2022 NFL Week 9: Minnesota Vikings at Washington Commanders

After running their winning streak to five games, the 6-1 Minnesota Vikings will take to the road for Week 9 NFL action, heading to the nation’s capital to take on the Washington Commanders.

The Vikings have never faced the Commanders. . .well, they’ve played Washington plenty of times, but the last time these two teams faced off was in 2019, which was two nickname changes ago for the Commanders. They were the Washington Football Team in 2021 before adopting the Commanders moniker this year.

Washington got off to a bit of a rough start this season, but they’re currently riding a three-game winning streak and have gotten back to .500 after their 17-16 victory over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. The Vikings, as we’ve mentioned, have won five consecutive games and appear to be establishing themselves as one of the league’s best teams.

The Vikings will see a familiar face when they line up against the Commanders in the form of quarterback Taylor Heinicke. Heinicke, who got his NFL start with Minnesota but never saw any regular season action for them, took over when Carson Wentz injured his hand a couple of weeks ago and engineered the victories over Green Bay and Indianapolis.

Minnesota keeps “winning ugly,” requiring comebacks in most of their victories this season, but they really appear to be getting it together under new head coach Kevin O’Connell, who is on the short list of NFL Coach of the Year candidates at this point. They’ll hope to keep their momentum going this coming weekend against a team that they can’t afford to sleep on.

Our friends at the DraftKings Sportsbook have established the Vikings as an early 3-point favorite for this one, with the over/under for the contest starting out at 44.5 points.

This week’s game will be on FOX affiliates around the country and will kick off at noon Central time. No word yet on who will be handling the play-by-play duties for FOX as it stands right now but we’ll let you know when we know.