Anyone willing to take a break from the Black Monday craze and have their minds blown with a little Minnesota Vikings history?
Team reporter Eric Smith delved into strange land on Wednesday and came back with one of the weirdest historical facts you’ll find surrounding the team. It pertains to the seven times they have faced off with the Baltimore Ravens.
In the three times that the Vikings beat the Ravens, they advanced to the NFC Championship game in that same season (1998, 2009 and 2017). However, in the four times that the Vikings lost to the Ravens, their head coach ended up getting fired that season.
The late, great Dennis Green was the first to go in 2001, and his exit was followed by Mike Tice’s tenure ending when the teams met in 2005. Leslie Frazier would be the next to suffer the curse in 2013 before it came screaming back in the face of Mike Zimmer this season.
A very, very, very weird @Vikings tidbit.
The Vikings have played the Ravens 7 times in franchise history.
In the 3 years they won (’98, ‘09 & ’17), Vikings went to NFC title game.
In the 4 years they lost (’01, ’05, ’13 & ’21), Vikings fired their head coach.
Beyond bizarre. pic.twitter.com/eEJ0Fzmunc
— Eric Smith (@Eric_L_Smith) January 12, 2022
Zimmer and the Vikings failed to close the deal in a Week 9 overtime loss at Baltimore that came down to the kicking foot of Justin Tucker.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll be watching Vikings and Ravens games now with a closer eye. As shown in the previous seven meetings, those matchups seem to change the course of history.
