Inside the matchup Seahawks vs. Vikings

Seattle travels to Minnesota this week to play the Vikings. After dropping a very winnable game last week against the Titans, the Seahawks are last place in the NFC West as other teams in their division have won both of their games. It’s a little too early to call this a must-win game, but with games against San Francisco and Los Angeles the following two weeks, Seattle can’t afford to lose any more ground in the standings.

At quarterback for Minnesota is Kirk Cousins. He is thirty-three years old and in his fourth season with the Vikings after starting his career with Washington. He’s an accurate passer with a 67.1% completion percentage for his career. He has two of the top twenty all-time completion percentages for a season and is third on the NFL’s all-time list behind Deshaun Watson and the recently retired Drew Brees.

Minnesota’s receivers are led again by a healthy Adam Thielen. Until he missed six games in 2019 due to injury, Theielen hadn’t missed a game in his first five seasons with the Vikings. Now healthy, he leads receivers with three touchdowns already on the season.

Justin Jefferson is in his second year with the Vikings. Last year he had eight-eight receptions for precisely one thousand four hundred yards. He’s on a similar pace this season.

Finally, K.J. Osborn, the Vikings’ fifth-round pick in 2020, is paying dividends. After making the team last season as a punt and kickoff returner, Osborn leads all Viking wide receivers with one hundred sixty-seven yards.

In his fifth year with the Vikings, Dalvin Cook is the Vikings primary running back. He averages 4.6 yards per carry this season and piled up one hundred thirty-one rushing yards against Arizona last week. He’s also a threat to pick up some receiving yards as he already has eight receptions on the yard for sixty yards.

Vikings kicker Greg Joseph has only missed one field goal this season, but it was a big one. He missed a thirty-seven-yard attempt that would have been the winner of last week’s game against Arizona. Instead, the Vikings lost by one point. He also missed an extra point last week. On the plus side, all the field goals he’s made this season have been from fifty yards or farther. Joseph is the Vikings fifth kicker in the last eight seasons. During that time, the Vikings rank 28th in field goal percentage. They are dead last among all teams in field goal percentage in the fourth quarter or overtime when they are tied or behind by as many as three points.