On display for the Minnesota Vikings in New Orleans during Week 16 was a showcase of defensive ineptitude. The team’s showing on that side of the ball was so putrid that it netted the fifth-most yards allowed in a non-overtime game by an NFLteam in the last half-decade. Because the Vikings are trussed on a bedrock of defensive principles, the impotence is much more difficult to fathom. Minnesota has been an unmistakably defensive-first organization for seven years after a period of doldrums from 2010 to 2013.
Owners Zygi and Mark Wilf tapped Mike Zimmer to lead the franchise and cultivate a return to a 1970s-like aura of defensive football.