One Word: Frustration

Really I all I can say is frustration.  I didn't get to watch most of the game due to work but the little I did see was enough for me.  From the little highlights I have been able to stomach and the post game articles I have read I gauged a team that was unprepared and undermotivated.  A certain Bleacher Report contributor (foolishly) said in his pregame article that this team will "not be undermotivated" due to Favre this year.  Yeah right.  The offensive line pitched their worst game in two years.  They got zero push against the Cardinals.  Favre looked like he was running for his life out there.

AP for his part looked distracted and out of sync.  Perhaps a week with some negative press about his speeding ticket put him out of rythm.  Or maybe, just maybe the line didn't create a single hole for him.  He is consistently having to make people miss seemingly as soon as he touches the ball.  The zone blocking scheme doesn't appear to be working.

There didn't appear to be any halftime adjustments made.  And this speaks to a much larger problem than the stinker in the Phoenix.  We have lost our balance.  Last year we failed ultimately because we didn't have balance.  We could only run.  Balance doesn't need to be a 50/50 run/pass distribution, you just have to be able to do both when you need/want to.  We don't appear to be able to run effectively when we need to.  For that matter, we never appear to want to run.  Outside of the first game of the season against Cleveland Chilly has shown about zero commitment to the run game.  It's fine to be a pass first team, but we can't become a pass only team. 

It seems to be that we will try one run here, and one run there and if they don't work we just give up on them.  We throw our hands up in defeat and say, "well the run game just isn't on today.  Time to dial up 45 passes!"  No.  Don't we understand that running backs need to get into rythm just like a quarterback?  We can't give AP 10 carries a game and expect him to be firing on all cylinders all the time, especially if we can't get any blocking up front.

However what may be most disappointing is our defensive line.  They got zero pressure all night long against a quarterback in Kurt Warner who would lose a footrace with a statue.  I mean we got manhandled.  We got knocked out Mike Tyson against Buster Douglas style.  We didn't even see it coming. 

The Cardinals for their part came out on fire.  Warner was on his A game, and Fitzgerald and Boldin torched our ailing secondary.  We were without our top two corners and our Safety Johnson got knocked out of the game as well.  I think they had this game circled at the beginning of the year after last year's humiliation we put on them with Tarvaris Jackson at the helm.  I think we were a little complacent after three blowout wins and may have been a little too full of ourselves.

It was basically a perfect storm for of disaster for the Vikings.  Everything went run at once for us, and everything went right for the Cardinals on their end.  There are two schools of thought coming out of this game. 

The first believes the other shoe has just dropped.  We are a team of smoke and mirrors and we have now been exposed.  We will lose out probably and the Packers will run the table to take the division and we will likely be out in the first round of playoffs and Favre will fall apart again.

The other school believes that nothing is wrong, this game was an aberration and it was just a bump in the road.

Count me somewhere in the middle, leaning towards the latter school.  I don't think after one game we can say it's all over.  I mean afterall we are 10-2.  We had a four game winning streak going where we had won every game by double digits and looked impressive in all four.  We were due for a down week.  I'd rather get the down weeks out of the way now.  I mean the same Cardinals who just issued us a beatdown this week looked like a joke this time last year.  They got destroyed week after week down the stretch only to make a run to the Super Bowl.  They came within one drive of winning it too.

Also, Favre didn't look all that bad.  On the first drive he looked good and then the line play fell off after that.  I don't think it's fair to say he's coming unglued again after one game.  Lets wait another week or two to judge that.  I mean he's been playing at an other worldly pace all season he was due for a minor hiccup.

I think the rest of the team may having been a little complacent and bought into themselves a little too much after some sound thumpings they have been laying lately.  They also haven't really been pushed in a game for over a month now.  I think this game might serve as a wake up call for the team.  It might smack them back into reality.

That being said this season can go two ways at this point.  After this loss we could wilt and lose our confidence.  Or it can be the wake up call I think it is.  This will largely be decided by how we come out against the Bengals.  This loss puts our season in flux a little bit and honestly I don't mind it.  I'm not big on cruising into the playoffs and losing focus at the end of the year because you've clinched everything already.  So let the Saints and the Colts get lulled into complacency.  The Cardinals last year got served a lot of humble pie going into the playoffs and it motivated them into sparking a deep run.  The Giants the year before had to fight for the playoffs the year before that and won the Super Bowl over a perfect Patriots team.  The Giants last year cruised into the playoffs, took their bye week off and got punched in the mouth by a hungry, motivated, had to fight for the playoffs Eagles team.

So honestly I don't mind this team having to fight for it a little bit longer.  I will look for a hungry focused team this Sunday.

What was also frustrating was watching the Redskins, and officials collaborate on gift wrapping a Saints victory this week.  I mean honestly for as long as I have been watching sports, over a solid decade now, I have never seen a team catch every single break in a game in any sport.  Seriously, I understand that there are bad calls in every game, and I am not speaking of any conspiracy here, but the Saints get every bad call.  Seriously those last two "turnovers" by 'Skins should have never been called.  On that interception the Redskins defender A) dropped the ball in the first place and B) was touched by a Saints player while his forearm was on the ground.  The refs had to look at that replay for 10 minutes only to come out with the wrong call anyways.  By the way speaking of luck, how many times do you see your team throw a terrible interception, only to watch the defender get up, get the ball stripped by your receiver and have the ball fly out right into his hands so he can run for 40 yards of daylight for a house call?  Never, yeah me neither.  That's what I am talking about.  The Saints keep relying on a brilliant stroke of luck, or some shoddy officiating to win some of these games.

That "fumble" in overtime, are you kidding me?  Sellers forearm was clearly on the ground before that ball comes out.  Again, the refs go under the hood for about 10 minutes to come out and reverse the correct call and make the wrong call again. Again in favor of the Saints.  I have never seen this in my life.  To top it all off, Washington's kicker misses a TWENTY SIX YARD field goal to seal the game?  At that point I knew it was over.  This script is old now.  The Saints catch a HUGE break and get some bad calls to go their way to win. 

I'm not calling the Saints bad, they are a very good team.  However I'm not completely impressed with them.  As much as everyone wants to make about the Vikings "soft" schedule the Saints schedule isn't exactly hard as steel either.  We have the same number wins against teams with winning records. (3) And their division of Atlanta, Carolina, and Tampa isn't exactly a murderer's row of teams either.  People can pick apart our dominating wins over Green Bay this season and pooh pooh them because Green Bay has been "up and down" this year, but what about New Orleans?  The Pats clearly aren't your older brother's Pats, and the Giants have been up and down this year as well, those are New Orleans signature wins this year.

So overall this Sunday was a very frustrating Sunday.  I mean bang your head on the wall frustrating.  It's been capped off by a Green Bay win over Baltimore right now.  Great. 

As for Offensive and Defensive players of the game.  Well, Kurt Warner and Darnell Dockett respectively.  Congrats.

No one really impressed me this week for a Gunslinger Award.  However it must be handed out.  So I will move in a different direction.  I have to think outside of the box.  Jason Campbell was a front runner until he choked against New Orleans.

So I settled on....

Ndamukong Suh, DT Nebraska Cornhuskers.  For no reason other than he's a defensive player and he's a finalist for the Heisman.  From what I hear he's been a force of nature all year long and was huge in the (almost) upset of Texas this Saturday.  Being that my man Tebow likely won't end up with the hardware I am pulling for Suh to get it.

Well I'll be back later in the week with my preview of the Bengals game.  I am going to go wash the bad taste out of my mouth.

Skol Vikings.