Sam Bradford has been with the Vikings a little more than a month. He's a perfect 3-0 as a starter and has not thrown an interception.
And according to Peter King of The Monday Morning Quarterback, Bradford is also his choice for NFL MVP four weeks through the season.
King wrote:
Normally I wouldn't want to name a player who missed a quarter of his team's games the MVP. But I will make an exception for Sam Bradford. Bradford sat out the opener (the Vikings got two defensive touchdowns and won by nine at Tennessee) and started the next three Minnesota games.
In those three games, learning a new offense on the fly, Bradford has beaten quarterbacks who have played in four of the past nine Super Bowls, and in each game outplayed Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton and Eli Manning. Bradford has no turnovers. He has the best completion and passer rating, both by a mile, in his career.
Bradford has thrown for 719 yards and four touchdowns while completing 69.5 percent of his passes.
King said while other players might have flashier numbers, Bradford's impact on the Vikings has been nothing short of remarkable given the amount of injuries Minnesota had to deal with early in the season.
The word "valuable" has always meant something to me with this award. Minnesota lost its three most important offensive players to injury in a two-week span in the summer: Bridgewater, Adrian Peterson and left tackle Matt Kalil. The season, justifiably, could have spiraled to hell. But an unwavering coach, Mike Zimmer, and an emerging star defense have held the fort. And a quarterback the Rams gave away in 2015 and the Eagles gave away in 2016 has played the best three-game stretch of his pro career. The MVP, I think, should never be determined on numbers alone—though they help. The MVP should be about the player who means the most to a very good team, and without whom that team would be Just Another Team.
Goessling: Vikings, Texans Similar In Nature
The Vikings and Texans may play in different divisions and opposite conferences, but the makeup of each team can be compared to the other.
Ahead of Sunday's noon (CT) matchup, Ben Goessling of ESPN.com said the teams can see themselves in the other, even down to a pair of head coaches in Mike Zimmer and Bill O'Brien who are known for their passion for the game.
Add in the fact that both teams have strong defenses and will each be without a household-name player, and Sunday's game should be a good one.
Both teams reached the playoffs last year with bruising defenses that made up for underwhelming offenses, and both are led by men who became stars on HBO's "Hard Knocks" for their command of a *certain kind of vocabulary. *
Since the start of the season, both the Texans and Vikings have lost their biggest stars (J.J. Watt and Adrian Peterson), but the two teams are a combined 7-1. And both teams will bring one of the NFL's top defenses to U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday.
