It was the second-longest losing streak on the road, after Detroit, and now it’s broken. The Vikings won in Washington yesterday, 17-13, without the services of Adrian Peterson who was injured in the first half and did not return to the game. Peterson was replaced in the lineup by rookie Toby Gerhart, who did a good job on the ground (22 runs for 76 yards and a touchdown).
Three other factors were a change from the rest of the season: it was into the fourth quarter before the Vikings had a penalty assessed against them, they had zero turnovers, and they scored on their first drive of each half. Even with all of that, they were lucky to get a Redskins special teams TD called back on a block-in-the-back penalty.
Judd Zulgad wrote:
Frazier indicated there would be tweaks in the offense and defense in the week leading to his first game as an NFL head coach. Quarterback Brett Favre appeared to roll out more often, and Fred Pagac, who is serving as de facto defensive coordinator, called more blitzes than Frazier had when he was coordinating that unit. McNabb was sacked four times.
Favre passed for only 172 yards, but one of his most important plays came with his feet late in the game. That’s right: A 41-year-old playing with a stress fracture in his left ankle, another fracture in his heel and a head and chest cold he speculated might be pneumonia took off on a 10-yard scramble that produced a first down at the Redskins 14 with two minutes left and effectively secured the game.
“That’s always the best play in the playbook,” Favre said after taking a knee three times to run out the clock. “It felt good to be able do that. [We] did that a lot last year. This year we haven’t played with the lead. We had the lead most of the game, but it didn’t really seem like it. We were up, but we’re just missing that knockout punch. Once again we hung in there [and] collectively each and every guy had a part in it.”
