While tomorrow is always a day a way, Monday will actually arrive tomorrow. That means that tomorrow we will know what we do not know today, whether the Vikings will bring home the bacon bits the way the Gophers did yesterday. If so, the Vikings will complete what many anticipated on Friday.
Yuck!
Yesterday, the Gopher football team lost to the Wisconsin Badgers in convincing fashion. Apologists will assert that the Gophers were facing the number six team in the country, on the road, and that "the Gophers never quit." The first two observations are fact, the latter is sheerly dilusional as the Gophers have failed to show for any game--save the home game against the lowly Illini--since their loss at Michigan.
Apologists will ask us to ignore the fact that at the beginning of the season, Glen Mason and most of the Big Ten coaches considered the Gophers a serious contender for the Big Ten title; that Glen Mason exclaimed that, hyperbole aside, he would be very surprised and considerably disappointed if the Gophers did not win the Big Ten this season; that five weeks ago the Gophers were ranked number 13 in the nation and were a victory over Michigan away from cracking the top 10 for the first time in over three decades; that Glen Mason-booster Joel Maturi softened his expectations after the Michigan loss exclaiming that he would be satisfied with a 5-3 Big Ten record--a statement meant to allow the Gophers considerable leeway in what most observers believed was a soft remaining Big Ten schedule. And never mind that the line on the game at kickoff was Badgers -6.5.
None of this really matters because the Gophers did on Saturday what Gopher fans expected them to do by playing miserably against the Badgers. And, in a game in which statistics often lie, the only statistical anomoly in this game was that the Badgers ended the game with only 38 points.
The Badgers entered the game averaging 21 points a game. They matched that in the first quarter en route to a 31-7 halftime lead. The Badgers scored through the air on the arm of the previously moribound John Stocco, whom the Gophers' defense--as it has done frequently with other suspect quarterbacks in the past two seasons--made look like Joe Montana in his NFL-prime. The Gophers knew that the Badgers' running game would be a challenge, but deluded themselves into believing that the objects that they place on the field in the form of linebackers and a secondary would stand a chance against someone with an arm and a football.
But if elevating Stocco to near-Heisman status in one weekend were not enough to make Gophers' fans bristle, consider some of the other statistics from this debacle.
The most telling statistic for demonstrating the complete disarray of the Gophers' offense and defense is time of possession. The Badgers had the football for an astounding 45 minutes to the Gophers' 15. A ten-minute time of possession advantage is cause for alarm, a twenty-minute advantage is cause for complete re-evaluation of all defensive and offensive schemes. Can anything other than a major house cleaning be in order for a half-hour time of possession disadvantage?
The time of possession statistic both wrote and told the story of the game. The Badgers scored on their first five possessions, usually relying on long drives. The Gophers failed to score on any of their first four possessions, going 3 and out twice, four and out once, and five and out once. By the time the Gophers figured out the Badgers' system, they were already trailing 31-0.
This was certainly as abysmal of a performance as the loss at Bloomington. And, for those who contend that Mason and his $1 million plus tax-payer paid salary is worth keeping around based on where Mason purportedly has led the Gophers after years of misery, it may be time to consider that the Gophers circa 2004 are no better prepared to play football than were the Jim Wacker era Gophers. And, to put a fine point on it, Wacker may even be able to claim an advantage over Mason at this point as, in losing, Wacker's teams usually kept the games entertaining and Wacker was a media savaant. Mason's teams are nearing the ineptitude shown by Wacker's teams in the win-loss and overall performance categories and Mason is not nearly the personable fellow that Wacker was.
For a program that awards $1 million dollars plus for coaching "expertise," certainly it must be time to find someone with some expertise. Despite having self-professed "seasoned" teams in each of the past two seasons, the Gophers have failed to beat a Big Ten team with a winning conference record for two straight seasons (needless to say, I am predicting defeat against the Hawkeyes). Last year, the Gophers most notable victory was at home against the Badgers (.500 in conference last season). This season, the Gophers are 3-5 in conference with victories over Illinois and Penn State (a combined 1-12 in conference) and Northwestern. Northwestern stands at 4-2 and should finish above .500 in conference with games remaining at Michigan and at home against Illinois. But the victory over Northwestern--even a Northwestern over .500 in conference--was not what Mason, Maturi, and Co. sold to the Gopher faithful.
