The Minnesota Vikings don’t need a formal hype train to excite the masses for the upcoming 2021 NFL season. Although the franchise has never procured a Super Bowl victory, the Vikings are the NFL’s seventh-winningest organization in all of the land since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. So, the fans keep trudging back, seeking to finally experience February glory.
If individual players are the price for admission in terms of generating interest, well, the team has those, too. The quarterback, Kirk Cousins, is a lightning rod for criticism — some of it fair, most of it not. Cousins is the most consistent and productive passer Minnesota has hosted since Daunte Culpepper, in an abbreviated stretch, 20 years ago.