The situation set up this way:  The score was 7-7.  The Vikings had just gotten 10 yards on a Toby Gerhart reception on 3rd-and-11, and now faced 4th-and-goal from the 1.  They called time out to stop the clock at 1:07.  Obviously, a field goal here gives you the lead, but you then have to kick it away to the Patriots who will have about a minute left on the clock.  Keep in mind that, up till now, the Patriots hadn’t done much on offense.

The argument in favor of going for the touchdown goes like this:  We’re on the 1 and we have Adrian Peterson.  We’re on the road and we need to be aggressive.  Even if we get the field goal, there’s a chance the Pats could get the ball back after the kickoff and get the 3 right back.

The argument in favor of going for the field goal goes like this:  We’re on the road and we need all the points we can get.  We’ve been burned on things like this in the recent past.  We’ve stuffed the Pats’ offense all half, except for one wacky play from Tom Brady to Brandon Tate where Madieu Williams should’ve had the pick, so there’s no reason for us to believe they’re going to get the kickoff and march down the field.

Brad Childress runs all this through the great calculating machine known as his mind and comes up with the answer:  we go for the touchdown.

Predictably, Adrian Peterson gets the hand-off (no chance of a play-action lob to Visanthe Shiancoe?).  Instead of running left behind their Hall-of-Famer Steve Hutchinson, the Vikings go right.  Peterson gets stuffed for a 2-yard loss.  The Pats get the ball back.  They kneel on it to end the half tied.

After the game, Childress explained his thinking.  He said he thought they needed sevens instead of threes (not exactly a ringing endorsement of the defense).  He said he thought the play was well-blocked.  I’ve never heard of a well-blocked 2-yard loss in my life, but whatever you say Childress.

Perhaps most damningly of all, Randy Moss brought up the decision not to take the 3 points in his own weird, Vikings-bashing post-game rant.  I call this Moss indictment damning because you know that if Randy is saying it, other guys are saying it or at least thinking it.  Of course this is all second-guessing.  Had Peterson somehow made the touchdown, we might be patting Childress on his back for his guts right now rather than once again questioning his decision-making.  All I know is, when you’re struggling, you have to take the points.  There’s aggressiveness and then there’s foolishness.

Follow FanSided on Facebook. Follow The Viking Age on Twitter.

The fourth quarter turned into a comedy of terrors.  With the Vikings driving to get themselves back in the game, Brett Favre took a shot up under the chin, suffering a laceration that required him to be helped off the field, then driven to the locker room on a cart.  The shot of Favre being driven off looked for all the world like the final image we would ever see of the Silver Fox on a football field as a player, an image as startling and pathetic as the famous shot of Y.A. Tittle bloody and on his knees.  Favre as it turned out was not that badly hurt – a few stitches in his chin and some wooziness but probably not a concussion, and definitely not the broken jaw we all feared when we saw the shot of him lying on the cart apparently near expiration.  With Favre being tended to, Tarvaris Jackson entered the game and promptly hit Naufahu Tahi for a touchdown.  The two-point conversion to Percy Harvin was good, making it 21-18 Vikings with plenty of time left in the fourth.  Fans’ minds immediately went back to the end of the first half when Brad Childress passed up an easy field goal, electing to go for it on fourth and goal, only to watch Adrian Peterson get stuffed.  Would those 3 lost points come back to haunt us?

Well, as it turned out, the Patriots would follow the Vikings’ TD with a workmanlike, clock-eating scoring drive, putting the game out-of-reach with time running down.  The big play on that drive was a Danny Woodhead 16-yard-reception on 3rd-and-12, a conversion that could’ve been prevented had Asher Allen succeeded in making an open field tackle.  The Vikings defense by now looked utterly defeated and helpless.  For the first time all season, the D failed to come up big when it was needed.  One stop on a drive that featured two successful third down conversions of longer than five yards and the Vikes still would’ve had a shot, needing only a field goal to tie.  Once again, the Vikings were in it, but came one or two plays short.  Afterward there would be a lot of questions for Brad Childress, questions about his decision to go for the TD instead of the field goal at the end of the half, about his questionable challenge of the Brandon Tate reception on the ball Williams should’ve picked in the first half; questions about the defensive line’s inability to bring down Brady (though, in all fairness, they did get decent pressure on him at times), about Brett Favre’s health, about Randy Moss‘ dedication to the team after a ranting and bizarre post-game presser.  The Vikings face lots of such questions…and they are running out of time to get them answered.

Follow FanSided on Facebook. Follow The Viking Age on Twitter.

This positive test, along with numerous other accounts of Harvin’s questionable attitude and coachability while at Florida, has all but scuttled any shot the receiver had at being taken in the first round, either by the Vikings at #22 or anywhere else. Is this just?  You can argue that marijuana laws are by themselves unjust and silly, and I would tend to agree, but that isn’t really the issue here.  Wrong or right, the rules exist, and the guys know ahead of time that they’re going to be tested.  Harvin had every chance in the world to lay off the weed and pee clean at the combine, but was either too dumb or arrogant to do so.  There’s also the fact that, if a guy tests positive at the combine then gets drafted, he comes into the league with a strike against him in the league’s substance abuse policy.  Why should a team spend a first-round pick on a guy who not only lacks the self-discipline to stay clean for the test but already stands just one violation away from getting suspended? There’s no reason to.  Harvin is a bad risk and I wouldn’t take him.  I hope it was a good smoke.