Coattailing
Is it possible that the Vikings are following the lead of the Gophers? Last weekend, the Gophers lost to the woeful Hoosiers in Bloomington. The Vikings followed that loss with an equally forgettable home loss to the NY Giants. Is this a mere coincidence or is something greater at play?
Almost assuredly Mike Tice is not raiding the Mason home for game plans, but it is curious that the Gophers and Vikings have porous defenses. And it is curious that both the Gophers and Vikings lose on the same weekend despite being favorites. And it is even more curious that neither the Gophers nor the Vikings appear capable of defeating teams with winning records.
Will the Vikings detour from the road that Mase built when they face the Colts tomorrow night? Probably not.
Vikings' Achilles
Since Randy Moss went down with a hamstring injury three weeks ago, the Vikings have defeated the Saints and Titans and lost to the Giants. Moss injured his hamstring just before halftime of the Saints' game, that meant that the Saints had little time to reconstruct a game plan to adjust to Moss' absence--particularly since Moss started the second half of that game. That meant that the Saints continued to stay in cover two when Moss was on the field and, when Moss was off the field, the Saints still stayed out of the box.
With Moss' status for the Titans' game up in the air, the Titans prepped as if Moss was going to play. Moss played a few token plays early in the game, drawing double coverage, but his injury soon forced him to the sideline. The Titans nevertheless decided to take away the deep pass rather than to contest the running game. The result was a pedestrian 20-3 Minnesota victory on the strength of Mewelde Moore's 138-yard rushing performance.
The Giants took a different approach against the Moss-less Viking offense, loading up the box against the rush and playing man-to-man against the pass. The result was a dismal rushing performance by the Vikings, pressure on Daunte throughout the game, a poor performance by Daunte, and a decent, but, from the Giants' perspective, acceptable performance by Marcus Robinson.
The Colts have nowhere near the Giants' defensive capabilities, but that will not matter if the Vikings do not play better than they did last week at home. With false start penalties stunting three of the Vikings' first eight drives last week, an indoor road game against a redemption-seeking Colts' team is not what the doctor ordered for this Vikings' squad. The Vikings should score more than 14 points against this version of the worst defense in the NFL, but it is unlikely that the Randy Moss-less Vikings' offense will break the 28-point barrier against the Colts and very likely that the Vikings will cede many more to the Peyton Manning-led home team.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Monday, November 01, 2004
When the Sum of the Parts is the Whole
By losing to the Giants on Sunday, the Vikings accomplished two things. First, they demonstrated that, where Vikings' fans are concerned, no season is complete without confounding losses. Second, the Vikings demonstrated that attention to detail matters greatly in the NFL, where minor lapses accumulate to seal defeat.
Whether it is a quality team, such as the Giants, or an inept team, such as the Cardinals, NFL teams seem to know when the Vikings are ripe for the picking. Vikings' opponents understand that they are being presented with a golden opportunity for victory whenever the Vikings are the favorites at home or the Vikings are the visitor.
While road victories over Houston and New Orleans seem to have changed the perception of the Vikings as road patsies, nothing has changed the perception that the Vikings are most likely to lose when they are at home and favored to win. And Sunday's abysmal performance against the Giants only points this out. But this time, there is no doubt why the Vikings lost. It was not over-confidence or looking ahead--two cliches that are often trotted out to explain such Vikings' defeats. No, this time the Vikings lost because they did all the little things, and some of the big things, wrong.
In his Monday afternoon press conference, Vikings' coach Mike Tice noted that the Vikings "left a lot of plays on the field" and "failed to make plays." That, as we know, is standard form for NFL coaches, whether following a victory or a loss. And, usually, neither phrase means much. But that is not true of these cliches as they pertain to the Vikings' performance on Sunday.
