Minnesota Vikings Power Rankings Roundup, Week 11

With three straight victories for the Minnesota Vikings. . .all against NFC North opponents. . .the climb up the Power Rankings is continuing as the purple prepare for a three-game homestand.

But how far have they moved up? It’s time to find out, as we take our spin around the internet for our Power Rankings Roundup!

Associated Press: #16 (Last week: #17)

As usual, no commentary from the AP.

Frank Schwab, Yahoo! Sports: #16 (Last week: #17)

The Vikings won’t be fun to play for future opponents. They have three legitimate stars on offense in Dalvin Cook, Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen. And Mike Zimmer’s young defense is getting better.

The Athletic: #14 (Last week: #16)

They’re still alive! I haven’t seen the footage, but Mike Zimmer definitely spent 10 minutes berating the special-teams coordinator before he addressed the players after their win over Chicago, right? Minnesota has won three in a row and has a 30.4 percent chance to make the postseason.

Nate Davis, USA Today: #18 (Last week: #18)

It wasn’t pretty, but QB Kirk Cousins broke a nine-game losing streak on “Monday Night Football,” the longest for any player in MNF history, while also beating Chicago for the first time since he signed with Minnesota.

Bleacher Report: #18 (Last week: #19)

Break up the Vikings.

To be fair, the Vikings did not exactly light up Soldier Field in their Monday night victory over the Bears. Dalvin Cook had 96 yards on the ground, but those 96 yards came on 30 carries.

But with Cook bottled up, Kirk Cousins took to the air, exorcising some of the ghosts of his previous 0-9 career record on Monday Night Football in the process. Rookie Justin Jefferson continued to impress, catching eight passes for 135 yards. Veteran wide receiver Adam Thielen was on the receiving end of both of Cousins’ scoring throws.

A few weeks ago, the Vikings were 1-5 and given up on by most. It’s still going to be an uphill climb to get back to the postseason, but they are now 4-5 heading into a stretch of winnable games against the Cowboys, Panthers and Jaguars.

This is a Minnesota team that could be 7-5 when it travels to Tampa in Week 14.

Not that long ago, that appeared laughable.

Vinnie Iyer, Sporting News: #18 (Last week: #19)

The Vikings can’t do much about the results ahead of them in the NFC and the fact they don’t get to play in the East to overcome a slow start. They just need to keep grinding and winning, focusing everything they do around Dalvin Cook.

Pete Prisco, CBS Sports: #16 (Last week: #19)

With three straight victories and a soft three-game stretch coming up, they have turned their season around. They have real playoff chances now.

Danny Kelly, The Ringer: #16 (Last week: #18)

No commentary about the Vikings in this week’s rankings from The Ringer.

ESPN: #19 (Last week: #19)

What would they take back: Trading for Yannick Ngakoue

The Vikings acquired the 25-year-old defensive end from Jacksonville with the thought that they’d eventually be able to pair him with Danielle Hunter. A neck injury Hunter sustained in camp that eventually required season-ending surgery precluded that from happening, and the Vikings cut bait on Ngakoue after six weeks, taking on $6.8 million in dead cap. What if the Vikings would have used their resources to instead acquire an experienced cornerback to help their young secondary? What if Minnesota signed a veteran interior offensive lineman? Would those moves have panned out better long term than paying for less than two months of work from Ngakoue?

Reddit: #16 (Last week: #18)

Mike Zimmer’s ability to take a bunch of rookies, 7th rounders and street free agents and hold any offense to 3.0 yards per play is incredible. Meanwhile, Justin Jefferson leads the league in yards per route run and is making DBs look silly week after week.

MMQB, Sports Illustrated: #17 (Last week: #17)

The Vikings have been hit with problem after problem, and they’re still square in the NFC playoff race.

Mike Florio, Pro Football Talk: #16 (Last week: #18)

With the running game not what it’s been, the defense and the passing game surprisingly stepped up.

Dan Hanzus, NFL.com: #16 (Last week: #16)

It took 10 tries, but Kirk Cousins finally won a start on Monday Night Football. Perhaps that’s why we saw the Vikings quarterback in such an excited state after his fourth-quarter completion to Kyle Rudolph helped seal the 19-13 win over the Bears. These guys don’t live their lives in a bubble, and it’s one less narrative that Cousins — ever the lightning rod — has to hear about. Mike Zimmer wasn’t happy with his special teams converge unit on Monday, but he has to be feeling pretty good about just about everything else. The Vikings have won three straight and find themselves back in the NFC playoff race. Their 1-5 start feels like ancient history now.

Matt Williamson, Pro Football Network: #18 (Last week: #19)

Kirk Cousins got his first-ever win on Monday Night Football, but the Vikings offense had a tough go of it. Dalvin Cook had rushed for 369 yards over the last two games, but in Chicago on Monday night, he was held to 96 hard-earned yards on 30 carries. But that was enough against a dreadful Bears offense. Minnesota started the season 1-5, are now 4-5 and are ranked 18th in the NFL Week 11 Power Rankings. They have extremely favorable games on the schedule over the next three weeks.

Well, of the 14 outlets that we survey for our rankings here each week, 10 of them bumped the Vikings up at least one spot in the rankings, while the other four held them at where they were the previous week. That makes for a small move up in the team’s average ranking, but nothing huge. This week’s average for the Vikings is at 16.71, about one full spot higher than last week’s average of 17.86.

Here is your graphic representation for this week, as you can see the upward trend continue. As always, you may click on the graphic in order to embiggen it.

How much longer can the upward trend continue? Things look good for the Vikings for the next three weeks. . .but we should know better than to look ahead at this point, right?

Right?

That’s your Roundup for this week, folks. We’ll be back next week with another one to see how the view of the Vikings has changed.