Minnesota Vikings: 10 Biggest Surprises Halfway Through the NFL Season

The Minnesota Vikings enter their bye week half done with their schedule. Hopes were high for the club at the end of August with a new coach, new quarterback and a re-engergized roster that no longer had to worry about the will he or won't he specter of the Brett Favre era.

While most national prognosticators found the Vikings a hard team to peg, the consensus seemed to be that Minnesota would be a team that hovered around .500. The organization and its fanbase had much higher hopes, believing the team that came just short of reaching the Super Bowl two seasons ago could again make the playoffs.

The team has been much worse than either the experts or the organization expected. Here are the 10 biggest surprises for the Minnesota Vikings at the halfway point of the NFL season.

Out of It by October

On Sunday, October 2 the Minnesota Vikings trudged off the field at Arrowhead Stadium having just lost to a mediocre Kansas City Chiefs team 22-17. The team looked stunned, confused and lethargic, like a boxer who'd been knocked down two or three times in the first four rounds. 

For a team with high expectations heading into the 2011 season, losing their fourth straight game to start the season was shell-shocking. Just a month into the season and almost any likelihood of making the playoffs had ended. The only team to reach the playoffs after an 0-4 start was the 1992 San Diego Chargers, who finished the season with an 11-1 streak. That wasn't going to happen for the 2011 Vikings.

This Was a Six-Time Pro Bowler?

Donovan McNabb threw for a grand total of 39 yards in his debut performance for the Minnesota Vikings, a 24-17 loss to the San Diego Chargers. His numbers got better over the next five games, but they never became great. McNabb looked out of shape, not invested, and completely incapable of turning around the team's poor start.

The Vikings, as a franchise, had been very successful in picking up quarterbacks in the twilight of their careers and getting inspired and successful play out of them: Jim McMahon, Randall Cunningham and most recently and most successfully, Brett Favre.

McNabb seemed like a perfect fit for a team that had high hopes and a high powered offense. The Vikings had drafted Florida State quarterback Christian Ponder in the first round and it seemed McNabb would be the perfect bridge to lead the squad while Ponder learned at the veteran's side.

After a 1-5 start, the McNabb signing was deemed a failure and the reigns were handed over to Ponder.

Jekyll and Hyde Have Nothing on the Minnesota Vikings

The 2011 Vikings had a record setting start to the season, unfortunately it was a record no team wants any part of. You almost had to see the games to believe it, but Minnesota had halftime leads of 10, 17 and 20 points in their first three games and lost all three of them. No team in NFL history had suffered through such an ignominious start.

For the season the Vikings first and second half splits are still mind-boggling: the purple have outscored their opponents by 51 points in the first half and have been outscored in the second half by 77 points. Not even Robert Louis Stevenson could have come up with such split personalities.

No Seriously, This Is Nuts

We're devoting two slots to the Vikings split personality, since the difference in performance has been so mind-numbing for everyone involved: the players, the coaching staff, the media and all the fans that follow the team. 

The team that had been almost unbeatable at home over the last few years took a 17-0 lead into the locker room at half-time against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the second game of the season. The sold-out stadium looked on in shocked disbelief as the Vikings came out in the second half and got shredded by Josh Freeman and LeGarrette Blount, losing 24-20 after Blount scored the winning touchdown with under a minute to play.

Thinking it couldn't possibly get worse, the Vikings outdid themselves the following week, surrendering a 20-0 lead over the division-rival Detroit Lions and losing 26-23. Mall of America Field had turned from the unbeatable home fortress to a house of horrors. 

The 2005 Draft Is Still Haunting the Vikings

It's hard to be successful in the NFL without drafting well. The consistently good teams not only pick well early in the draft, but are adept at finding stellar talent in the later rounds as well. 

The 2011 Minnesota Vikings were going to be led on offense by their best player, Adrian Peterson, no matter who ended up playing quarterback or receiver. They quickly learned however that today's NFL is a quarterback's league, as both quarterbacks and receivers are putting up record numbers early in the season.

Drafting hindsight is always 20/20, but the Vikings fan base likes to torture themselves by revisiting the 2005 draft, when the team made two colossal mistakes. With the seventh overall pick Minnesota took WR Troy Williamson, who was fast, but couldn't catch, while All-Pro Roddy White went to the Falcons 20 picks later.

