The home opener for the 2019 NFL season saw the Minnesota Vikings welcome the Atlanta Falcons to US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. The Las Vegas oddsmakers had the Vikings as four-point favourites to win this game, but Atlanta had trouble from the get-go and didn’t manage to score until the fourth quarter, then were unable to get the two-point conversion. The final score of the game came with just over a minute left to go, but Atlanta was once again unable to convert the two-point attempt. Despite the final score, Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins set a career low for pass attempts, tallying 8 of 10 for 98 yards and one passing touchdown (but he did score another on a quarterback sneak). The running game, however more than compensated as Dalvin Cook ran 21 times for 111 yards and two scores and rookie Alexander Mattison added nine carries for 49 yards.

Defensively, the star of the game was safety Anthony Harris who had two interceptions (one in the end zone) and also recovered a fumble forced by cornerback Trae Waynes. The Vikings defence tallied four sacks of Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, one each for Anthony Barr, Everson Griffen, Linval Joseph, and Danielle Hunter (a second sack by Griffen was negated by a penalty).

A view of the Minnesota Vikings’ home stadium by “www78”
“Viking Stadium” by www78 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Chris Tomasson reported on the game for the Pioneer Press:

The Vikings vowed to run the ball more this season, and did they ever on Sunday.

They rolled up 174 yards rushing, including 111 by Dalvin Cook, in drubbing the Atlanta Falcons 28-12 in the season opener at U.S. Bank Stadium.

Cook had touchdown runs of 19 yards in the first quarter and seven yards in the third quarter. It was the third career 100-yard game by Cook, who is one of the keys to Vikings’ hopes of bouncing back after missing the playoffs last season.

The game was never in doubt as Minnesota took leads of 14-0 after the first quarter, 21-0 at halftime and 28-0 after the third quarter. The Vikings were dominant on offense, defense and special teams.

On defense, safety Anthony Harris intercepted two Matt Ryan passes and recovered a fumble. The Vikings sacked Ryan four times.

On the first possession of the game, linebacker Eric Wilson broke through to block a punt by Matt Bosher and the Vikings recovered at the Atlanta 21. It was Minnesota’s first blocked punt since Jasper Brinkley had one Nov. 30, 2014 against Carolina.

At the Daily Norseman, Eric Thompson fills in for Ted Glover on the post-game Stock Market Report:

Buy: Establishing the run is something this team can do going forward. The Vikings’ run blocking was very sound for the most part on Sunday, and it appears that should be replicable. The offensive scheme seems to fit the personnel when it comes to the ground attack.

Sell: Leaning THAT much on the run going forward. The Vikings aren’t going to jump out to a 14-0 lead every week. There will be plenty of times where they have to move the ball through the air throughout the season. Even with the extremely small sample size, the pass blocking was pretty suspect at times. It’s an area of the offense worth paying attention to going forward.

Buy: This was a great defensive performance against a very good offense. Atlanta, a team that had the sixth ranked offense in the league a year ago, didn’t score a single point for the first 50 minutes of the game. Of their 345 total offensive yards, 129 of them came on their final two drives when the game was all but decided. Julio Jones had 31 yards a day after signing a contract extension worth $64 million guaranteed. The Vikings defense kept a very dangerous Falcons offense in check until garbage time.

Sell: This was a clean defensive performance against a very good offense. The defensive performance could have been even better if they hadn’t jumped offside FOUR times on Sunday. I’m sure that drove Mike Zimmer as crazy at it drove us. The Vikings need to cut down on the mental mistakes going forward. The opposing quarterback next week has a reputation for making defenses pay on free plays.

Buy: It’s tough to start the season much better than the Vikings did on Sunday. Punt block. Touchdown. Interception. Touchdown. Exchange punts. Force a fumble. Touchdown. If Sunday’s game was being played out on Madden 20, there’s a 100% chance the guy controlling the Falcons rage quits by halftime. The Vikings didn’t just hit the ground running; they hit the ground driving a Bugatti.

Sell: It’ll be that easy going forward. While the Vikings forced the Falcons into most of their mistakes, Atlanta did some of it to themselves with drive-extending penalties and uncharacteristically bad decisions from Ryan. The Vikings have historically done very well hanging onto an early lead under Mike Zimmer; we’ll see just how good this team is when they don’t get off to such a hot start.

Buy: Special teams were outstanding. As we touched on with Maalouf, the special teams phase was virtually flawless on Sunday. Anxiety levels have been significantly lowered for the time being.

Sell: We’re completely out of the woods there. There weren’t any field goal attempts by Bailey, and there were was some space for Kenjon Barner to make a few decent returns. We should know better than to completely let our guard down when it comes to the Vikings kicking game.