Five numbers to know for the Seahawks Vikings game

The Seahawks can take over the NFC West with a win over the Vikings Monday night. Here are five key numbers to know going into this big contest.

The Seahawks got excellent news today. Without even taking a snap, they moved within reach of taking over the division lead in the NFC West. The 49ers fell to the Ravens 20-17 and dropped to 10-2 for the year. With a win over the Vikings, the Hawks would get their tenth win and take over the division by virtue of their terrific overtime win over the Niners three weeks ago.

Seattle will have to put up some big numbers to get the win, though. We’re talking about more than offense, too. Happily, it looks like both Jadeveon Clowney and Jarran Reed will be ready to play. This is the perfect time to look at some key numbers before the kickoff. All of them point to a big win for the Hawks.

118.6. That’s Russell Wilson‘s career passer rating against the Vikings in the regular season. He’s thrown eight touchdowns against just one interception and added another score on the ground. Amazingly, the Vikings only managed to sack Wilson five times in those four games. Minnesota did have a much better handle on Number Three in the playoff game, holding him to one touchdown and picking him off once. But they still couldn’t beat him.

33 percent. That’s the career winning percentage of Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins versus the Seahawks. It isn’t that he played badly. He’s thrown three touchdown passes and no picks and has a 94.5 passer rating. Then again, three TDs in three games isn’t going to win a lot of games. Oddly enough, Cousins has a better record versus his own team. He was 1-1 versus Minnesota during his time in Washington. Incidentally, it was as the QB for Washington that he got his sole win over Seattle.

Five. That’s the number of wins the Seahawks have over the Vikings in their last five meetings, including their playoff win in 2016. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the last time Seattle lost to Minnesota was in 2009. That’s before the arrival of Pete Carroll, Russell Wilson, or Bobby Wagner. In those five contests, the Hawks have outscored the Vikes 140-63. Only one of the five contests was a one-score game, that being the 10-9 playoff win. Overall, Seattle is 7-2 at home against Minnesota.

Three. That’s the number of wins for the Seahawks over winning teams so far this season. Seattle is 3-2 against winning teams this year, the two losses against the Saints and Ravens. Considering the combined record of those two teams is 20-4, I don’t think that’s too shabby. That win over the 7-5 Steelers is looking better every week, too. The signature win, of course, is the overtime win over the Niners. At least, it’s the signature win until the next time we meet.

Zero. It may be hard to believe, considering that the Vikings are 8-3 coming into Monday night. But of those eight wins, exactly none came against a team with a winning record. Their best wins were against the 6-6 Raiders and the 6-6 Cowboys. The aggregate won-loss record of the teams Minnesota has defeated this year is 38-58. The Vikings have only played two games against teams with winning records so far and lost them both. The Chiefs and Packers are both very good, but I think everyone would agree they’re both a step behind the best the Hawks have faced.

Speaking of the 49ers, talk of facing them is putting the cart before the horse. Which could work with the correct harness, but the horse won’t like it one bit. The next game, the Vikings game, is now the season’s biggest of the year, as Seattle can take over the division. From the numbers I’m looking at, everything points to a Seahawks win.