When Sam Bradford needed to miss time due to injury two weeks into the 2017 season, many people figured the Minnesota Vikings were immediately eliminated from being a championship contender that year.
Then after a strong start to his rookie campaign, Vikings running back Dalvin Cook was lost for the season thanks to tearing his ACL in the team’s fourth game of the year. With Cook and Bradford both out of the lineup for a significant amount of time, most assumed Minnesota was just going to be in for a long and disappointing season.
But instead of listening to all of the outside noise, the Vikings went out and won 11 of their final 12 games to finish the year 13-3 and secure the No.