In Minnesota's first eight possessions on Sunday, the common theme was self-destruction. On the opening kickoff, Mike Nattiel was tagged with a holding call that forced the Vikings to begin the drive on their own 17. The Vikings moved the ball to their own 38 before Moore and Company failed to cover a backward pass. The Giants recovered the ensuing fumble and, after a good defensive stand by the Vikings, settled for a field goal.
Tice compounded the Vikings' woes on the opening drive by challenging the ruling that Daunte's pass was a backward pass and that the resulting loose ball was a consequently a fumble. Tice made this challenge despite the absence of any angle that would definitively require reversal of the play (i.e., Tice challenged the play with sufficient information to realize that the challenge would fail). The challenge was overruled and Tice was out one challenge early in the game.
On their next series, the Vikings appeared to have an opportune scenario, facing a 2nd and 3. The Vikings could run virtually any play in their playbook knowing that they would be able to do the same on third down if their second down efforts failed. Unfortunately, the Vikings failed on the first attempt and threw short on the second, with the receiver having no opportunity to pick up the first down even if the pass had been completed, which it was not.
That brought Darren Bennett out to punt. And the wily veteran--the trait Tice most admired about Bennett when he signed him during the off-season--responded with a pedestrian put of 35 yards. The punt gave the Giants good starting field position at their own 35-yard line.
The Giants began their second drive of the game, outmatched, for a moment, by Minnesota's improving defense. That continued until Corey Chavous was flagged for pass interference to the tune of 38 yards, moving the ball to the Vikings' 22. That one play was largely responsible for the Giants' subsequent TD.
The Vikings responded with another 3 and out series, highlighted by a false start by Minnesota center Matt Birk.
E.J. Henderson was flagged for defensive holding during the Giants' subsequent drive, but the Vikings defense once again forced the Giants to punt. The Giants downed the punt at the 1-yard line and, despite the visual evidence and situational prudence, Tice used his second, and last, challenge to challenge the spot of the ball. At the time, the Giants were ahead 10-0 with 3.16 left in the first quarter. The 1-yard line is a tough place to start a drive, but even tougher is relinquishing challenges for the remainder of the game in what, at that point, was still a tight contest.
Tice's two challenges call into question who it is that is advising Tice to challenge plays. At times, Tice gets the challenge right. But far too often, it appears that Tice's emotions get the better of him and he challenges a play with his fingers, toes, ears, and eyes crossed, hoping that the replay monitor will show the play as Tice envisions the play in his best-case-scenario, inner-mind, rewind. Absent clear evidence, it is foolhardy to use both challenges in the first quarter of a game. And the loss of his challenges came back to haunt Tice in the second quarter when the Giants were credited with a reception that clearly should not have been. Tice could have and probably would have challenged the reception that kept alive the Giants drive at the end of the half, particularly given that it was a defining play in the game, but he had no challenges remaining. That led to a Giants' field goal.
And to make matters worse, following Tice's second challenge, the Vikings proceeded to move the ball to the Giants' 39, showing that starting at the 1-yard line is not disconcerting enough to warrant use of a final challenge early in the game. Unfortunately, however, the Vikings again self-destructed as Daunte threw the first of his two interceptions on what was a miserable day for the Vikings' QB. The Giants returned the pick to the Minnesota 36 and promptly proceeded to take a 17 to 0 lead.
The Vikings picked up on their next drive where they left off on their previous, by making mistakes. The Vikings began the drive with good field position, but Adam Goldberg--he of the oft-penalized Dorsey-Goldberg duo--committed a false start that helped stunt a Vikings' drive. The drive ended, appropriately enough, with a missed 38-yard field goal attempt that left some dreaming of a return to the Aaron Elling year.
