Christopher Gates at the Daily Norseman summarizes an argument from a behind-the-paywall ESPN Insider article:
First off, according to the article, only six teams in NFL history have had the same sort of dominance in the first halves of football games that the 2011 Minnesota Vikings have shown (scoring more than 50 points while allowing 7 or fewer). The Vikings have outscored their opponents 54-7 in the first half this year. Here are the other teams that fall into that same category.
Team Year Points For Points Against Seattle Seahawks 2006 55 6 Dallas Cowboys 1973 53 6 Los Angeles Rams 1970 63 6 San Diego Chargers 1961 73 3 Cleveland Browns 1947 75 7 Cleveland Browns 1946 55 0 One minor difference between the 2011 Vikings and those other six teams . . . the six teams listed above all went 3-0. Minnesota has managed to go 0-3.
ESPN even managed to put a number on the odds of the Vikings’ losing all three of their games in the fashion that they have. With win probabilities at halftime ranging from 84.9% in the game against the Chargers to 97.1% in last week’s game against Detroit, ESPN put the odds of the Vikings losing their first three games with the halftime leads they had at 3,800-to-1. To put it another way, if you could have placed an actual bet of $50 on such a thing occurring, you would have walked away with a cool $190,000.
