If any of the Dallas Cowboys opponents during the stretch that runs from Week 12-17 could be said to be a sure win, it might just be the Minnesota Vikings.
The Vikings had a magical season last year. Had they been in any other division, they’d have hosted a home playoff game.
Over the offseason, however, they jettisoned their starting quarterback, Sam Darnold.
They will, apparently, hand the keys to J.J. McCarthy, who missed his entire rookie season with an injury. Sam Howell, a former starter with Washington, is in line to be his backup.
Assuming McCarthy fares better in 2025, he does have a solid supporting cast on offense and a good defense.
But can he duplicate the effort Darnold gave Minnesota in 2024?
Darnold had a career year with 4,319 yards, along with 35 touchdowns against just 12 picks. That was a big reason why the Vikings went 14-3 last year.
To be certain, McCarthy has great receivers to hit in Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison.
He also has Aaron Jones in the backfield to hand the ball off to and we know how he plays against Dallas.
Still, this is, among those six games, the most winnable for Dallas. Especially as they will be playing it at home.
Skol Away
The Cowboys are 19-15 all-time against Minnesota. But the Vikings do hold an 8-6 record against Dallas in the Cowboys’ home stadiums.
In a way, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Minnesota is one of Dallas’ biggest non-divisional rivals.
Like the Steelers, it has more to do with the teams’ respective playoff history.
The Vikings have been a playoff opponent seven times, dating back to the first postseason meeting in 1971. That game ended with a 20–12 Cowboys’ win in Minnesota.
The Vikings got revenge in 1973, beating Dallas 27-10 in the NFC Championship game at Texas Stadium.
Their next meeting, in 1975, was the Hail Mary game and Vikings fans are still mad about that result.
![ORG XMIT: S11A73571 Dallas Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson (88) catches Roger Staubach's "Hail Mary Pass" during the 1975 NFC Divisional Playoff game against the Vikings. Nate Wright (43) said there was no interference on the play. [ AP file photo ] # 22 is Paul Krause 11062011xSPORTS](https://insidethestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/beyond-the-clock-cowboys-undrafted-wonder-drew-pearson-scaled.jpg.webp)
Dallas is 4-3 against Minnesota in the playoffs. The Vikings have won the last two playoff games, however.
The Cowboys will come into this game having won the last three meetings, including a 40-3 blowout win in Minnesota in 2022.
By The Numbers
In Week 15 games, the Cowboys are 26-21 overall. They are 12-9 when those games are played at home.
The only other time the two teams have met on this week in any season, Dallas rolled to a 37-20 win in Minnesota back in 1993.
Lincoln Coleman scored a touchdown for Dallas in that game.
a Dallas Cowboys fan, since the 70’s NO! it won’t be a easy win because the Minnesota Vikings have a good defense
Just cause they have a good defense, it don’t mean it won’t be an easy win!! They have to be able to score points to win a game, and if their QB ain’t any good then how are they gonna score points…. Unless they run Aaron Jones every play in the game, but even that won’t work the whole game cause eventually that will get stopped too!! So with the vikings having a new QB coming off of a major injury and has never thrown a pass in a real NFL game, there’s no guarantee he’ll be any good!! And not only that, it takes more than just a defense to win a game, that’s why it’s a TEAM sport!! It takes a whole team to win a game!! And another thing is, the Vikings don’t have that good of a defense, they’re not bad, but they’re not good either!! The only reason they’re even decent is because of their defensive coordinator!! So this can be an easy win!! As long as we go into this game healthy, we can win this game no problem!! And if we can stay healthy all season, we can win a lot more games than you think!! The only reason we didn’t have a winning season last season is because of all the injuries!! If this team stayed healthy last season, there’s no reason to think they couldn’t have had another 12 win season, maybe more, but there was so many injuries, it was impossible to overcome!! And this team we have this year is better than the one we had last year, so as long as we stay healthy, we’ll be back in the playoffs!!
I agree!! The vikings won’t be as good as they were last year!! They actually wasn’t even that good last year, most of their wins came from one score wins and at the end of games!! They just had luck on their side!! This year, they’ll have a different QB coming back from a big injury and he’s also gonna be playing his first season in the NFL!! That don’t sound like it will be a good season for him!! He has to get NFL ready again, and he has to come back from a serious injury!! I’m not saying JJ McCarthy is gonna be a bad QB, I’m just saying I don’t think he’ll have a good first year since he has to come in and play after dealing with his injury and this being his actual first time playing in a meaningful game in the NFL!! I will say that I will bet anything that this team won’t win near as many games as they did last season!! They’ll be lucky to win 10 games this season!! And I think that as long as we can stay healthy, we shouldn’t have any problems winning this game!!
I think a lot of people are underestimating how good our team is!! We have pretty much the same team as last year, except this year we added better players, so our team on paper is better than last year!! The only reason we had a losing season last season was because of all of the injuries we had to deal with!! Half of our team was out with injuries, we had practice squad players playing for us for half the season!! If it wasn’t for all the injuries, we could have easily had a winning season!! And I don’t think it will be any different this year since we added better players to the team, plus we’re gonna be getting back all of the injured players we lost last season, minus maybe 1 or 2 that will miss extra time still recovering and D Law who left to play in Seattle which we have his replacement anyways plus others, so we don’t need him anyways, so pretty much other than Diggs and Overshown, we’ll have a healthy and better team than last year, so we will be fine!! We’re gonna have a better season than most people think!!