Minnesota Vikings Power Rankings Roundup: Week 13

Well, for the fifth time in the last six games, our Power Rankings Roundup for the Minnesota Vikings follows a loss on the field. The 16-13 loss in Detroit on Thanksgiving was particularly difficult given the way it happened, give that the Vikings had a lead late and let it slip away.

What sort of impact is that going to have on the Power Rankings across the internet? Let’s check out this week’s Roundup and find out.

SB Nation: #19 (Last week: #16)

No notable commentary about the Vikings this week.

Elliot Harrison, NFL.com: #15 (Last week: #12)

Funny thing about throwing the football: Generally, you want to pass it more than 3 yards past the line of scrimmage to accomplish anything. While realizing the Vikings' offensive line is banged-up -- and bad -- you think Minnesota could have taken one or two vertical shots in each half Thursday? Watching that offense drives a man to take shots. If that passing game was a shot, it would be more lemon drop than Jäger. Make the defense play the whole field, or else Sam Bradford's impressive completion percentage means diddly-poo. Oh, and corners will sit on routes.

Frank Schwab, Yahoo! Sports: #14 (Last week: #11)

The problem with the Sam Bradford trade is that it is still Sam Bradford. Sure, he was an upgrade over what the Vikings would have had in a post-Teddy Bridgewater world. But he’s not good. If you were surprised watching him check down all Thanksgiving afternoon and then throwing a soul-crushing pick at the end, you haven’t paid enough attention to his career. And the Vikings are giving up their 2017 first-round pick for this privilege.

Cameron DaSilva, Fox Sports: #14 (Last week: #11)

The Vikings are quickly slipping out of the playoff picture after losing their fifth game in the past six weeks. Sam Bradford has struggled with a poor offensive line attempting to protect him, and there’s still no running game to speak of. Their loss to the Lions significantly hurt their postseason hopes now that they’re out of first place in the NFC North.

USA Today: #18 (Last week: #12)

Thursday's tilt with Dallas is Vikes' last against winning team. We recommend Sam Bradford attack them deep and throw a 5-yard pass downfield.

Pete Prisco, CBS Sports: #17 (Last week: #13)

They have now lost five of their last six and are two behind the Lions in the division since they lost twice to them. Now comes a tough one with the Cowboys on Thursday night.

ESPN: #18 (Last week: #12)

The Vikings are 1-5 in their past six games and have scored the fourth-fewest points per game (16.5) in that stretch. However, the Vikings are still given a 56 percent chance to make the playoffs, according to NFL FPI. A win Thursday against the Cowboys would go a long way toward helping the cause.

Walter Cherepinsky, Walter Football: #17 (Last week: #11)

Underrated NFL Team: The Vikings are once again underrated in the wake of their Thanksgiving loss. They were missing Stefon Diggs, Captain Munnerlyn and Terence Newman, plus they lost stud center Joe Berger to a concussion. Despite all this, the Vikings were winning in the fourth quarter against the Lions, and they may have prevailed had Cordarrelle Patterson not lined up incorrectly on the final offensive drive. As I said a couple of weeks ago, the Vikings will be playing better when everyone returns from injury, and it sounds like the team will have some reinforcements available in Week 13.

Chris Burke, SI.com: #23 (Last week: #19)

That Sam Bradford interception, in a tie game with 30 seconds left Thursday, was to football what your random relative’s “So, who did you vote for?” question was to a quiet Thanksgiving dinner. Stranger things have happened, but Minnesota might be too deep into its tailspin now to pull itself out.

Chris Simms, Bleacher Report: #19 (Last week: #18)

Excuse me for sounding like a broken record here.

It's just that Minnesota's offense is broken. Sam Bradford and Co. are too reliant on short-to-intermediate crossing routes. If I know that, so do defenders like Darius Slay, who jumped one on a game-deciding interception.

For all its late-game struggles against Matthew Stafford, this Vikings defense is still surrendering only 17.5 points a game.

That points right back to the offense. When push came to shove in the fourth quarter, Minnesota only picked up 10 yards on four third-down tries. Conversely, the Lions picked up 46.

Looking forward: You better believe Mike Zimmer is coming after Dak Prescott. Whether or not his defense gets there is another question.

After a brief stop, the free fall continues for our favorite football team. Again, I need to remind everyone that when this team got to the bye week, they sat in the #1 spot in seven of the ten sets of Power Rankings that we track as part of our lineup, and were no lower than #3 in any of them. That’s quite a precipitous drop in the past couple of months. Is this team going to get out of their tailspin any time soon? Man, I hope so.

Here’s this week’s trend graph, folks. As always, you may click to embiggen.

Is there any chance we see a trend reversal after tomorrow’s game against Dallas? Well, it’s not something that I’m anticipating, but as is generally the case, I’d be quite happy to be wrong.