Green Bay Packers Flatten Minnesota Vikings, 42-10
By Dan Zinski
Tonight’s game was a snowball rolling downhill and no one could stop it. It got started early when Aaron Rodgers engineered a pair of touchdowns, one on a huge pass to Jordy Nelson after Nelson burned Harrison Smith on a double-move, the other when Randall Cobb owned Captain Munnerlyn.
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Two big plays on questionable work by the Vikings’ secondary. It was 14-0 Packers before you knew it. And then Christian Ponder took over. Not in a good way for the Vikings.
All that optimistic talk about Ponder maybe showing improvement under Norv Turner? We saw no evidence tonight that Ponder has turned any kind of corner. Instead, Ponder proved that he is exactly what we thought he was. A mediocre-to-bad NFL QB.
Ponder’s first interception of the first half went to Julius Peppers for six points. His second INT resulted in another Packer TD. 28-0 at the half. Game over.
Things weren’t much better in the second half. The Packers got Eddie Lacy rolling and the Vikings could not stop him. Lacy bowled over defenders, juked, faked and steamrolled his way down the field, helping the Packers pile up a bigger and bigger lead.
Before the fourth quarter came around it was 42-0 Green Bay. A painful night for Ponder and the Vikings against a far superior Packers team that is beginning to get its offense sorted out.
Fans will debate whether Teddy Bridgewater might have given the Vikings a chance to at least stay competitive in this game, but it’s academic. The Vikings had valid reasons to sit Bridgewater and they had to know that their offense would suffer some with Ponder.
Did they think Ponder would be quite so bad? Did they think the offensive line would struggle against the Packers? Did they think the defense would suffer more glaring breakdowns and tackling issues?
It was a bad game for Minnesota. Blame having to go on the road to play a tough team on a short week. Blame Ponder. Blame whoever you have to blame.
Just put this one in the games-to-forget pile and move on.