NFL Power Rankings Week 9

No. 19 (down 1 spot): Frank Schwab – Yahoo! Sports

Mike Zimmer admitted to the mistake of calling consecutive timeouts, which cost the Vikings a 5-yard penalty and helped Dallas convert a third-and-11 on the next play. A play after that, the Cowboys scored the game-winning touchdown. That will be yet another piece of evidence for frustrated Vikings fans who want a coaching change.

No. 16 (down 2 spots): Pete Prisco – CBS Sports

The offense wasn’t good against the Cowboys. They just seemed too predictable. That has to change.

No. 23 (down 1 spot): NFL Staff – Bleacher Report

This was the one. This was the game the Minnesota Vikings had to have. Beat a Dallas Cowboys team that was short quarterback Dak Prescott, and the Vikings would be 4-3 and in the thick of the NFC Wild Card picture. Lose, and it’s off to the also-ran pile again.

Giving up 325 passing yards to a 27-year-old backup making his first career start is bad enough. But Cooper Rush just outplayed Kirk Cousins, and it wasn’t especially close. Minnesota’s veteran quarterback completed just 23 of 35 passes for 184 yards and a single first-quarter touchdown pass.

After the Cowboys came back to score the game-winning touchdown with less than a minute left, a visibly frustrated Adam Thielen bemoaned Minnesota’s inability to close games out.

“Every game we just hang around, hang around, hang around, let the team hang around, instead of just putting our foot on the gas and going,” Thielen told reporters.

It was the fourth time this season the Vikings lost a one-score game. And with a brutal stretch of schedule underway that features trips to Baltimore and Los Angeles to face the Chargers and a visit from the Packers, it was a defeat that may well signify the beginning of the end for the 2021 Vikings…

And quite possibly Head Coach Mike Zimmer as well.