We were supposed to see the Vikings play Green Bay last night, but it almost appeared that the only Viking player who showed up was rookie WR/KR Cordarrelle Patterson, who opened the game by tying the NFL record for the longest kick return TD (109 yards). All the distressing symptoms from earlier games showed up this time: the defence couldn’t get off the field on third down (Green Bay scored on every possession), while the offence couldn’t stay on it past third down. Time of possession was grossly disproportionate, with slightly more than a 2:1 ratio in favour of Green Bay (40:54 to 19:06). You can’t score if you never get the ball. The final score (44-31) was inflated by garbage-time scores for the Vikings as the Pack went into prevent mode to finish the game.
The plan for every team the Vikings face for the rest of the season is simple: kick away from Cordarrelle Patterson and do everything to shut down the running of Adrian Peterson. If you can do those two things, you’re guaranteed a win.
Ted Glover says it can’t get much worse than last night’s debacle:
Ohio State icon Woody Hates once said that nothing cleanses the soul like getting the Hell kicked out of you. If that’s true, the Vikings are ready to enter the Afterlife with as clean a soul as anyone who’s ever crossed over.
The Green Bay Packers pretty much ran 7 on 7 drills against what we must technically call the Minnesota Vikings defense. But make no mistake, they offered as much resistance to the Packers offense as the Kardashian family does to reveling in being trashy. The 44-31 final score was nowhere near indicative of how non-competitive this game was, as the Packers offense dominated the Vikings defense so thoroughly I thought I was watching an NFL snuff film.
I’ve watched the Vikings for a long, long time, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a defense so completely and thoroughly whipped. At every position, the Vikings were manhandled, and it was very early on that the Packers realized they couldn’t be stopped. They converted just about every third down, a few fourth downs, and didn’t have to punt all night. They ran and passed with impunity, and it was as awful as one could imagine.
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Seriously, start over from the top on down. The coaching staff needs to go. Frazier will hang around until the end of the year, simply because there isn’t anyone capable of running an offense or defense, much less an entire team. As to the players, seriously, trade what you can, stockpile picks, and just start from the ground up. After tonight, there isn’t one player on this team that’s worth keeping, with maybe the exception of Adrian Peterson. And at this point, if they can trade him to a contender, do it. I’d hate to see him end up with a Barry Sanders career. I thought at the beginning of the season this team was just some decent quarterback play away from being a pretty serious player in the NFC. Obviously, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The worst part of this season for me is that my Vikings Twitter feed is starting to fill up with speculations on how high a draft pick the Vikings will end up with and which potential superstar college quarterback will be playing in Minnesota next year … and I don’t follow college football at all.
