After three games, including two against divisional foes, the Minnesota Vikings surprisingly headline the standings with a flawless 3-0 record. The Twin Cities should overflow with optimism, yet the offensive struggles cloud the judgment of a fan base that has seen this film before.
In the last decade alone, two Vikings squads could be mistaken for the 2026 crew.
A Mike Zimmer-led team won the first five games in 2016; a shock, as Teddy Bridgewater was out for the season and an offense with Shaun Hill and the freshly acquired Sam Bradford shouldn’t be able to consistently win games.
Yet they did, behind a phenomenal defense and game-changing special-teams plays. Ultimately, the historic defensive pace was unsustainable and with that, the success exited U.S. Bank Stadium in its inaugural season. At the end of the season stood an 8-8 record and another disappointing season.
Then, in 2022, the Vikings hired Zimmer’s successor and his group put on a show in his first year. Kevin O’Connell’s team went 13-4 and showed remarkable resilience, winning a bunch of close games they, quite frankly, shouldn’t have won. A first-round playoff exit proved that the team wasn’t real.
To this day, FTN’s DVOA ranks the Vikings 28th in the league, despite a 13-4 record. According to their numbers, they should’ve won 5.9 wins that year. The most commonly mentioned statistic, however, is the negative point differential, as they were outscored by three points in the regular season, in which they went 11-0 in one-possession games.
And here’s the problem: The 2026 season looks quite comparable to both of those years. Once again, the Vikings win ugly, close games behind an unbelievable defense. And several statistics show the extent.
For one, they cannot move the ball on offense. They have yet to clear 250 yards in a game on that side of the ball, something only two other teams in the Super Bowl era managed while winning three consecutive games: The 1969 Vikings and the 1999 Buccaneers.
They have also been outgained by 244 yards, the second-worst yard-differential among all 3-0 teams in NFL history, only behind the 2020 Seahawks, who didn’t have a defense. Russell Wilson alone scored 14 touchdowns and had only one pick in that stretch.
There are also a few plays that are hardly repeatable. In Week 1, several, let’s call them controversial, penalties kept drives alive and the Packers took points off the board. Jalen Redmond’s forced fumble at the goal line comes to mind, perhaps even Caleb Williams’ injury that cost him a potential touchdown. On Sunday, Myles Price snapped a 10-year drought with his punt return touchdowns, the franchise’s first since 2016.
Why do the Vikings keep winning these games? Two things are responsible: Brian Flores and the turnover category.
Flores has always been a brilliant defensive mind, but the 2026 unit might be his masterpiece. At about an 80% blitz rate, depending on the outlet, he’s dialing up the pressure and his disguises and overloading of the box are confusing quarterbacks left and right.
They held a Bears offense that dropped 59 in Week 1 and was explosive with its QB3 in Week 3 to only three points in between. Jordan Love’s Packers hit some big plays in the first half but fell off in the second, scoring just 3 points.
So far, the Vikings rank 4th in points allowed. Through three weeks, they also rank 1st in defensive EPA/Play, with impressive numbers through the air and on the ground. They’re also first in success rate and DVOA.
Flores has held opponents to just one touchdown on nine red-zone trips this season. The Bucs went 2-17 on third downs. No team is better on third downs than the Vikings, preventing a first down on all but 22.7%. Just for comparison, Zimmer’s historic third-down defense in 2017 was at 25.2%. The 2019 Patriots currently hold the season-long record at 24.1%.
And then there are the turnovers. The Vikings’ six forced turnovers rank third in the NFL, while the two times the Vikings have lost the ball rank them fifth. It’s an old Kevin O’Connell stat that he wins games when the Vikings don’t lose the turnover battle, and the Vikings haven’t done that in any of their three games. Under his watch, the Vikings are 38-4 when applicable.
An interesting wrinkle: In the scary DVOA stat that accused the 2022 group of fraud, the 2026 version actually ranks 8th, and should’ve won 2.3 of the three games.
At the end of the day, the standings are what count. The Vikings are 3-0, and they have earned every win. Their defense gives them a legitimate foundation, and their ability to capitalize on the turnover battle has repeatedly turned that foundation into victories. It might even be sustainable, given it was great in 2024 and in 2025, and got even hotter as last season went on.
That makes Minnesota a real team, not a fraud. But being real and being a contender are different things. The defense can keep the Vikings in games; the offense still has to prove it can finish them without needing everything else to go right.
For now, the record deserves respect and the questions remain. The Vikings have time to answer them. Until the offense does, the fraud watch can come off — but the contender label has to wait.
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