The Vikings Lost in Detroit the Way Their Numbers Said They Might
For seven weeks the Minnesota Vikings were the NFL's last unbeaten team. On Sunday they lost 19-15 in Detroit, as three-point underdogs, and are now 6-1 straight up, tied with the 49ers and Bills for the best record in the league.
The loss was not a surprise to the point spread, and it was not a surprise to our model either. The way it happened says more about this team than the six wins did.
How they got to 6-1
| Week | Game | Score | Spread faced | Against the spread | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | vs Packers | W 39-22 | -2.5 | Beat it by 14.5 | Over 46.5 |
| 2 | at Bears | W 9-3 | +4.5 | Beat it by 10.5 | Under 46.5 |
| 3 | at Buccaneers | W 23-16 | +1.5 | Beat it by 8.5 | Under 42.5 |
| 4 | vs Dolphins | W 15-10 | -10 | Missed by 5 | Under 38.5 |
| 5 | at Saints | W 23-13 | -2.5 | Beat it by 7.5 | Under 41.5 |
| 6 | bye | ||||
| 7 | vs Colts | W 16-10 | -6.5 | Missed by 0.5 | Under 41.5 |
| 8 | at Lions | L 15-19 | +3 | Missed by 1 | Under 46.5 |
6-1 straight up, 4-3 against the spread, 1-6 on the total.
Their defense is still the best in the league by a distance. The Vikings allow 13.3 points a game. The next-best team, Jacksonville, allows 15.9. By EPA per play they rank first against the pass and eleventh against the run. Detroit came in scoring 30.7 points a game, second in the league, and managed 19.
Their offense is the problem it looked like. They score 20.0 points a game, now 27th in the league. By EPA they rank 22nd passing and 29th rushing. The power ranking has them third, behind the 49ers and Bills, and their combined EPA rank is seventh.
Their games stay low-scoring and close. Six of seven finished under the total, on average 10.1 points below it. Five were decided by one score, and the Vikings won the first four. In Detroit the defense did its part and the offense could not close a four-point gap.
What our model said about Detroit
Our prediction model projected this game before kickoff, and it got all three markets right:
| Market | Model's projection | Model confidence | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Against the spread (Lions -3) | Lions | 1 of 5 (Lean) | Lions by 4, beat the spread by 1 |
| Straight up | Lions | 3 of 5 | Lions won |
| Total (46.5) | Under | 3 of 5 | 34 points, under by 12.5 |
The more interesting part is the season around it. Against the spread, the model projected against the Vikings in six of their seven games, and was right in three of those six. It projected them once, in Week 1, and was right. Straight up, it projected Minnesota to lose three times: to Green Bay and Chicago, both wrong, and to Detroit. The model doubted this team the same way the market did, and for six weeks the Vikings beat both.
We would rather say the next part than have a reader find it. One correct projection is one game. Across all 121 games of 2026 the model is 50-65-6 against the spread (43.8%), below the 50% baseline. Its straight-up projections are right 62.4% of the time, a little behind simply taking the favorite every week (64.9%). Its over/under projections are at 56.2%. The Detroit call against the spread was the model's lowest confidence reading, and a one-point margin is as close as a result gets. The full season record is on the Predictions page.
What Detroit does support is the description, not the forecast: a team that wins on defense alone plays close games, and close games go both ways.
The lowest-scoring 6-0 start since 2002
Thirty teams started 6-0 between 2002 and 2025. None did it scoring as little as the 2026 Vikings.
| Fewest points per game in a 6-0 start | Points for | Points against | Final record | Postseason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Vikings | 20.8 | 12.3 | 6-1 so far | |
| 2009 Broncos | 22.2 | 11.0 | 8-8 | Missed playoffs |
| 2015 Broncos | 23.2 | 17.0 | 12-4 | Won Super Bowl |
| 2024 Chiefs | 24.3 | 17.2 | 15-2 | Lost Super Bowl |
| 2004 Patriots | 24.7 | 15.0 | 14-2 | Won Super Bowl |
| 2008 Titans | 24.8 | 11.0 | 13-3 | Lost first playoff game |
Points for and against are through each team's first six games.
The two closest matches are both Denver teams, and they show both endings. The 2009 Broncos allowed 11 points a game through six weeks, went 2-8 the rest of the way and missed the playoffs. The 2015 Broncos rode a defense to a Super Bowl title.
Their 8.5-point average margin through six games was the third-smallest of any 6-0 start, ahead of only the 2015 Broncos (6.2) and the 2024 Chiefs (7.2).
What happened to the other 6-0 teams
| 30 teams that started 6-0, 2002-2025 | Record | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Rest of regular season, straight up | 200-103 | 66.0% |
| Rest of regular season, against the spread | 140-156-7 | 47.4% |
| Rest of regular season as a favorite, against the spread | 110-136-6 | 44.8% |
| Made the playoffs | 28 of 30 | |
| Won the Super Bowl | 4 of 30 | |
| Lost their first playoff game | 10 of 30 |
Pushes count as half in every percentage, the same rule the site uses.
A 6-0 start is a strong signal. Twenty-eight of the 30 teams made the playoffs, and they kept winning two games in three. Against the spread they finished a little below half. As favorites they landed at 44.8% over 252 games, a gap that would turn up by chance about one time in ten: a lean, not a finding.
Minnesota was never priced like those teams. The thirty 6-0 teams were favored by 5.7 points on average in their first six games. The Vikings were favored by 2.6, and they have now been the underdog in three of seven.
