The Vikings Completed The Biggest Comeback In NFL History To Beat The Colts

The Minnesota Vikings entered Saturday’s game with the Indianapolis Colts needing one win to clinch the NFC North division and move to 11-3 on the season. After one of the worst halves of football you will ever see, the dream of a division title seemed like it would have to wait a week as they trailed 33-0 thanks to a pick-six, fumble, blocked punt for a TD, failed 4th and inches run, and a failed fake punt that gifted the Colts some tremendous field position all half.

Teams leading by 30+ were 1,548-1-1 all-time in the NFL, with the Bills 32-point comeback over the Oilers in the 1992 Playoffs as the only such comeback in league history. The Vikings accepted that challenge (with some help from the Colts) to storm their way back into the game. A 14-3 third quarter pulled them to within 22 points, and then Justin Jefferson ran a gorgeous route to get free early in the fourth to make it a 15-point game.

The Colts would stop the bleeding briefly with an interception on a woefully overthrown ball by Kirk Cousins, but again couldn’t do anything with it offensively.

The Vikings marched down the field once more, with Cousins finding Adam Thielen for a touchdown to make it 36-28 with just over five minutes to play.

Another three-and-out by the Colts gave the ball back to the Vikings, but Cousins got taken down near midfield on 4th and 15, seemingly putting an end to the comeback bid.

On their ensuing drive, the Colts looked to put the game to rest with a QB sneak on 4th and 1 from the Vikings 36, passing on a 53-yard field goal to go up 11. Naturally, that backfired as Matt Ryan got stopped on the initial push and the whistle blew before a second push maybe got him to the sticks, and the Vikings took over on downs. On the very first play of the next drive, Dalvin Cook caught a screen pass that completely fooled the Colts defense, as he followed a convoy to open space and then darted to the end zone for a 64-yard TD.

TJ Hockenson got free in the middle of the end zone on the all-important two-point conversion, and the game was tied with just over two minutes to go.

Neither team could find the game-winner in regulation and we went to overtime, where the Vikings moved it across midfield but chose to punt from the Colts’ 40 on 4th down rather than kicking a 56-yarder on the opening possession — because that would not have ended the game and a miss would’ve put the Colts very close to field goal range to win it themselves.

Indianapolis couldn’t move the ball very far on their next drive but did chew up some clock, leaving Minnesota with a minute to get into field goal range themselves after a punt. They got a big chunk on a dart from Cousins to the Indy 40 with 30 seconds to go.

With 19 seconds to play, they threw a screen to Jefferson who weaved for a first down, but with no timeouts they needed to spike the ball and set up the game-winning kick attempt. The Colts tried their best to waste time but were too egregious in their attempts to hold the Vikings players down and keep them from getting set up and got a delay of game penalty called on them, which stopped the clock and let Minnesota calmly trot Greg Joseph out for the game-winner to complete the largest comeback in NFL history with a 39-36 win.

It was an unbelievable turnaround, even considering the Colts are not a good team. Minnesota had nearly 350 yards of offense in the second half and overtime after 83 in the first half, while the Colts had 128 total yards of offense after halftime. As it turns out, not shooting yourself in the foot constantly helps tremendously, and the Vikings got themselves away from the fraud allegations for at least one more week and locked up a playoff berth by winning the division.