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A ten-point halftime lead isn't enough.
A seventeen-point halftime lead isn't enough.
A twenty-point halftime lead isn't enough.
If the Vikings wanted to win today, they had to pressure Matthew Stafford, and they did that to the tune of five sacks (three for Jared Allen, two for Brian Robison) and hitting him on a bunch of other occasions.
The Vikings took a team that had been averaging 37.5 points per game over the first two weeks of the year and won by 45 points the week before, and held them off of the scoreboard in the first half. In the first thirty minutes of play, they held that offense to 50 total yards.
And then, in the second half, it all happened again. . .Stafford tore apart a soft zone again. Adrian Peterson got hardly any touches in the second half again. Percy Harvin, like many of us, spent a great deal of the second half throwing up. Donovan McNabb did very little in the second half.
Then, just when it looked like the Vikings might have a shot at a game-winning field goal after forcing a late Detroit punt. . .a stupid, stupid late hit penalty on Kenny Onatolu pushed the Vikings out of range and forced them to go for a desperation pass play instead. The Lions won the coin toss for overtime, and that was all she wrote.
In the first half of three games, the Vikings have a 54-7 advantage. In the second half, they've been outscored 67-6.
At this point, I have no answers. None. Zero. It still continues to baffle me how a team can look so good for thirty minutes, and then look so putrid.