Sunday's slate of action featured a rash of scenery-shifting upsets, none more jaw-dropping than Buffalo's 27-6 dismantling of the Vikings.
Pundits and fans alike rolled into the weekend expecting Kirk Cousins and his high-powered Minnesota offense to unfurl an easy knockout punch against the Bills, seen by most as one of the worst on-field football acts in years.
Instead, we rise Monday morning thinking differently about a Vikings attack that relentlessly turned the ball over, ran for a meager 14 yards and could only watch from afar as rookie Bills quarterback Josh Allen authored a breakout performance against a defense presupposed to be Super Bowl-ready.
"Unfortunately, you go back and look at the last three years of football that we played. We've done this once a year," Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph said after the loss, per ESPN's Courtney Cronin.
"Go back a couple of Decembers ago [in 2016], we had a chance of making the playoffs. Then the Indianapolis Colts come in here and kick our butts. Last year in the NFC Championship Game [against the Eagles], everyone knows what happened," Rudolph said. "One thing for us is that it happened in September. We're going to learn from it, this could be the best thing for us. We have a really young and talented team, but we can't just roll the ball out there and expect to win. I think a lot of people were underestimating the Buffalo Bills this week."
It's fair to ask if the Vikings were part of the population doing the underestimating, perhaps -- even just mentally -- peering past the low-octane Bills toward Thursday night's super-powered showdown with the Los Angeles Rams.
The Vikings would argue against that, though, and coach Mike Zimmer owns the consistent track record in Minnesota to state his case. Besides, Sunday was stuffed with surprising stinkers from the Patriots falling to Detroit to big-talking Jacksonville squeezing out just six points against the Titans.
Minnesota is beatable, the Bills have a pulse, and Week 3 taught us once again how unpredictably bizarre each Sunday can be.
Welcome to today's NFL.
