Two years ago, the Minnesota Vikings marched into Orchard Park to battle the Buffalo Bills. The Vikings erased a 17-point deficit, saw Justin Jefferson make one of the best catches in NFL history, and recovered a Josh Allen fumble on the Buffalo goal line. Minnesota won 33-31 in overtime for one of the biggest victories of the Kevin O’Connell era, stamping their status as NFC contenders with an 8-1 record.
But, little to their knowledge, that win caused a disturbance in the force. There was an epicenter located around Green Bay, Wisc., and permeated throughout the football universe. The tremors grew louder and louder until everyone who wasn’t wearing a purple jersey could hear it. The Vikings were frauds and the whole world needed to know about it.
Two years later, there’s another disturbance heading to Buffalo. The Kansas City Chiefs are 9-0 and looking to improve to 10-0 in a showdown with AFC contenders. The Chiefs have had some bounces go their way to enter this part of the season unblemished. Still, the national media sees a team that “just knows how to win.”
If we’re taking truth serum, we’re looking at two teams with records that may tell us something about them. But one squad gets the benefit of the doubt, which will make the rest of the year interesting.
Let’s go back to 2022. The vibes were sky-high for the Vikings, going from Mike Zimmer’s iron-fist rule to O’Connell’s more positive approach. In 2021, the Vikings owned a 6-8 record in one-score games. When things went wrong, they couldn’t come back to win the game.
These games resulted in a timeout standoff during a game against the Dallas Cowboys and a little too-aggressive celebration between Zimmer and Kirk Cousins on the sideline. Whereas O’Connell seemed to focus on the positives, Zimmer dwelled on the negatives, reminding his players, “It doesn’t have to be like this,” even after wins.
Whatever O’Connell did behind the scenes worked. Cousins went from a two-minute disaster to comeback king, tying an NFL record with eight fourth-quarter comebacks. The Vikings still played one-score games regularly in 2022. Still, they had an 11-0 record in one-score games, including the miracle comeback in Buffalo.
It would have been easy for people to acknowledge Minnesota’s success, but that did not happen. Instead, analysts and podcasters focused on their negative point differential (-3) and horrendous defense under Ed Donatell. The team also had many players from the 2017 team who were veering dangerously close to the dreaded age of 30.
Looking at the sum of the parts, things just didn’t add up. That led many to see the 31-24 loss to Daniel Jones and the New York Giants in the Wild Card round and try to be first to put their stamp on it, including Locked on Packers host Peter Bukowski.
Bukowski went on a rant shortly before the Green Bay Packers dog-walked the Vikings, 41-17, at Lambeau Field in 2022. He cited several metrics, including offensive and defensive expected points added (EPA) per play, points per drive offensively and EPA per play, DVOA, success rate, yards per play, yards per drive, and points per drive offensively to label the Vikings as fraudulent.
To his point, Sumr Sports has the 2022 Vikings offense finishing:
- 19th in EPA per play (-0.02)
- 12th in success rate (44.4%)
- 29th in EPA per rush (-0.11)
- 11th in EPA per pass (0.04)
On defense, they were:
- 23rd in EPA per play (0.01)
- 27th in success rate (45.1%)
- 24th in EPA against the pass (0.04)
- 21st in EPA against the run (-0.02)
“This is the thing that is always funny to me. They get so mad when all I’m doing is providing data,” Bukowski said. “I am providing evidence for my claims and the evidence that they’re offering is essentially vibes. It’s ‘Oh, they’re winning.’ You can not point to any underlying data to the quality of the Minnesota Vikings. You can not point to any. There is nothing to point to.”
Bukowski was only the loudest voice of the charge. Still, a quick Google search of “2022 Vikings frauds” turns up former Browns executive Joe Banner and Frank the Tank from Barstool Sports among the people slapping the label on that team. Many dismissed it as critics piling on. But ultimately, they were right, leading to a feeling of disappointment and Minnesota’s front office admitting their failures by blowing up the roster instead of running it back last year.
The 2024 Chiefs have become the 2022 Vikings’ spirit animal. The Chiefs have had a similar journey to the Vikings, winning seven of their nine games by one possession. They’ve squeaked out wins by a black cleat on the white goal line and a blocked field goal in the pit of despair. However, national analysts have sung another tune:
“They just know how to win.”
“It doesn’t make any sense to me at all how [the Chiefs] keep winning these games except for the fact that the old ‘winners win,’” Fox Radio host Doug Gottlieb said. “There is no reasonable way of explaining how they win these games when [they] haven’t even played well.”
Chiefs Blitz’s Nick Athan also cited Kansas City’s winning history as part of why people simply believe the Chiefs are untouchable.
“Though some perceive the Chiefs as lucky, that’s not the case,” Athan wrote in September. “They are built to win these games because they have something no other NFL team has within their possession. … In two games, the rest of the NFL has learned that the Chiefs are not lucky to be able to win three of the last five Super Bowls, they’ve earned this chance to three-peat.”
After winning three of the last five Super Bowls and a great chance to three-peat, Patrick Mahomes is like the Roman Reigns of the NFL, a dominant champion who appears unbeatable. Reigns held the WWE Universal Championship for 1,316 days in part because there wasn’t anyone worthy to knock him off until Cody Rhodes went on a three-year build to defeat him at WrestleMania XL.
With KC’s fortunes, many hope Lamar Jackson or Dan Campbell can “finish the story” to knock off an empire painted in Bloodline Red. Still, ultimately, the Chiefs aren’t as fraudulent as the 2022 Vikings.
Kansas City ranks 10th in EPA per play on offense (0.06) and has the second-highest success rate (50.1%). Their EPA per pass is 10th, and their EPA per rush is sixth (0.04) despite losing Isiah Pacheco. It helps that the team has a star-studded roster that features Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and the newly acquired DeAndre Hopkins.
The Chiefs have also been solid on defense, ranking 11th in defensive EPA per play (-1.22) with the third-lowest success rate allowed at 41.8%. They rank 21st in passing EPA allowed (0.04) but fifth in rushing (-0.12), which forces teams to become one-dimensional.
The 2022 Vikings didn’t force teams to do anything, and it was often on themselves to come surging back with a fourth-quarter comeback. While the contrast is enough to drive most fans insane, it might be legit enough for a dynasty that already has several rings.