Daily Archives: January 25, 2010

Epic Choke Job by the Vikings

What hurt the most about the loss last night to New Orleans Saints was that it was a game, barring one statistic, that the Vikings should have won.

Look at these stats!

The Vikings had twice as many first downs, twice as many yards and ten minutes more time of possession.  Perhaps the only truly glaring team mistake was the yardage allowed on kick returns; a long kick return to start off Over Time basically sealed the deal.  Even on penalties, the Saints did worse despite the crowd noise.  The fact remains that they shouldn’t have been in overtime at all except for one important stat.

Turn overs.  Six fumbles, three lost.  That must be some sort of record.  New Orleans put the ball on the ground three times and only lost it once.  That punt return fumble by Reggie Bush should have resulted in at least three points (no overtime!) but AP and Favre managed to bungle a hand off about three seconds later and give it back to the Saints.  Brett Favre had two interceptions whereas Brees had none.  Too bad Favre threw the interception at the end of the game that took Minnesota out of the drivers seat for what happened to be the rest of the game.

It was like the offense just didn’t want to win!  Two opponent red zone lost fumbles, one in our own red zone that set up a New Orleans TD.  The defense did their part I believe, it has to be almost impossible to keep the other team from scoring when they get the ball on your ten yard line.

Bottom line, the Vikings had a great team and a great shot at winning a super bowl this year.   They’ll still be a good team next year but it is hard to believe that they will do this well and have so many of the right pieces again.    It is really disappointing.  Dave Brahn welcomed me to Vikings fanhood after the loss last night.

Thanks, I guess.

–Nat