ward had done it to Addison on the first drive of the game. Addison raced the final 30 yards untouched for a 60-yard score, his second TD of the game, and put the Vikings up 16-7 before Joseph missed an extra point.

"I thought it was getting picked," Cousins said. "I still quite don't know how Jordan came away with it. Big, big-time play by him."

The Vikings settled for field goals twice in the second half, and up by five in the final minutes, O'Connell opted for a 50-yard Joseph attempt rather than trying for a fourth-and-6 conversion that could have iced the game. Joseph missed wide right, giving the 49ers a final chance with 1:11 left.

But Bynum leaped in the middle of the field to snatch Purdy's final pass away from Ray-Ray McCloud III, celebrating the interception as a shoving match ensued behind him. The Vikings had stood up to the bully.

"Obviously our season isn't going as well as we would like it to be, but nothing better than bouncing back from adversity and stacking wins up," Bynum said. "Now going into next week it's the same thing same process: us being able to really respond. That's really the message for the whole season. We have to respond to the process; we must respond to every negative play and continue to do our thing."