NFL Opening Odds: Vikings open as home underdogs for second straight time

For the second consecutive week, the Minnesota Vikings will be a significant underdog on their home turf. . .and, for the second consecutive week, that’s not really a surprise.

The Vikings will host the San Francisco 49ers on Monday Night Football in Week 7, and the folks at the DraftKings Sportsbook have established them as a 7-point underdog to Kyle Shanahan’s team.

This past week saw the Vikings struggle with the Chicago Bears in the first game of what will hopefully be an abbreviated stretch without star receiver Justin Jefferson. The Vikings held off the Bears by a final score of 19-13 in a game that nobody will be putting into the “classic” category.

The Niners fell from the ranks of the NFL’s undefeated on Sunday with a loss to the Cleveland Browns, as their last-second field goal attempt sailed wide to the right to preserve the Cleveland victory.

San Francisco has won the last two matchups between these two teams, one of which happened in the 2019 NFC Divisional Playoffs. Both of those games were played in Santa Clara. This will be the Niners’ first trip to Minnesota since the 2018 regular season opener, a game that the Vikings won by a final score of 24-16 in Kirk Cousins’ first start as Minnesota’s quarterback.

The Vikings were underdogs at home to Kansas City in Week 5 as well, and are currently 0-3 on their home turf this season, which is an unusual place for the Vikings to find themselves in. If they’re going to reverse that trend in Week 7, it’s going to take a pretty significant effort from everyone involved to make it happen.