The ones that lost game seven
Six of the thirty 6-0 teams lost their seventh game, as the Vikings just did. Two of them were Vikings teams.
| 6-0, then lost game seven | Rest of season, straight up | Final | Postseason |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 Vikings | 3-6 | 9-7 | Missed playoffs |
| 2004 Patriots | 8-1 | 14-2 | Won Super Bowl |
| 2009 Broncos | 2-7 | 8-8 | Missed playoffs |
| 2009 Vikings | 6-3 | 12-4 | Lost NFC Championship (OT) |
| 2013 Broncos | 7-2 | 13-3 | Lost Super Bowl |
| 2015 Packers | 4-5 | 10-6 | Won one, lost one |
Together those six went 30-24 straight up the rest of the way (55.6%), against 146-73 (66.7%) for the 24 that won game seven. Against the spread they were 28-25-1. Six teams is not a pattern, and the list runs from a collapse to a Super Bowl title. It is a reminder that the first loss is not the story; what comes after it is.
The close games
The Vikings are 4-1 this season in games decided by eight points or fewer. Since 2022 they are 35-14 in those games, second in the league behind the Eagles.
This is a familiar story in Minnesota. The 2022 team went 13-4 while being outscored by three points across the season, 11-0 in one-score games, then lost its first playoff game at home as a favorite. A year later it went 7-10.
It is tempting to call Detroit the first crack and expect the 2026 team to follow 2022 down. We tested that idea directly in our luck study, and for good teams it does not hold: once you allow for the ordinary regression every strong record goes through, close-game luck predicted nothing extra. The honest expectation is the one in the tables above. Strong teams keep winning, just not every week.
Twenty-four seasons against the spread
| 2002-2025 | Record | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Against the spread, regular season | 199-178-12 | 52.7% |
| Against the spread, playoffs | 5-7-1 | 42.3% |
| Straight up, regular season | 207-180-2 | 53.5% |
| Straight up, playoffs | 4-9 | 30.8% |
The long-run record is a little above half. The interesting part is when it happened:
| Regular season | Against the spread | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| 2002-2013 | 88-97-7 | 47.7% |
| 2014-2025 | 111-81-5 | 57.6% |
Over the last twelve seasons the Vikings have the best record against the spread of any NFL team, ahead of the Bengals (55.9%) and Steelers (55.6%). The 2015 team went 13-3 against the number, the best single Vikings season in our data.
The caveat is the same one we gave for the Giants. Rank 32 teams on anything and somebody finishes first, and the Vikings' first twelve seasons ran the other way. Unlike the Giants' home-road split, this one did not hold in both halves of the data. It describes the last decade well. It does not tell you what the market is missing.
Most other cuts come out close to a coin flip:
| Regular season, 2002-2025 | Against the spread | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| At home | 102-88-4 | 53.6% |
| On the road | 97-90-8 | 51.8% |
| Favored | 107-93-6 | 53.4% |
| Underdog | 89-81-6 | 52.3% |
| Home underdog | 29-22-1 | 56.7% |
| Inside the NFC North | 82-81-6 | 50.3% |
| Night games (7 PM ET or later) | 36-39-1 | 48.0% |
| Favored by 7 or more | 19-25-3 | 43.6% |
None of these is far enough from 50%, on enough games, to read anything into.
January
The playoff record is the part Vikings fans already know. Since 2002 they are 4-9 straight up in the postseason, and the last two trips both ended in the first game with Minnesota favored: a 31-24 home loss to the Giants after the 13-4 season in 2022, and a 27-9 loss to the Rams after a 14-3 season in 2024 (played in Arizona, moved because of the Los Angeles wildfires).
Thirteen playoff games is not a sample, and none of those rosters is this one. It is context for why a fast start in Minnesota is greeted with caution.
Monday night: the Bills
Next up is the other 6-1 team. Buffalo visits U.S. Bank Stadium on Monday, November 9, and the spread has the Bills by 3.5 with a total of 45.5. For the second week running the Vikings are an underdog, this time at home.
It is the same shape as Detroit, sharper. The Bills score 33.3 points a game, the most in the league, and allow 25.9, 24th. So the league's stingiest defense meets its most productive offense, and the question from Sunday comes back: can the Vikings' offense score enough when the defense does not get a 9-3 kind of day?
The Vikings have been a home underdog 52 times since 2002 and beat the spread in 29 of them (56.7%). That is too few games to mean much, and it describes old teams, not this one. Our Bills profile covers the other side.
What the data supports
- The Vikings are 6-1 and third in the power ranking, on the league's best defense and its 27th-ranked scoring offense.
- The Detroit loss fits the profile. The defense held a top-three offense to 19; the offense scored 15.
- Our model projected the Lions straight up, against the spread and on the total. It is one game, and the model is below half against the spread across 2026.
- No 6-0 start since 2002 came with less scoring. Six of the thirty 6-0 teams lost game seven, two of them Vikings teams, and their endings ranged from missing the playoffs to winning the Super Bowl.
- The market has priced this team modestly all season, and has them as an underdog again on Monday.
- The last twelve seasons are the best in the league against the spread, and the twelve before were below half. Nothing here forecasts a specific game.
See it yourself
- Vikings team breakdown: game-by-game results with the spread each game carried
- Predictions: the model's weekly projections and its season record
- Rankings: the power ranking and the EPA ratings behind this piece
- Standings: 2026 records straight up and against the spread
- Blog: the rest of the published research, including the Bills, Giants and Cowboys profiles