Minnesota Vikings Game Ball: Week 7

With a compressed week ahead of us, we need to get some of the usual business out of the way a bit earlier than we usually might, and that means we’re already taking a look at who should get the Week 7 Game Ball for the Minnesota Vikings after their 42-30 triumph over the Detroit Lions at Ford Field.

You’re going to see a lot of the usual suspects on the list this week, which shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. We’ve given out five game balls so far this year. . .remember, we skipped Week 4 because the whole team was awful. . .and they’ve only been distributed between three players: Anthony Harris (Week 1), Dalvin Cook (Weeks 2 and 3), and Kirk Cousins (Weeks 5 and 6). Will someone else break through this week? Will Cook or Cousins make it a trifecta? That’s up to you folks.

Let’s go!

Dalvin Cook, RB - In what’s starting to become routine for Cook, he had another huge performance, racking up 142 yards and two scores on 25 carries. He’s racking up the yardage, that’s for sure, but I’ll echo what I’ve seen a lot of people say on social media over the past couple of days and say that there might not be a running back in the NFL that’s better at making something out of nothing than Dalvin Cook. How many carries do we see where it looks like he should be stopped in the backfield and, the next thing you know, he’s picked up 12 yards? It seems to happen a couple of times a game. We said all offseason that a healthy Dalvin Cook is a difference-maker, and that’s been the case through the first seven weeks.

Kirk Cousins, QB - For the third week in a row, Cousins played his best game of the season, and his level of play didn’t drop off when he lost his #1 (or #2. . .what a nice luxury to have) receiver after he caught just one (spectacular) pass. After Adam Thielen went out, sure Stefon Diggs had a big game. . .we’ll get to him shortly. . .but Cousins really spread the ball around. It was C.J. Ham, it was Olabisi Johnson, it was Irv Smith Jr., it was Kyle Rudolph, and it was 42 points on the road against a division opponent when it was all said and done. Yeah, Cousins is still going to continue to have his skeptics, but he’s been outstanding over the past three weeks.

Stefon Diggs, WR - Ted said it in the Stock Market Report: Stefon Diggs saved the Minnesota Vikings’ 2019 season. Whatever it was that he did or didn’t do, whatever was said or wasn’t said, after Diggs missed that practice after the Bears game, something has changed with this team. Cousins has turned it loose, and Diggs has been the biggest beneficiary. He didn’t get into the end zone in this game, but he did have seven catches for 166 yards and had what might have been the play of the game when he took the ball to the Detroit 4-yard line just before the two-minute warning, setting up Cook’s second score and icing the game for the Vikings.

Eric Kendricks, LB - It wasn’t a banner day for the Vikings’ defense on Sunday by any stretch. Despite that, Kendricks continues to stand out. Once again, Kendricks was everywhere on Sunday, as the stat sheet has him down with a combined 12 tackles, and he also contributed a huge pass breakup on a fourth-and-short when the Vikings were clinging to a four-point lead after Dan Bailey’s missed field goal. I don’t know exactly how many linebackers in the National Football League are having a better 2019 season than Eric Kendricks. I am relatively sure that I wouldn’t need all of the fingers on one hand to count them all.

So, who do you have this week, folks?

• Week 1 - Anthony Harris, S
• Week 2 - Dalvin Cook, RB
• Week 3 - Dalvin Cook, RB
• Week 4 - Nobody (because everyone was awful)
• Week 5 - Kirk Cousins, QB
• Week 6 - Kirk Cousins, QB