Monday Night Football: 6-1 Bills at 6-1 Vikings, Wentz Starts for Murray, and Week 9 Ends in Minneapolis
The league's best offense meets its stingiest defense tonight — Buffalo scores 33.3 a game, Minnesota has allowed 93 points all season — with Carson Wentz under center for the injured Kyler Murray and Adrian Peterson going into the Ring of Honor at halftime.
Week 9 saved its best for last. The Buffalo Bills (6-1) visit the Minnesota Vikings (6-1) on Monday Night Football tonight — 8:15 p.m. Eastern, 7:15 p.m. Central, at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, on ABC and ESPN — in a meeting of one-loss teams that the schedule-makers could not have scripted better. Buffalo brings the league's most prolific offense, 33.3 points per game, more than any team in football. Minnesota counters with the league's stingiest defense: 93 points allowed all season, fewer than any team in football. Something gives tonight.
The complication is under center for the home team. The Vikings will start backup quarterback Carson Wentz after Kyler Murray was ruled out with a hamstring injury — Murray, who started six games and threw for 1,022 yards, is week-to-week, head coach Kevin O'Connell said. The market has priced the absence in: Buffalo is a 3-point road favorite with a total of 44.5, down from where a healthy-Murray line would sit. At halftime, Minnesota will induct Adrian Peterson into the Vikings Ring of Honor — the running back becomes its 29th member, honored in front of the crowd he ran for.
For Dallas–Fort Worth, tonight is a scoreboard-watching night, not a game night: the Cowboys are idle after Sunday's win, and this is the last result that settles the league's Week 9 picture before the trade deadline lands Tuesday and the 49ers' visit to AT&T Stadium takes over the local week. A Bills win keeps Buffalo level at the AFC's top; a Vikings win does the same in the NFC — and either way, the conference Dallas is chasing gets one game clearer by midnight. Kickoff is 7:15 p.m. Central.
