Vikings Look Forward To Opening Week
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Minnesota Vikings only have a few questions in terms of personnel heading into week one.
Minnesota is six-point favorites in their upcoming matchup against the San Francisco 49ers at U.S. Bank Stadium.
They always have questions about how they will perform. They have generally been pretty good early under Head Coach Mike Zimmer, but it is always a mystery.
That game you remember last year meant you had to circle this week. For the Vikings, getting to the regular season is important, and that makes it different.
"It's different because, you know, you don't really know what they're going to do. You, you know, you don't know how you're going to perform. Every year's a new year, every team's a new team," Zimmer said.
The reason it is hard to forecast is that they opened against the 49ers three years ago in the midst of great optimism, and got beat up badly.
"It was a learning experience. You know, we played around like 10, well, it was 9 p.m. our time, though. It was, like, really late, California time, you know. But, you don't make excuses. We got beat, you know," Everson Griffen said. "They ran some good plays. They out-schemed us."
The biggest question is still the offensive line. And if Brett Jones is the new center Sunday, what can they expect.
"I know what I'm going to do each and every play, and that allows me to play fast and react," Jones said. "I try to know what the defense is doing, then I don't have to think out there, I can just play football."
But maybe the bigger question everyone will ask, until they have firmly formed an opinion: How good is Kirk Cousins? The answer may take September to figure out.
"That's why I think it does take the first few weeks of the regular season to really evaluate where you are as a team, as an offense," Cousins said. "But, you know, we do the best we can."
So let opening week begin. There is nothing quite like it.
"We get to go out there and do good things," Griffen said.
