Well, after today's game, I took a drive to Wal-Mart to pick up some stuff for my loving wife. I thought that taking a drive before I posted my thoughts about the game would help me to cool down a bit.
Wrong.
Let me get my initial thought out there in the open right now. . .
This. . .offense. . .
SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!
Seriously, the TD drought ended after 209 minutes without an offensive touchdown. That has to be some sort of Vikings' record. Has to be. Even during the Spergon Wynn era, we managed to not go that long without an offensive TD.
I'm tired of hearing how Brad Johnson can "manage a game" and "doesn't make mistakes." Yeah, he managed this game. . .managed it right into the friggin' ground. We heard all off-season that we were going to be running some incredibly complex offense that only a seasoned vet like Brad Johnson could grasp, and therefore felt it necessary to run Daunte Culpepper out of town on a rail. Well, I sure as hell haven't seen an offense like that yet. I see an offense that my little sister could probably run. . .and her arm is only slightly weaker than Brad Johnson's.
The defense played their asses off, but in the end, they were just worn out. That tends to happen when the other team has the ball for 35 minutes and your offense can't do any better than a 3 and out for 90% of the game.
And while I'm ranting. . .what the hell was up with that pass on the Vikings' last play, oh "game manager?" We had enough time on the clock to take two shots INTO THE END ZONE. There's 15 seconds left and we have no timeouts, so the passes pretty much need to go INTO THE END ZONE. So what do we do? Throw a pass in the middle of the freaking field, for starters. A pass that goes to Billy "Bench Jockey" McMullen. . .who, rather than trying to do something crazy like, I don't know, GET OUT OF BOUNDS, decides he wants to turn the ball upfield instead. Clock runs out, Vikings lose. Great game management there.
Other stuff that bugs the crap out of me. . .
-Troy Williamson needs to start catching passes. Particularly passes that hit him in the chest and/or hands.
-Brad Johnson needs to start occasionally throwing farther than 5 yards downfield. Seriously. Before we're losing, not just after.
-McKinnie and Hutchinson need to start earning their friggin' paychecks.
-I'm not going to complain much about the defense, because aside from the horrible tackling on the Price TD, I really can't find a great deal of fault with their performance. This loss falls squarely on the shoulders of the offense and the fact that it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
Oh. . .and the Twins win the AL Central, which means they get to play the A's in the first round instead of the Yankees. I'm sure that the folks over at Twinkie Town will have extensive coverage of this glorious event.