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The Minnesota Vikings are now 10-2
Sunday night football, national TV… and the Vikings played terrible. The Vikings got beat 30-17 in Arizona in probably the worst game that the Vikings played all season. There was very little to cheer about for Vikings fans after the opening minutes. At first it looked like the Vikings were going to play sharp, forcing a fumble on the second play from scrimmage and turning it into 7 points a few plays later, but it all went downhill from there.
Worst tackling in the Leslie Frasier era
All of a sudden it looked like the Vikings, who are normally good open field tacklers, forgot how to wrap anyone up. It seemed like anytime that anyone in red touched the ball, three guys in purple bounced off of him before he was finally brought down. I’m not sure how that even happens to a team. It’s not like it was one guy who missed tackles. It’s not like it was just the safeties. It was the entire team.
Where was the pass rush?
The Vikings went into the game leading the NFL in sacks. The Cardinals (wisely) turned their attention to stopping Jared Allen. Allen and the Vikings are used to that, and usually that leads to either Kevin Williams, Ray Edwards, or both picking up the slack until Allen starts getting freed up.
But nobody else on the defensive line seemed to be able to take advantage of the fact that the Cardinals were focusing all of their effort on Jared Allen. Allen was completely held back by the double and triple teaming that the Cardinals made him face… no sacks, tackles, or assisted tackles for Allen.
But there was no double teaming or chipping holding back Kevin Williams or Ray Edwards, who each had 1 tackle, 0 assisted tackles, and 0 sacks. Pat Williams had 4 tackles, but as is the norm, his production came mostly from the run defense.
Running game? What running game?
62 rushing yards on 20 attempts. Adrian Peterson had 19 yards on 13 carries. No holes. No intensity. No power. No speed. It didn’t look like the Vikings out there at all when it came to running the ball.
Injuries… bleh
Wow, for a team that didn’t deal with many injuries early this year, last night was hard to watch. Antoine Winfield was out again… at this point I’m starting to doubt that he even knows where his Vikings uniform is anymore. Herrera was out again, which means Hicks was starting. Then during the game, McKinnie and Loadholt got banged up (both returned later) which meant that at one point, our offensive line was made up of Artis Hicks, John Cooper, John Sullivan, Steve Hutchinson, and Ryan Cook. I’m surprised Favre is still alive.
Then we also watched Cedric Griffin get dinged up, Tyrell Johnson get a concussion, and of course, we (again) lost EJ Henderson for the year.
The EJ thing is frustrating. He had really been stepping up his game over the past few weeks. He finally seemed to be returning to the form of last year’s first 3 games.
What about Favre’s game?
Okay, here’s the point where I will look at the bright side a little more. It was certainly one of Favre’s worst games as a Viking, but looking at the stats, it wasn’t THAT bad. The two interceptions were painful to watch, and it was obvious that he wasn’t feeling as comfortable as he has been recently running the offense. He was forcing some throws that he hasn’t tried forcing much this year.
But, he completed 66% of his passes for 275 yards and 2 touchdown passes. Not his best outing, but certainly not terrible enough to panic as all Vikings fans seemed to be doing last night (myself included, to some extent). Favre has been spoiling us, but the fact is, he still has a 26:5 TD to INT ratio, he still has fewer interceptions than any starter in the league other than Vince Young (who has only started 6 games), and he is still the second highest rated QB in the league… pretty darn good.
So my hand isn’t reaching for the panic button just yet.
The worst part of last night’s game
When the score was 30-10 and there was less than 6 minutes in the game, why was Brett Favre and Adrian Peterson on the field? We were not going to make up a 20 point deficit (we were not even going to try, since we didn’t even attempt an onside kick). We had just watched the leader of our defense break his leg. We’re in position to make a run in the playoffs. Why were we risking our two best players?
I wouldn’t have been opposed to sitting even more guys… Rice? Harvin? Chester?
My Current Outlook
The game was frustrating to watch last night, but even great teams have bad games. If you want to be reminded of that fact, read THIS very good post at the Daily Norseman that talk about some recent great teams that have had really bad games.
Overall, 10-2 is great, and it’s been over 10 years since we’ve seen a Vikings team with that record. Realistically we’re not playing for home-field advantage anymore, but we still have a 2 game lead when it comes to the first round bye, and if we don’t have to worry about overtaking New Orleans, it actually takes a lot of pressure off the last few games of the season, which means we should be able to head into the playoffs with Favre, Peterson, and the rest of the starters being fairly fresh.
And speaking of Peterson… He’s almost 400 yards behind for the rushing title. It’s not going to happen this year unless Chris Johnson gets his foot ran over by the team bus.
If it was up to me, I would play Peterson sparingly over the next 4 games. I don’t mean sit him, I mean split his reps evenly with Taylor. Don’t pound him up the middle much. Overall, keep him as fresh and healthy as possible. Maybe a little rest will rejuvenate him for the upcoming playoffs.
