A week after laying the lumber to the St. Louis Rams on the road, the Vikings came home and got the lumber laid to them by the New England Patriots.
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After going up 7-0 on a beautifully scripted and executed first drive, the Vikings watched mostly helpless for the remainder of the game as the Patriots put up 30 unanswered points, winning 30-7.
And it wasn’t as though the Patriots ran like some well-oiled machine. Their offense performed with only sporadic effectiveness throughout the day, and both offense and defense committed a bunch of penalties.
But the Vikings helped the Patriots out with their own penalties and mistakes. Matt Cassel led the way with four interceptions, at least three of which were just flat out awful throws.
The offensive line looked problematic again, especially Matt Kalil who once again struggled. Kyle Rudolph dropped a couple of passes, Jarius Wright let a touchdown pass go through his hands in the end zone…and on and on.
Special teams gaffes plagued the Vikings as well. A blocked punt led to a TD at the very end of the second quarter, a ten point swing that more-or-less swung the door shut on a Vikings victory.
Things became so hopeless that the fans started chanting for Teddy Bridgewater, but Mike Zimmer wisely kept the rookie on the sideline rather than throw him into the fire.
You could line up excuses if you wanted to I suppose. No Adrian Peterson. Hangover after a big opening victory. Team getting a big head after tasting some success.
But if you want to be painfully honest, none of those excuses hold water. The Patriots simply exposed the Vikings’ weaknesses.
Those weaknesses got covered up week one against a bad team, but they were on display week 2. Start with the offensive line which is having problems. Move to Matt Cassel who has always been inconsistent and this week had one of his signature bad games.
Move to the defense which is still lacking at some positions. Compound all these problems by adding poor execution, an uncharacteristically weak special teams performance and the lack of Adrian Peterson’s influence on the game and what do you get?
A blowout that in retrospect we should have seen coming.