New York Giants vs Minnesota Vikings
Starting in 1964, this rivalry is an old one yet a limited treat with the teams, both part of the NFC since entering the NFL, having played around 30 games in a span of almost 60 years. You have to love some of the stars involved here too with guys like Lawrence Taylor and Saquon Barkley for the Giants or Randy Moss and Justin Jefferson for the Vikings. The matchup is also a potential moneymaker when you observe some of the numbers behind the series. Continue reading for more details on how to make your pockets fatter when this game arises.
The Matchup
Although both the Giants and Vikings play in the NFC, they only play each other once every few years due to them being in separate divisions with NY in the East and Minnesota in the North. The series edge has favored the Vikings thus far with Minnesota going 17-12 in 29 matchups between 1964 and 2019, including 5-1 at home from 2008 to 2019. On that note, while there haven’t been a lot of historical games between these two, there have been three playoff games in the series that are worth noting.
The first postseason match came back in 1994 at Giants stadium where NY escaped with a 17-10 victory over a Vikings team with Hall of Fame wide receiver Cris Carter who would score their only touchdown of the game. The second wild card game came three years later, again at Giants Stadium, but this time with a different outcome as QB Randall Cunningham would lead the Vikings to a 23-22 victory after outsourcing NY 20-3 after halftime. In 2000, the teams would meet in the NFC Championship game but the results would be far different as the Giants would wallop the Vikings 41-0 behind 381 yards passing and five TDs from starting QB Kerry Collins.
Odds and Ends
If you just look at the regular season matchups between the two teams, the Vikings are 16-10 overall and have scored an average of 24.1 points per contest over those 26 games compared to a Giants team that’s only averaged a mere 18.4 points over that same span. Granted, this is going back to 1964, so keep that in mind when considering those numbers. The series opened up with three straight games that averaged at least 50 points but only four more games with that many points would happen over the next 50 years. That being said lots of games in the low-to-mid-40s with the teams averaging 45 points per contest in six games between 2001 and 2005 and 42.5 points a game over eight contests from 2007 to 2019.
What’s great is the sheer fact that neither team has dominated this series despite the Vikings’ edge as the longest winning streak in this matchup is a four-game streak by Minnesota from 2005 until 2010. On that note, there are more victories by large margins in this series than you’d expect such as from 2010 to 2019 when the winning team won by an average of 22.5 points over six games while another six-game stretch from 1999 to 2004 yielded an average winning margin of 18.3 points a game.
Why You Should Bet on This Game
There are a lot of little details here to work with that can make you money with the numbers above in addition to a few spreads and over/under trends to know based on the data. The Giants haven’t had as much success against the spread as they’ve gone 3-6 versus the Vikings in nine contests between 2005 and 2019 although, in 22 games dating back to 1986 all the way up to 2019, the teams are split at 11-11. Take a look at the totals here and be wary of putting money on the over as it’s gone 9-12-1 over that same span and 3-7 in 10 games from 2004 to 2019. Keep an eye on the point spreads, especially if it’s at 5 ½ as spreads at that number or higher went 0-7 against the spread between 2005-2019.