Minnesota Vikings Best and Worst: Wild Card vs. New Orleans Saints

More bad things

Full disclosure, I’m still a bit shaky as I’m writing this. My excitement from this game has me thinking so positive and many of the negative things from this game just don’t seem to matter too much anymore.

However, there were some times that the playcalling seemed too conservative or predictable, particularly when the Vikings had a two-score lead. It would be nice to see the team stay aggressive in these situations.

Here are some other bad things to come out of Wild Card Weekend for the Minnesota Vikings:

• Trick or Treat. Many teams can have success on trick plays. The Vikings haven’t been one of them. Their attempts to get cute on offense haven’t had good results, most of them resulting in incompletions or losing yards. At some point, those can’t happen anymore.
• Dropped the ball. Minnesota choosing to take the ball first was because the Vikings wanted to make a statement against the Saints. Instead, Adam Thielen fumbled the ball and New Orleans recovered. That’s not really the kind of statement you want to make to open a game.
• Big return. Special teams have been hit or miss this season, but the Vikings allowed a 54-yard kickoff return by Deonte Harris and a fake punt would have converted if not for an offensive penalty. Minnesota will need to clean that up as they move forward.

With that win, the Minnesota Vikings are set up to take on the 49ers in the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs. It will be another tough task for the purple and gold, but they should be up for the challenge on Saturday.