The Vikings and Raiders demonstrate that midseason blunders are no excuse to abandon the season.
The Minnesota Vikings and the Las Vegas Raiders are proof that major midseason upheaval doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to start aiming for the draft instead of the playoffs.
Days after the Vikings acquired him in a trade deadline deal with Arizona following Kirk Cousins’ torn Achilles tendon, Joshua Dobbs was pressed into duty when rookie QB Jaren Hall went out with a concussion in the first quarter Sunday at Atlanta.
Dobbs gathered his offensive linemen on the sideline to go over his cadence, then led the Vikings to three touchdowns, including the game-winning 6-yard throw to Brandon Powell with 22 seconds left to rally the Vikings past the Falcons 31-28.
All this from “a guy who’s still living in a hotel,” marveled Minnesota offensive lineman Dalton Risner, who knows a thing or two about the challenges of joining a team midseason after he signed with the Vikings in late September.
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“I can only imagine, bro. I know what it was like to learn this in three weeks and have to get on the field,” Risner said. “His was what? Three days? Just a stud, man.”
The Vikings (5-4) have won four straight and are still in the NFC playoff race, despite the fact that Dobbs is still learning everyone’s names.
“I know a lot of nicknames per se, but name names, that’s for this week, that’s the assignment for this week,” he went on to say.
The Raiders have a lot more opponents to catch up to in the AFC, but after blowing out the New York Giants 30-6 in interim coach Antonio Pierce’s debut Sunday, there’s renewed confidence they may rescue their season.
The team played tight under former coach Josh McDaniels’ rigid control, but under Pierce, the former Giants linebacker who replaced the fired McDaniels, there was a noticeable ease in the locker room last week. That carried over to game day and afterward, cigar smoke wafting from the victorious locker room.
“No, it’s the first time,” receiver Davante Adams said when asked if he’d ever experienced such a thing. “But I’ve never been in a predicament like this, so it was warranted.”
The victory cigars were a sign the Raiders were finally enjoying themselves after what had been a trying season that resulted in the firings of McDaniels, general manager Dave Ziegler and offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi and the benching of quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
All of them had roots in New England and tried to bring the “Patriot Way” to the land of the “Black Hole” only to prove once again that maybe Bill Belichick’s celebrated ingenuity and sustained success had more to do with Tom Brady being his quarterback.
Belichick is 331-171 in his career for a .659 winning percentage. But his record without Brady is 82-96 (.461), a far cry from his 249-75 mark (.656) with Brady.
Of his 10 assistants who have gone on to become head coaches in the NFL, only two had winning records. Al Groh went 9-7 with the Jets in 2000 before returning to the college ranks, and Bill O’Brien, currently his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, went 52-48 with the Texans from 2014-20.
Even Nick Saban (15-17) had a losing record in the NFL and Brian Flores went 24-25 with the Dolphins from 2019-21. With the Giants falling to 2-7 with their loss at Las Vegas, Brian Daboll is 11-13-1.
The other five are way under .500: Joe Judge (10-23), Matt Patricia (13-29-1), McDaniels (20-33), Romeo Crennel (32-63) and Eric Mangini (33-47).