Even more disastrous was taking DE Erasmus James with the 18th pick. Although the Vikings would only get about about five more decent games out of QB Duante Culpepper, they probably didn't know they needed another quarterback at the time. But the same could be said about the division rival Packers, who still had Brett Favre. While Erasmus James never had any NFL success, the Packers had the foresight to take a quarterback with the 24th pick who's turned out to be pretty decent: Aaron Rodgers.

Leslie Frazier May Not Be Up to the Job

Nobody has ever claimed that coaching is a fair business. When the Vikings hired Leslie Frazier in January after he had taken over for fired Brad Childress on an interim basis at the end of last season, everyone in Vikings-land applauded the hire. Frazier was an intelligent, well-spoken man with an outstanding football pedigree, dating back to his being a part of the Super-Bowl shuffle Bears.

Frazier has learned very quickly that the only thing that matters is winning. The Vikings are not only off to a 2-6 start, but they've blown halftime leads in four of their six losses—which points directly at coaching and halftime adjustments.

Frazier is certainly in no danger of losing his job, the organization is smart enough to know that the roster just isn't as good as many thought it might be. But coaches are hired to win and until Frazier starts to do that, fans will grumble about whether or not he was the right guy for the job.

Jared Allen Is Better Than We Ever Thought He Was

In 2008 the Vikings made an astute deal, getting Pro-Bowl defensive end Jared Allen from the Kansas City Chiefs for some draft picks. Allen was an instant success and fan favorite in Minnesota, getting 14.5 sacks in both his first two years with the team.

In 2010 things took a huge turn for the worse for the Vikings. Brett Favre, who had played nearly perfect football in 2009, got hurt and the team's fortunes instantly went South. Allen played decent football, but seemed to be in decline. He picked up 11 sacks, but didn't seem to the the disruptive force he'd been the previous two years.

In what's been an awful first half of the season for the Vikings, Allen has been nothing short of phenomenal. He has sacks in 10 straight games and, with 12.5 sacks on the year, is on pace to set a single season record. Along with the sacks, Allen has been a constant disruptive force on a unit that is sorely lacking for play makers.

The Christian Ponder Era Started Early

Many draftologists and NFL experts thought the Vikings reached a bit when they took Christian Ponder with the 12th pick in last spring's draft. Ponder was a good prospect, but most saw him as a tier below first round talents like Cam Newton, Jake Locker and Blaine Gabbert.

The Vikings knew they needed a quarterback and didn't feel like taking the chance that Ponder would still be around in the second round, so they grabbed the smart, athletic Ponder much higher than most experts had him slotted.

They then turned around and signed veteran QB Donovan McNabb to be their starter and a mentor to Ponder as he learned the NFL ropes. Nobody in the organization could have thought McNabb would be so underwhelming at the helm, and after a brutal 1-5 start, Coach Leslie Frazier made the switch to the rookie, Ponder.

Two games in and Ponder certainly has been an upgrade over McNabb, both in the eyeball test and mostly in the crucial 3rd down conversions, where Ponder had more in his first start than McNabb had all season long.

Adrian Peterson Is Who We Thought He Was

Well, it hasn't been Adrian Peterson's fault.

The workhorse running back is having another fantastic season, leading the NFL in rushing and is tied for second with eight touchdowns. Peterson, even with a less than average offensive line, is a constant threat to break off long runs, with his unmatched combination of size, speed, moves and power.

Peterson even proved this Sunday that he can be a force in the passing game as well, as, for the first time in his career, the Vikings used him on dump offs that weren't swing screens, but five yard stop routes, where he was able to catch the ball past the line of scrimmage and immediately take on overmatched linebackers and defensive backs.

Vikings Fans Are Already Draft Watching

It's only Halloween and the Minnesota Vikings fan base is already doing what teams who aren't going to the playoffs do: dream of better days with that high draft pick who will make everything better.

When the team was 0-4 there were some whispers of joining the "suck for Luck" sweepstakes, but nobody who really follows the Vikings thought they would be that bad.

More educated fans have already set their sights on USC left tackle Matt Kalil, who experts think will be a sure fire Pro Bowler. The Vikings will probably win too many games to get a shot at Kalil, so a more likely wish might be a top receiver like Oklahoma State's Justin Blackmon.

It's been a tough first half for Vikings fans, but hopefully for them, Sunday's win over Carolina will propel them to a second half that has them talking about more than drafts to come.