The Minnesota Vikings finally developed something resembling an early-game offensive effort capped off with a Matt Asiata rushing touchdown. From that point onwards, the Vikings never relinquished the lead. The Giants’ vaunted receivers were widely expected to take control of the game, but were blanketed by the Vikings secondary until late in the game, while quarterback Eli Manning had his traditional bad game against Minnesota (25-for-45, 261 yards and an interception). The Vikings pass rush wasn’t getting to Manning but he frequently threw the ball to the turf when a defender got close to him, so even though there were no sacks in the game, the pass rush was definitely disrupting the Giants’ plans.

During the second quarter, it appeared that Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr. was about to be the focus of attention after he lost his cool while being covered by cornerback Xavier Rhodes. USA Today‘s Tom Pelissero has the details:

“I’m not the one who puts a camera in my face,” Beckham said. “I don’t think many teammates knew about what happened last week, and then it all gets blown up. We live in an era of social media, so it is what it is.

“When you’re at the top of your game, they’re going to try to knock you off, and that’s just the case.”

Here’s the thing: everyone knows how to knock off Beckham now, or try anyway, even if they can’t hold him to a career-low 23 yards on three catches as the Vikings’ stellar defense did Monday, with Rhodes in his shadow most of the night and plenty of safety help close by.

Rhodes started yapping midway through the second quarter when the two tangled on a run play and didn’t back off as Beckham unraveled — bumping Rhodes after a sideline shove, getting called for taunting, making contact with an official as he complained, then taking another shot at Rhodes at the end of the next play, leaving coaches and teammates trying to calm him down. “I just have to understand if I sneeze the wrong way, it’ll be a flag, it’ll be a fine,” Beckham said. “If I tie my shoe the wrong way, it might be a fine or a flag.”

No, if you punch people in Buffalo, and use your helmet like a chin-seeking missile against Carolina, and blindside somebody in New Orleans, then coming after somebody in Minnesota — even if you’re just trying to protect yourself in “a man’s sport”, as Beckham says — is a lot more likely to be a flag, and a fine, and maybe more soon.

Beckham’s 3 receptions for 23 yards is a career low for the fourth-year receiver.

Offensively, it was a nice change to see Sam Bradford getting better protection from the offensive line (right tackle André Smith went out with an injury so Jeremiah Sirles stepped in, and played very well against Jason Pierre-Paul … he may end up taking Smith’s job on a full-time basis). Left tackle T.J. Clemmings showed up a few times trailing after a Giant defender, but aside from that wasn’t mentioned (which again is good for an offensive tackle). With less pressure from the Giants, Bradford was able to spread the ball around and especially to get Charles Johnson involved in the passing game. Johnson had probably been at risk of being benched due to his poor play in the first three games, but he caught two passes for 70 yards on Monday night to make himself relevant again. Tight end Kyle Rudolph caught another Bradford pass for a touchdown (his third in three games), and was a useful outlet receiver through the whole game (5 for 55 yards). Stefon Diggs didn’t have as big an impact as he’d made in the earlier games (5 for 47 yards), but still got his share of targets. Cordarrelle Patterson had a good game, both as a key special teams contributor and in spot duty as a receiver (5 for 38 yards) and one play as a rusher: he may never quite live up to his draft billing as a star receiver, but the Vikings are finally letting him do more on the field in different capacities.

Of course, there were players for the Vikings who didn’t quite come up to scratch:

Junk Bonds

Blair Walsh: Enough already. Watching Walsh kick is a bigger roller coaster than anything Valleyfair has to offer. On its own, there isn’t a lot of shame in missing a 46-yard field goal, but the cumulative effects of Walsh’s misses are getting too large to ignore. It had me wondering aloud about the status of another former NFC North kicker:

Hey @RobbieGould09 you up?

— Eric Thompson (@eric_j_thompson) October 4, 2016

Zimmer passed on attempting a 54-yard field goal late in the third quarter that would have made the contest a three-score game. Indoors. With a kicker that definitely has the leg to make it from that kind of distance. I think that’s pretty telling of where Walsh currently stands in the mind of his head coach.

Eric Kendricks: I know. I can’t believe he’s in this section either. But Kendricks’ tackling was really awful tonight. Pro Football Focus had Kendricks responsible for four of the Vikings’ nine missed tackles on Monday night. The dropped interception at the end of the game was the icing on the cake and indicative of his off night. Are we 100% sure that wasn’t actually Jasper Brinkley out there wearing a wig with his old uniform number?