Minnesota Vikings at New Orleans Saints: Key information and first quarter discussion

Well, everybody, it’s Sunday afternoon of Wild Card Weekend, and that means it’s time for your Minnesota Vikings to take center stage. This afternoon, they take on the New Orleans Saints in the Wild Card round of the 2019 NFC playoffs as a heavy underdog. Can they pull it together and leave New Orleans victorious?

Man, I hope so.

Here’s everything you need to know about this afternoon’s game.

Date and Time: Sunday, 5 January, 2020, noon Central time

Location: Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana

Television Coverage: KSTP-9 in the Twin Cities, FOX affiliates from coast to coast and border to border

Radio Coverage: Vikings Radio Network, Sirius Channel 82, XM Channel 226, SiriusXM App Channel 819

Line: Vikings +8, Over/Under 48

Chris’ Prediction: Saints 31, Vikings 27 (yeah, I’m predicting a loss. . .prove me wrong, Vikings)

Three Keys

1) Don’t play scared - This is for everyone on both sides of the ball. You’re a #6 seed in the playoffs and pretty much everyone has already written you off. This team is way too talented to come out and play conservative football this afternoon. They need to pull out all the stops if they want to have a chance in this one, and hopefully we’ll see it early and often.

2) Put Drew Brees on his back - The Vikings are short-handed in the secondary in this one, and that’s bad news against a quarterback like Brees. That means that the Vikings are going to have to get pressure on him in an attempt to throw him off. If they can’t do that, the odds of this being a very long afternoon for the purple go up significantly.

3) Play a complete game - No slow starts, no lull in the middle, and damn sure not a collapse at the end. Come out and play with intensity and show that there’s a reason that this team is in the playoffs in the first place.

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If the Vikings this one, then a trip to San Francisco is on tap for next Saturday afternoon. If they lose. . .well, we’ll talk about all that if it happens.

As usual, we’re going to start a new Open Thread at the start of each quarter, so make sure to keep your eyes open for those. Here’s hoping that we can all meet back here in about three hours or so and talk about how the Vikings made all the pundits look foolish today.

SKOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL VIKINGS!!!!