Saints vs. Vikings: Highlights, game tracker and more

The New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings face off in Week 1 at U.S. Bank Stadium on Monday Night Football. Here are the highlights from this game.

The New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings start Monday Night Football for the 2017 season. On the surface, these are two teams on the fringe of playoff contention. However, both teams could also end up outside of the postseason, and no one would be surprised. With that being said, the big narrative for this game involves former Viking Adrian Peterson, now with the Saints.

However, it wasn’t the running back that was the big story — unless the story was averaging 3.0 yards per carry. In fact, it wasn’t even the quarterback that you’d expect that stole the show. Instead, it was Sam Bradford and Dalvin Cook for the Vikings that really made a name for themselves.

Bradford picked apart a weak Saints defense that was supposedly improved. He looked like Tom Brady (pre-2017 season) and couldn’t miss, especially with Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs making big catches all throughout the game, the latter finding the end zone twice. With Bradford rolling, that allowed Cook to get rolling, amassing 127 rushing yards in his debut.

Meanwhile, Brees and the Saints offense just had nothing going for them. They were met by a big-time Vikings defense that picked on an injured and porous offensive line. Peterson, Alvin Kamara, Mark Ingram and Brees were met in the backfield all night long. In the end, that led to the Viking just dominating from the second quarter on and securing the comfortable win.

Highlights

Next: NFL Power Rankings 2017: Week 2

This matchup won’t determine much in the playoff picture — it’s Week 1 after all. However, both the Vikings and Saints would benefit from a hot start to the season. A win in primetime would be nice way to get that started.