Yes, the game was played nearly 48 hours ago … I had better things to do with my time on Christmas Day than to conduct an autopsy of the Packers game. But I guess I can’t put it off much longer, so I’ll hold my nose as I dip into the media and fan coverage of the last letdown in Lambeau.
For a start, let’s briefly touch on the one player who did everything in his power to carry the team to victory, with Adam Thielen’s career performance at wide receiver: 12 catches for 202 yards, and two touchdowns, moving him past Stefon Diggs as Minnesota’s leading receiver for 2016. Thielen is a restricted free agent next year, so we can safely assume signing him to a new deal will be high on Rick Spielman’s list of priorities for the off-season.
If you’re a fan of signs, omens, and portents, you hit the jackpot even before the Vikings made it to their hotel on Friday evening, as the team’s chartered plane slipped off the runway after landing in Wisconsin and the team had to be evacuated from the plane, two-by-two by fire department cherry-pickers. It was several hours before they were all re-united at the hotel, so team meetings had to be cancelled in favour of allowing the players and coaches something like a normal night’s sleep.
The story that transfixed the local media was the Vikings’ secondary apparently going rogue and playing a different game than head coach Mike Zimmer had planned …
“We felt as a team, as players, we came together and we felt like we’d never done that when we played against the Packers. Us as DBs felt like we could handle him. That’s how we felt as DBs that we could stay on our side and cover him. In the beginning, we’d always played against them and played our sides, so that’s what we as DBs went with.” – Xavier Rhodes
… allowing Packers receiver Jordy Nelson to put on a showcase of his talent (nine passes for 154 yards and two touchdowns).
So let’s take a look at how the Vikings fared in each half with two different strategies to cover the Green Bay receivers.
In the first half with Rhodes and the rest of his buddies in the defensive backfield doing whatever they felt would work, the Packers offense scored 28 points and threw for 268 yards. With Zimmer’s game plan back in place for the second half, Green Bay’s offense only put up 10 points and 79 passing yards.
I don’t know what Zimmer will do about this, but I think if I were making the call, Rhodes, Newman, Sendejo, and (the shadow of) Harrison Smith would miss the first series of next week’s meaningless game against Chicago … the backups are by definition not as good, but the game won’t matter for either team, so it’ll only be individual stats being padded and (we hope) injuries being avoided.
On the other side of the ball, the O-line held up better than usual (but that doesn’t mean it was good), allowing Sam Bradford to put up his best passing performance of the season, but two critical failures (C Nick Easton’s “worst snap of the year”, and T.J. Clemmings’ failure to slow down Clay Matthews on the strip-sack of Bradford) blotted out the good.
If you're Sam Bradford, what do you get your offensive linemen for Christmas? Membership in the Jelly of the Month Club?
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) December 25, 2016
Rounding up the season’s critical errors at the Star Tribune, Andrew Krammer says five plays in particular can be pointed at as the ones that kept the Vikings from success.
More than five plays tanked the Vikings’ once-promising season.
That season will end with a third-place finish in the NFC North and without a spot in the postseason, even though the Vikings won their first five games. Their fate was sealed Saturday, when they lost 38-25 at Green Bay to drop to 7-8 after that 5-0 start.
Let’s take inventory of some key (non-injury) moments that, in chronological order, led to a 2-8 collapse in the past 10 games, including four consecutive losses in the NFC North. Every phase had an equal letdown even as much of the offseason focus will fall on their 30th-ranked offense.
