Beating teams which are inferior is a sign of a good team
Finding a way to win against a team that is equal or superior is the sign of a great team. Minnesota, and especially Kirk Cousins, was not great from beginning to end today. They realistically deserved to lose after falling behind by 17 late in the third quarter but showed gumption, moxie, intestinal fortitude, etc. over the time that remained the likes of which champions have. Then came Josh Allen's turn to screw things up and he did not fail to deliver on that with the interception to Patrick Peterson (his fifth in four games against Buffalo) that was only slightly more excusable than Cousins head-in-a-vice giveaway. The MVP favorite then somehow didn't handle the snap and Eric Kendricks made up for the first quarter out-of-bounds penalty that was actually called a horse collar by finding his way through the mass of humanity to the ball in the end zone.
Call it horseshoe, call it rabbits foot, call it whatever other "lucky charm" you want, they never gave up and could have won in overtime had a blown catch been caught by this week's set of poor officials. No, none of them had a pass interference but that was just about the only thing not included in their low-light reel.
Last week it was a three-way split for receptions, primarily between Jefferson, Hockenson & Thielenson. Even with the OPotY shredding the Buffs like he did, this week's game had a more diverse spread which indicates that every game will have it's own flavor and any team that wants to sell-out to take Jefferson away will have to endure the abilities of all the other options!
So the team sits at 8-1 and is about two wins from clinching a home playoff game. They'll need help from elsewhere for a shot at home field through-out but beating the G-men is about all it will take for them to lock in the two-seed with the way the rest of the conference is going. That game isn't for more than a month but New York & Dallas merit following, with everyone else well out of the picture. They will get a semi-primetime game next Sunday and then the twilight game on Thanksgiving, which could provide the ultimate dessert of the 10th win of the season and a virtual lock of at least the two seed.
Today's performance showed that they can be great even after being terrible. They will need to continue showing the former and eliminate the latter to reach the heights that no one under about 50 years old has memory of experiencing.
That's possible, home playoff games are probable, and that's pretty darn great!!
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