Minnesota Vikings Power Rankings Roundup: Week 4

We apologize for missing the Power Rankings Roundup last week, ladies and gentlemen. Between the Minnesota Vikings being on a short week and some other personal commitments, I didn’t have the time to get it knocked out prior to the Rams game, and it seemed a little silly to do it afterwards, so we need to get caught up.

I have included the rankings from the week following the game against the Bills. . .which, as you’d expect, saw a lot of significant drops for the purple. . .so we now have the full trend for the team throughout the first four weeks of the regular season. So, without any further ado, let’s get caught up, shall we?

Associated Press: #14 (Last week: #8)

No Vikings-centric commentary from the AP this week.

MMQB, Sports Illustrated: #10 (Last week: #6)

The Vikings ran into a buzzsaw Thursday night in L.A. but at least they got a few extra days before having to return to the scene of last year’s NFC Championship Game embarrassment.

SB Nation: #12 (Last week: #6)

No Vikings-centric commentary from SB Nation this week.

Walter Cherepinsky, Walter Football: #15 (Last week: #7)

Overrated NFL Team: See why the Vikings are an overrated NFL team in our new Overrated-Underrated page.

Frank Schwab, Yahoo! Sports: #13 (Last week: #8)

The Vikings will get things turned around. Kirk Cousins has been very good (again, let’s dump the whole “quarterback record” thing; it’s a team sport) and the defense didn’t forget how to play football. But they also can’t afford to wait, especially since it doesn’t seem the Bears are going anywhere.

USA Today: #17 (Last week: #19)

Lot of issues, including defense’s apparent ongoing deterioration. But it would help if RBs had more than 17 total carries past two weeks.

Vinnie Iyer, Sporting News: #13 (Last week: #12)

Kirk Cousins is trying to prop them up in a one-dimensional offense while under heavy pressure to produce. The high expectations need to be curbed.

Mike Florio, Pro Football Talk: #17 (Last week: #12)

Mike Zimmer wants to improve his pass defense. Step one: Don’t put a linebacker on a receiver.

Elliot Harrison, NFL.com: #13 (Last week: #9)

Of all the aspects of the Vikings’ 1-2-1 record -- from missed kicks to Dalvin Cook’s hobbled start or even the unfortunate Everson Griffen situation -- one of the oddest factors might be the regression of Mike Zimmer’s defense. It’s startling, given the talent and depth on that side of the ball. Minnesota has allowed 110 points already this season. It took seven games for the Vikes to surrender that many last year. Wow.

ESPN: #13 (Last week: #9)

Rookie snaps leader: DB Mike Hughes, 162 snaps out of 249 (65.1 percent). He is one of four players this season with a forced fumble, an interception and a defensive TD. The others are Khalil Mack, Bud Dupree and Antone Exum.

Pete Prisco, CBS Sports: #20 (Last week: #15)

They’ve lost two straight and the defense has been a problem. That’s a major surprise heading to Philadelphia this week.

Bleacher Report: #8 (Last week: #5)

Had you said a month ago that September would end with the Vikings in third place in the NFC North, you would have been laughed at.

But here we are.

The first month of the season wasn’t supposed to be like this for the Vikes. They were tabbed as a leading Super Bowl contender by many and as the No. 1 team in the NFL heading into Week 1 by this very panel.

Instead, the Vikings are coming off two straight losses after falling by a touchdown on Thursday Night Football. The Vikings have one victory in their first four games: a Week 1 win over the reeling San Francisco 49ers.

Since then, it’s been a tie with the Packers and then losses to Buffalo and the Rams. Davenport isn’t ready to push the purple panic button yet, but he isn’t that far off:

”There’s no shame in losing on the road to this Rams team, but allowing over 550 yards of offense is worrisome no matter the opponent. Combined with Minny’s Week 3 faceplant against the Bills, the Vikings are digging a hole that won’t be easy to get out of—especially with the defending champs up next on the road. The Vikings are still a good football team, but they had better get squared away PDQ or a season that was supposed to be filled with promise could get away from them.”

Not surprisingly, the Vikings continue to drop in the rankings. Their average this week is just 13.75 across our 12 sets of rankings. Given that this team started the season with an average ranking of about 4.5, and saw that rise to 3.6 after their victory in Week 1, a tie and a couple of ugly losses will see you take a pretty sudden drop.

Here is what the trends look like to this point. As you can imagine, it doesn’t look any better in this format.

If you’d like to survey all of the damage, I believe that you can click to embiggen.

That’s a look at the Power Rankings for the Minnesota Vikings around the league going into their Week 5 matchup. Hopefully some of these numbers can start to see an upward trend when we do this again next week.