Minnesota Vikings at Arizona Cardinals 9/19/21 - NFL Picks & Predictions

The Minnesota Vikings will head on the road for the first time this season when they travel west for the first time of the year, taking on the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Arizona may have had the most impressive win of week one, dominating a bad Titans defense on their way to a 38-13 win on the road. Minnesota, on the other hand, had one of the more surprising losses of the NFL’s opening weekend when they lost 27-24 to the Cincinnati Bengals. 

Kyler Murray looked like a legitimate MVP candidate in week one, he led the Cardinals by completing 21/32 passes for 289 yards and tossed for 4 touchdowns. Murray rushed the ball just five times, which was a key to the offense's success last season, but ran in a touchdown. His favorite target of the day was, unsurprisingly, DeAndre Hopkins who caught 6 passes for 83 yards, but the ball was spread around with Christian Kirk also reeling in 70 yards and two scores.

The difference of this Arizona team from last year, when they fell just short of the playoffs, is the defense. With the addition of JJ Watt on the defensive front, and the perceived emergence of second-year outside linebacker Isiah Simons - who led the team in tackles - this defense held the highly touted Titans offense to just 304 total yards. Chandler Jones had an incredible opening week, sacking the quarterback five times, and forcing two fumbles. 

Minnesota’s season got off to a rocky start and was unable to battle back from 21 straight unanswered points from the Bengals. The offense game plan struggled to get back on track after that, with Kirk Cousins throwing the ball 49 times, he completed 36 for 351 yards and two touchdowns. Both of those scoring passes ended up in the steady handed Adam Thielen. 

In a perfect world MInnesota would lean heavily on Dalvin Cook, he struggled to get it going, at least by his high standards, averaging just over 3 yards per carry and totaling just 61 yards on the ground and coughing it up in overtime to lead the Bengals to a game winning field goal.

The Vikings defensive issues do not appear to have gone away in the offseason as Joe Burrow was able cut up the secondary to the tune of 20/27 for 261 yards and two touchdowns. The Vikings also allowed 150 rushing yards at over 4 yards a carry  and just wasn't able to get that momentum swinging turnover.