Minnesota Vikings Weekly Power Rankings Round-Up

Man, it seems like the Minnesota Vikings last played about a month ago, but in actually it has only been five days since the thumping they took at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now, we move on to a much tougher second half schedule, and it's time to take a look at where the Vikings sit in the Power Rankings across this vast interweb of ours. As you'd expect, the Vikings have dropped from last week. As you might not expect, the drop (in most cases) is not as far as you might think. Well, not as far as I might have thought, anyway.

As is our wont, we start with the mothership at SB Nation, who has the Vikings moving down two notches from #9 to #11 this week.

Is the Minnesota Miracle just a mirage? The secondary took a hit with the loss of Chris Cook. Christian Ponder came back to earth. The Vikings were never a serious threat to win the division, but this team should compete for a wildcard spot.

The crew at SB Nation thinks that the Vikings can compete for a wild card spot. With what most of us have felt like over the past couple of days, we could use that kind of optimism. Looking at the rest of the NFC North, the Chicago Bears come in at #4, the Green Bay Packers at #7, and the Detroit Lions at #19. Minnesota's opponent on Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks, is right behind the Vikings at #12.

As we start to bounce around the internet, our first stop this week takes us to Fox Sports. The Vikings are also at #11 in their rankings, but this represents a three-spot drop, as Minnesota was at #8 the week before.

The Vikings lost their first home game of the season and QB Christian Ponder posted yet another shaky game after starting the season on such solid footing. He now has seven interceptions in his last four games after throwing none in his first four.

The play of Minnesota's young quarterback will be the big key to how the rest of this season goes. If he can return to some of the form he had in the first four games of the year, awesome! If it's more like the past four games. . .yikes. Fox has Chicago at #3, Green Bay at #5, and Detroit at #12. (!?) Seattle comes in at #13 in the Fox rankings.

Moving right along, we get to NFL.com and their take on the Power Rankings. They move Minnesota down two spots as well, meaning that Minnesota shows up at #12 this week after being at #10 the week before.

The Minnesota Vikings' offense pretty much did everything it could to give the game to the Bucs on Thursday night. Ignore the total yardage; Minnesota's offense sucked. First, Jerome Simpson fumbled, and then Adrian Peterson. Then the play calling was horrific (like running the ball on second-and-20 facing a multi-score deficit). At least the Vikings' secondary made up for it by sleepwalking through most of the game, especially in run support.

Well, then. Guess there's something to be said for not sugar-coating this sort of thing, eh? The sad part is that there really isn't anything in the analysis there to argue. . .he's exactly right. NFL.com has Chicago at #3, Green Bay at #6, and Detroit at #14. Seattle is one spot ahead of the Vikings at #11, but they dropped four spots in the NFL.com rankings this week.

Over at CBS Sports, Pete Prisco gives the Vikings one of the bigger drops they get this week, moving them down four spots to #13 in his rankings. He also, not surprisingly, thinks this is the start of something bad for Minnesota.

That early start now looks like it's going rotten. The schedule is brutal from here on out. What happened to that defense against Tampa Bay?

That's why they play the games, I guess, Pete. Prisco has the Bears at #2, the Packers at #6, and the Lions at #19. The Seahawks check in right behind the Vikings at #14.

ESPN, in keeping with the trend, has moved the Vikings down two spots as well, bumping them from #9 to #11.

Was Thursday a speed bump, or have the Vikes been overachieving all along? QB is still a question mark.

Again. . .one way or another, we're going to find out a lot about Christian Ponder over the next eight weeks of this season. The Vikings may have been "overachieving" thus far, but it still appears that they're better than the majority of folks thought going into this season. ESPN has Chicago at #5, Green Bay at #6, and Detroit at #17. Seattle is just a couple of spots behind Minnesota at #13.

And that's what I've got for this week, folks. As always, feel free to add any additional rankings you might find or any discussion about said rankings in the comments section.