MINNEAPOLIS — How should we describe the Minnesota Vikings offense on Monday night. Let’s give it a shot….
No-good, rotten, mortifying, horrifying, ugly, hideous, groteste, infuriating, frustrating, maddening, baffling, incomprehensible, reprehensible, abominable, loathsome, repugnant, vile, astounding, bewildering.
There are games over the last decade that were tough to watch. That 2019 loss to Chase Daniel. The Sean Mannion game. JJ McCarthy vs. the Falcons. But the despicable showing against a bumbling Bills defense has set a new bar for disgusting displays of offensive football.
With five minutes left in the fourth quarter, I refreshed my computer three times to make sure they really only had 126 yards. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX YARDS.
The Vikings came into the contest hoping that Wentz would give them a spark and instead he made Kyler Murray vs. Detroit look like Joe Montana mixed with 1998 Randall Cunningham. Wentz went an entire quarter with two more completions to the opponent than to his own team. I didn’t think that was possible unless Kendall Hinton was playing QB (Google it if you’re not familiar).
The saddest part about the inept offensive performance is that the defense was everything it was cracked up to be. Certainly Josh Allen made some outrageous plays but the Vikings hit him, sacked him, broke up passes, made goal line stops, forced a ton of long third downs and they didn’t allowed star running back James Cook an inch for the majority of the contest.
It was one of the most impressive defensive showings that you’ll ever see in the NFL and it was tossed in the garbage because the offense is a total lost cause.
We have been looking for answers for a year-plus now. Is it the play calling? How can it not be? Is it the revamped run game? Yes. Is it blocking? Maybe some. Is it the quarterbacks? Yes but how many quarterbacks need to fail before we say that it’s not the quarterbacks? Wentz never looked this bad last year.
Has Kevin O’Connell lost all answers? Should they change play callers?
There are no clear fixes. It’s been 26 games since they went over 400 yards of total offense and usually they haven’t gotten remotely close. How is that even possible?
The Vikings’ season already felt like it was teetering over a cliff coming into the game because the NFC North is filled with ridiculously good teams and star quarterbacks. Now it feels like a collapse is inevitable as they are going to play the Packers in four days and Murray doesn’t look ready to return yet.
What’s astounding is that the Vikings could easily be 8-0 with any semblance of an offensive attack. I’m talking about the 23rd best offense and they’d have the best record in the entire NFL. Instead they might be out of the playoff race fast.
You can’t expect a defense that’s out there for 75 plays per game to keep doing this. Guys will get worn down and banged up and Jordan Love, Brock Purdy and the other NFC QBs aren’t going to let them stick around.
Is the answer trading for a quarterback? Trading for Jonathan Taylor to try to give some help to the ailing QBs? Firing somebody?
We’ll find out on Tuesday. If they don’t make a trade it’s going to feel like they’re throwing away a historic defense but if they do make a trade it’s hard to argue that Kirk Cousins, Daniel Jones or Geno Smith are going to suddenly turn this thing into a viable offense.
Actually, viable isn’t even needed. Anything less than the worst thing ever is needed.
Oh, hey, that JJ McCarthy trade looks great right now.
But does the Vikings’ new GM really want to give up draft capital to try to save this? He would have to be convinced that they were a QB away from being a serious contender and it’s really, really hard to make that case.
It’s the most hopeless feeling 6-2 team ever.
All we know is that if things continue like this, we’ll be referencing 2003 and 2016 soon.
Here’s how it went down…