DETROIT, Mich. — Too little, too late. Now what?
The Minnesota Vikings’ stumbling, bumbling offense had another brutal day against the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Over the last six weeks, they have gotten away with it over and over again. Whether it was blocking field goals or having opponents’ offenses throw for 100 yards or less, the offensive struggles never cost Minnesota a win. Until now.
Throughout the game, quarterback Kyler Murray looked like someone who should be benched save for a fade pass to Justin Jefferson in the end zone and a 55-yard bomb to Jordan Addison. The rest of the time, it was sacks and overthrows. It was confused looks, bad passes and the occasional successful scramble.
The run game and play calling sequencing didn’t help much. It took until the second half for Jordan Mason to have a single successful run and Aaron Jones didn’t add much more in terms of consistency. And following every missed pass on first down seemed to be a poor second-and-10 run that set up third-and-long. But there were plenty of opportunities for Murray to find passes on those third downs and he couldn’t get the job done.
There were lots of turning points in the game but following a Murray touchdown to TJ Hockenson that finally put the Vikings ahead late, the Lions decided to simply run over and over and cruised down the field for a go-ahead touchdown. The Vikings’ chance at responding seemed like about 0% and it was.
It was basically a summation of what the Vikings are going to look like against good teams: Eventually the defense is going to get worn out and show some weaknesses. Eventually the luck of missed field goals, referee flags and QB miscues was going to run out when they took on a great offensive team.
The image we’ll remember from the game is Justin Jefferson walking off the field shaking his head and yelling angrily after another day of Murray struggling to find him.
So what now? The Vikings are 6-1. That’s good. But this is unsustainable. Do they bench Murray for Carson Wentz? Trade for Kirk Cousins? Trade for Jonathan Taylor? Do nothing and see what happens?
It’s such a unique situation because the defense proved on Sunday that it was good enough to play with the big boys. They flustered Jared Goff all day. They mostly held down Jahmyr Gibbs until the end of the game. But how can anyone believe that this team can be a true contender with an offense and quarterback play like this?
It has 2016 meltdown written all over it.
It’s not generally smart to make a big franchise decision in reaction to a big game but how can GM Nolan Teasley look at this club and think that it’s a good idea to trade away oodles of draft capital?
The only thing that they might be able to do is continue to hope that Murray gets better. But how long can you wait? The opportunities were all over the field against the league’s 32nd ranked pass defense entering the contest and they still couldn’t find a way to get any type of consistency.
It’s such a typical Vikings feeling. Enough to be in the race, not enough to win the race. Enough for the game to get hyped up, not enough to win the hyped-up game. Enough to make you think that maybe this time it will be different until a single performance makes it clear that it’s probably not going to be.
Maybe that’s too harsh. They are 0-1 in a run of four difficult games. But what makes this so bad is that they were given every chance to win and they could only muster 15 points. It was a game that they absolutely could have won. Coming away with a loss now makes the season feel like it’s on the ropes.
Here’s how it went down….