A Brief Look At Vikings/Eagles History

The Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles have played against each other 27 times throughout the years, dating back to their first matchup in 1962. According to Eagles fans, only one of those games has ever mattered.

[Waits for Philly fans to throw full beer cans and scream “THIRTY-EIGHT TO SEVEN!!!!1!!1” a few dozen times]

OK, now that we’re done with that, let’s take our weekly look back at the Vikings’ history against their upcoming opponent. As always, the numbers in this story are brought to you by the good folks at Pro Football Reference.

Total regular season and playoff games between the Vikings and the Eagles: 27

All-time record: Regular season: Vikings, 13-10. Playoffs: Eagles, 4-0.

Total Vikings points scored, head-to-head: 594 (22.0 points/game)

Total Eagles points scored, head-to-head: 650 (24.1 points/game)

Longest Vikings winning streak vs Eagles: 7, their first seven meetings from 28 Oct 1962 to 3 Dec 1978

Longest Eagles winning streak vs Vikings: 5, from 11 November 2001 to 4 January 2009

Most recent Vikings road win in series: 28 December 2010 (final score 24-14, the infamous Tuesday night game)

Most recent Eagles home win in series: 21 January 2018 (final score SHUT UP)

Biggest Vikings road win in series: 21 points, 15 December 1963 (final score 34-13)

Biggest Eagles home win in series: 31 points, twice (48-17 on 11 November 2001 and...SHUT UP)

Current streak: Eagles, 2 wins

Obviously, the Vikings can’t do anything on Sunday that will make up for the thrashing they took in last year’s NFC Championship Game. Even if they win by a score of 38-7 or better, it’s a regular season game and the Eagles already have their shiny new Super Bowl rings.

What the Vikings can do is try to find the wheels that fell off of their defense last January and haven’t been put back on yet. The Los Angeles Rams will likely expose a lot of defenses throughout the course of the season, but the way they out-schemed the Vikings in every way on that side of the ball was uncharacteristic of what we’re used to seeing from a Mike Zimmer-coached defense. The offense looked much better last week, but Minnesota is still dead last in rushing and pressures allowed through four weeks. The Vikings need to clean things up in a hurry.

Meanwhile, the defending champs are coming off a disappointing loss of their own. They squandered a two touchdown lead on the road to the Tennessee Titans, allowing three straight fourth down conversions in the game-clinching overtime touchdown drive. Most of the key pieces have returned for a shot at a repeat in Philadelphia. However, throughout the preseason and through the first four weeks of the regular season, this doesn’t look like the Eagles team that rampaged their way to a title eight months ago.

While the Vikings dominated this series early on, winning the first seven matchups, the Eagles have seven of the past nine between the two teams. Both of the Vikings wins during that stretch were rather unexpected. In the aforementioned Tuesday night game, Joe Webb and the 5-9 Vikings upset the 10-4 Eagles that were favored by 14.5 points at kickoff. Philadelphia was favored by seven points in 2013 when Matt Asiata had the hilarious stat line of 30 rushes, 51 yards, and 3 touchdowns in a 48-30 Vikings win.

The most recent regular season game between the Vikings and Eagles wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing contest. In Week 7 of 2016, each team turned the ball over four times. Despite putting up paltry offensive numbers, Carson Wentz and the Eagles won 21-10 thanks in large part to six sacks of Sam Bradford. It was the first loss of the season for the Vikings, who would stumble to a 3-8 finish after starting 5-0.

That’s a brief look at some of the history between the Vikings and the Eagles as we prepare for Sunday’s game in Philly. We’ll have more for you as we get closer to kickoff.