Minnesota Vikings Continue to Confound

Football can be a fickle game, sometimes.

Twice on Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings were inside the Pittsburgh Steelers' twenty-yard line, in the fourth quarter, and poised to take the lead (or at least tie the game).

Twice on Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers ended those drives with touchdowns of their own.

What goes around, comes around, so they say; and the breaks that had gone the Vikings way the previous couple of games most certainly did not go their way Sunday.

If a slightly suspect tripping penalty isn't called...If Brett Favre's pass is a little lower and a millisecond later...If Chester Taylor catches a pass he should have and normally does...

Losses are going to happen, however.  This is a fact of football, even for that 16-0 Patriots team.

The confounding aspect of this loss is that it could have—and maybe should have—left Vikings' fans feeling better about the team than last week's win over Baltimore did.

The Vikings went to the defending Super Bowl champions' homefield, against the number-two ranked pass offense and one of the best defenses—if not the best—in football, and outplayed them on 125 of the 127 plays.

Those two plays were pretty big, however, and the Vikings need to consider what put them in the situation to lose because of two plays.

Having a first-and-goal from the one-yard line and giving Adrian Peterson the ball only once is a good place to start.  

Brad Childress allows the team to get too cute sometimes, and that was definitely one of those situations.  For future reference, Brad: No team will stop Adrian four times at the one-yard line.  A defensive line of Joe Greene, Reggie White, Deacon Jones, and Alan Page wouldn't stop Adrian four times from the one.

And yet the team got cute, threw two incompletions, settled for a field goal, and cut the Pittsburgh lead to three—instead of taking a one-point lead for themselves.

The end of the first half was a problem, too. Childress curiously kneeled the ball with one timeout and 24 seconds at the Minnesota 28-yard line, after a soft prevent-shell allowed Pittsburgh to go 91 yards in 1:15 for their only offensive touchdown of the game.

That drive—and a couple of disconcerting Rashard Mendenhall runs to the right scattered throughout the game—were the only problems the defense had Sunday.  

Other than that, Minnesota played arguably their best defensive game of the season.

The Vikings held Ben Roethlisberger to 159 net passing yards, and Hines Ward to one catch for three yards.  Pat Williams had his best game of the season, days after his 37th birthday; the combination of Karl Paymah and Benny Sapp played admirably in Antoine Winfield's absence; and rookie Asher Allen was spectacular in his first NFL game.

Speaking of rookies: Percy Harvin, ladies and gentleman.  The Human Touchdown.  He is fun to watch, isn't he?

Speaking of wide receivers: Sidney Rice, ladies and gentleman.  The Human Bungee Cord.  He is fun to watch, isn't he?

There just really is not that much to get angry about, when you get down to it.  

Favre played the smart, veteran game pundits thought he couldn't play anymore; the offensive line, despite some inconsistency in the run game, did an excellent job of pass protection for the most part.

The punter?  That's it, pretty much.  Be angry at the punter, but it's hard to get mad at the rest of the Vikings right now.

Minnesota's next game against Green Bay is the more important game regarding the division and conference, and it might even be a must-win affair. But the Steelers game showed the Vikings how close they are to the elite level, and how two plays can be the difference.

Childress will have to learn to get out of his player's way, and stop trying to out-maneuver the opposition in some mythical chess match he's concocted in his mind.  Chris Kluwe will have to stop punting like he has a broken leg, and Ray Edwards will have to start playing up to his supposed potential at some point.

Otherwise, there ain't much to feel down about.

Each week, Minnesota has taken another step towards looking like the Super Bowl team they want to be; be it the improved secondary this week despite the unavailable Winfield, or the ongoing maturation of Rice, or matching the defending Super Bowl champions hit for hit, play for play.  Almost.

If the breaks go one way, this team could be 4-3; they go another way, and the team could be 7-0.  That's football, and the Vikings still don't know how good they are, or could be. 

Either way, any Vikings fan should feel better about this team this week.

Even after a loss.