Vikings' Brad Childress Has Just As Much Blame As Anybody Else

Fifty yards.

Not an easy field goal by any means (especially this postseason), but for Vikings' kicker Ryan Longwell, it's not a difficult one either. The past two seasons, Longwell is 8-for-8 in attempts of 50 yards or longer.

So why didn't Vikings coach Brad Childress give his kicker, who is arguably the best in the league, an attempt at about that distance late in the fourth quarter in their loss to the Saints?

Instead of ticking the clock down to almost nothing, Childress decided to call a timeout with 19 seconds left. 

After the timeout, the Vikings ended up with 12 men in the huddle, which is a five-yard penalty and pushed them back to about a 55-yard attempt, which is Longwell's career long.

So the Vikings had to throw the ball in order to gain some yardage to make Longwell's kick easier.

Too bad legendary quarterback Brett Favre did what he does best and threw an interception, squandering any hopes the Vikings had of getting points.

So, why isn't it the 12th man's fault?  Or Favre's?

Well, everyone is to blame, but the timeout seemed to cause some confusion on what was happening on that play and somehow a twelfth man ended up in the Vikings huddle.

It all spiraled downward from there.

But what about the other four turnovers the Vikings committed?

Well, I'm going to focus on one of them: the botched hand off between Favre and Adrian Peterson before the end of the first half.

Every one and their mother knew that Peterson would be determined to make up for his previous fumble in the game, so that's why a play-action pass would have been a better play call.

Peterson gets angry when he runs the football. He runs even angrier after he makes a mistake. An angry Peterson usually means one of two things: A great run or a terrible fumble. 

After a six-yard run to the four-yard line on first-and-goal, Childress went back to No. 28 on the next play, and as he headed towards the end zone, Peterson forgot the most important thing.

The ball.

A play-action pass to someone like Visanthe Shiancoe or Jim Kleinsasser or even Naufahu Tahi would have been an easy score and the Vikings would have had a seven point lead going to the locker room.

But that's not what happened.

Peterson scored 18 touchdowns this year, and had three in the NFC Championship game. But he is often given too much of a load when they have the ball in the red zone.

Don't get me wrong, Childress had a phenomenal game plan and out-coached Sean Payton throughout the majority of the game. 

But those two decisions subsequently cost the Vikings a shot at their first Super Bowl victory in franchise history.

Here's hoping next year they get that shot.