MINNEAPOLIS _ As he outlined the Vikings' multi-faceted effort to improve their offense this offseason, Mike Zimmer laid out a magic number: 21.
The Vikings, from 2014-16, were 20-3 when they'd scored at least 21 points. It was a reasonable enough threshold to reach on a weekly basis, Zimmer reasoned, that a team built on a stifling defense should win most games when its offense does its part.
"That's what we're trying to do: Score 21 points, however we can do it," Zimmer said at his youth football camp on May 20. "But I feel good about the things we've accomplished."
Seven games into the Vikings' 2017 season, Zimmer's hypothesis appears correct. The only two games the Vikings have lost were the two they failed to reach double-digits. They'd already recorded wins where they scored 34, 29 and 23 points (and just for good measure, they threw in a victory where they only reached 20).
And on Sunday, in a 24-16 win over the Baltimore Ravens, the Vikings made perhaps their best statement about what they can do when their offense is self-sufficient.
Their reworked offensive line was down to a second-string left tackle and third-string left guard by the end of the day, after Riley Reiff and Jeremiah Sirles left with knee injuries. But before that, the group dutifully opened holes against an erratic Ravens run defense, helping Latavius Murray _ who'd run for only 97 yards before Sunday _ the second Vikings running back this season to surpass 100 yards.
The Vikings weathered an interception from Case Keenum and a handful of misfires from the quarterback in the first half, pulling away from the Ravens as Keenum directed three scoring drives in the second half. And their defense, in a commanding performance against a Ravens team down to three receivers by the middle of the first quarter, showed again why these Vikings don't need to clear a terribly high bar on offense.
Minnesota sacked Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco four times, forcing the Ravens to subsist on a diet of short passes that were repeatedly snuffed out by open-field tackles from linebackers Eric Kendricks and Anthony Barr. The Vikings held the Ravens to just 117 yards of offense through the first three quarters; only 54 of those came through the air.
There almost certainly will be another day where the Vikings need more from their offense, especially as they begin a stretch of six road games in the final nine weeks of the season. Though they got six field goals from Kai Forbath, the kicker's third missed extra point of the season could have come back to burn them in a closer game.
But they're 5-2 through seven games, in sole possession of first place in the NFC North after the Green Bay Packers lost a fourth-quarter lead in Brett Hundley's first start at quarterback for the injured Aaron Rodgers.
Their trip to London next week is for a date with the hapless Cleveland Browns, who played without Joe Thomas for the first time in 11 years on Sunday when a triceps injury ended the left tackle's incredible streak of consecutive snaps at 10,363.
And though the status of quarterback Sam Bradford remains in limbo as Teddy Bridgewater presses toward his return date, the Vikings won after another uneven performance from Keenum, thanks to a defense that's now in its third year as one of the NFL's best units and an offensive line that, for the most part, has woken from a three-year slumber.
