On Sunday, with the Vikings’ playoff hopes on the line in a late-afternoon home game against the NFC North champion playing for a first-round bye, Kirk Cousins will step onto the turf at U.S. Bank Stadium and try to match the standard of the last Vikings quarterback in the same situation six years ago to the day.
It was Dec. 30, 2012, when the Vikings found themselves needing to beat the Green Bay Packers at the Metrodome to clinch a wild-card spot, that Christian Ponder delivered perhaps his finest performance in Minnesota. While Adrian Peterson ran for 199 yards, coming within nine of breaking Eric Dickerson’s single-season record, it was Ponder who delivered the strikes that put the Vikings over the top in a wild 37-34 win.