Oh, wait. No, it actually is a repeat of the last two weeks. This time the team had a 20-point lead to fritter away, and the Detroit Lions had to go to overtime to win.

Christopher Gates sums it up nicely:

The Vikings took a team that had been averaging 37.5 points per game over the first two weeks of the year and won by 45 points the week before, and held them off of the scoreboard in the first half. In the first thirty minutes of play, they held that offense to 50 total yards.

And then, in the second half, it all happened again. . .Stafford tore apart a soft zone again. Adrian Peterson got hardly any touches in the second half again. Percy Harvin, like many of us, spent a great deal of the second half throwing up. Donovan McNabb did very little in the second half.

Jim Souhan renews his call from yesterday to bench Donovan McNabb and give Christian Ponder his first NFL start:

This is what a football apocalypse looks like: Fans jeering, players screaming on the sideline, coaches making irrational decisions, players committing destructive penalties, and a proud group of veterans collapsing in the second half for the third consecutive week while their owners beg for a new stadium.

The meaningful portion of the Vikings’ 2011 schedule concluded on Sept. 25 at the Metrodome, as they blew a 20-point halftime lead and lost in overtime, falling to 0-3. Only three teams since 1990 have made the playoffs after starting 0-3, and none of them was outscored 67-6 after halftime in their first three games, as the Vikings have been.

[. . .]

So it’s time for the Vikings to start thinking of “Ponder” as a noun, not a verb.

The decision to sign veteran quarterback Donovan McNabb made sense. If he played well, he could guide an ambitious team into the playoffs. If he didn’t, he could buy time for rookie quarterback Christian Ponder to develop.

Having failed at the former, McNabb has already accomplished the latter. Ponder has had a full training camp and three game weeks to learn the Vikings offense.

[. . .]

McNabb is not solely responsible for the Vikings’ woes, but he is the only member of the organization whose demotion could prove beneficial. You can’t fire a head coach or coordinator three games into their tenures, and changing left tackles has never inspired a team or changed the direction of a franchise.

The Vikings will play at Kansas City on Sunday. Giving Ponder his first NFL start there would make sense. The Chiefs are 0-3, and Ponder, having played at Florida State, may think that all of the Indian symbolism was put in place to welcome him.

Eric J. Thompson tries to put it in perspective:

Yep folks, that’s what the 2011 season has come to already. Bad attempts at humor to deflect pain from the worst 0-3 start imaginable. And when I say “imaginable”, I mean it — because you couldn’t make this sh*t up. Seriously: outscoring your opponents 54-7 in the first half only to be outscored 67-6 after halftime?! And all of that incredible ineptitude without committing a single second half turnover? You couldn’t even lose like that on purpose if you were playing Madden. We’d all be amazed if we weren’t all so damn depressed.

But fear not, fellow Vikings fans. I’m giving you an out. I’m saying right here and now, before the calendar even turns to October, that it’s OK to emotionally check out from expecting anything for the 2011 season.

Now before you jump all over me in the comments section calling me a sell out or a fair weather bandwagon jumper, let me explain. I’m still going to watch all 13 Vikings games that remain on the 2011 schedule, and I’m still going to vehemently root for them every step of the way. I’ll still be extremely pissed when they lose and I’ll still be overjoyed when they win. It’s in my DNA, whether I like it or not. But I am officially done believing that this season will result in anything else but watching other NFC North team(s) in the playoffs after Week 17 is completed. It’s awful to admit, but them’s the facts, folks.

It’s actually a rare thing for Detroit to be the favourite when playing the Vikings at home. It hasn’t happened for quite some time. In fact, the last time they were the favourites was in week three . . . of the 1981 season.

Usually, when Minnesota sees Detroit coming up on the schedule, they can mark a win for that week. That is no longer true: Detroit has been improving at about the same rate that the Vikings have been disintegrating. They beat Tampa Bay at home in the season opener, then hung a vicious 48-3 beating on the Kansas City Chiefs last weekend. They’re coming in at 2-0, while the Vikings are 0-2 having blown halftime leads in both games so far this season.

Judd Zulgad, now with ESPN1500.com, thinks that a Vikings loss this week means the team will have to accept that they’re in rebuilding mode — that the current team is on the downward slide and no quick fixes are available.

It’s going to be very hard for Frazier to reverse course now and tell anyone that it’s time to look to the future. He already convinced his players that he is all in and it’s very difficult (almost unfair) to ask any coach to give up on a season.

That means Spielman would be the logical candidate to be the bad guy and set in motion a rebuilding process that could land a top-five draft pick. Spielman doesn’t have the general manager title but he is the guy that must take the long-term view of what’s best for this franchise.

A loss to the Lions means the Vikings must begin thinking about when first-round pick Christian Ponder will be ready to replace Donovan McNabb at quarterback and when other personnel changes might make the most sense.

The Ponder for McNabb swap is the obvious one — and should only be done when there is a belief that Ponder is ready to take over — but there are other veterans who could be replaced in 2011 with an eye on making sure a younger player is ready to go in 2012.

[. . .]

It also would become important to begin plucking talent off the waiver wire each week, meaning a once valuable veteran might have to be shown the door. This approach would mean sacrificing a few potential and meaningless victories in the name of upgrading the roster for the future.

None of this would be pleasant for Frazier or anyone else associated with the Vikings franchise in the short term, but in the long run it likely would be the quickest and most efficient way to get back on track.