On the Vikings' seventh drive of the game, Dorsey was flagged for a false start. The penalty once again created long-yardage situations for the Vikings, who appeared unable to convert such situations without Randy Moss. Owing to Dorsey's penalty and the Vikings sudden offensive inabilities, Minnesota was forced to punt on the stalled drive.
With halftime approaching, the Giants used the clock to produce another field goal, despite their own attempts to self-destruct.
The second half was more of the same for the Vikings. On their first possession of the second half, the Vikings drove deep into Giants' territory before Daunte made a poor pass to the flat. The pass was picked and returned to the Giants' 45. The Giants converted this mistake, Daunte's second interception of the game, into a quick touchdown and essentially ended the game.
And, as if to remind us of what quickly is becoming every Vikings' fans 2004 master lament (in a season full of lamentable issues), the Vikings' defense once again squandered several turnover opportunities as defenders dropped at least two interceptions and failed to recover two fumbles that were in their grasp.
As Tice said, and as this time rings true, the Vikings lost because they did not make plays on Sunday. Although it is true that the Giants played some decent defense and converted on their opportunities (4 of 5 times in the red zone), the Vikings did little to stand in the way of the Giants on the offensive side of the ball. Instead, the Vikings' offense committed miscue after miscue with at least one glaring miscue--either by the players or the coaching staff--in each of its first eight series. That's how games are lost in the NFL, as seemingly sufferable miscues accumulate.
The Vikings are not as bad as they looked on Sunday, but if they do not eliminate the mistakes that cost them the field-position battle on Sunday, it is unlikely that they will meet their goal of a deep playoff run this season, when the teams that they face will be at least the equal of the Giants.
Up Next: Spilled Milk.
Whether it is a quality team, such as the Giants, or an inept team, such as the Cardinals, NFL teams seem to know when the Vikings are ripe for the picking. Vikings' opponents understand that they are being presented with a golden opportunity for victory whenever the Vikings are the favorites at home or the Vikings are the visitor.
While road victories over Houston and New Orleans seem to have changed the perception of the Vikings as road patsies, nothing has changed the perception that the Vikings are most likely to lose when they are at home and favored to win. And Sunday's abysmal performance against the Giants only points this out. But this time, there is no doubt why the Vikings lost. It was not over-confidence or looking ahead--two cliches that are often trotted out to explain such Vikings' defeats. No, this time the Vikings lost because they did all the little things, and some of the big things, wrong.
In his Monday afternoon press conference, Vikings' coach Mike Tice noted that the Vikings "left a lot of plays on the field" and "failed to make plays." That, as we know, is standard form for NFL coaches, whether following a victory or a loss. And, usually, neither phrase means much. But that is not true of these cliches as they pertain to the Vikings' performance on Sunday.
In Minnesota's first eight possessions on Sunday, the common theme was self-destruction. On the opening kickoff, Mike Nattiel was tagged with a holding call that forced the Vikings to begin the drive on their own 17. The Vikings moved the ball to their own 38 before Moore and Company failed to cover a backward pass. The Giants recovered the ensuing fumble and, after a good defensive stand by the Vikings, settled for a field goal.
Tice compounded the Vikings' woes on the opening drive by challenging the ruling that Daunte's pass was a backward pass and that the resulting loose ball was a consequently a fumble. Tice made this challenge despite the absence of any angle that would definitively require reversal of the play (i.e., Tice challenged the play with sufficient information to realize that the challenge would fail). The challenge was overruled and Tice was out one challenge early in the game.
On their next series, the Vikings appeared to have an opportune scenario, facing a 2nd and 3. The Vikings could run virtually any play in their playbook knowing that they would be able to do the same on third down if their second down efforts failed. Unfortunately, the Vikings failed on the first attempt and threw short on the second, with the receiver having no opportunity to pick up the first down even if the pass had been completed, which it was not.
That brought Darren Bennett out to punt. And the wily veteran--the trait Tice most admired about Bennett when he signed him during the off-season--responded with a pedestrian put of 35 yards. The punt gave the Giants good starting field position at their own 35-yard line.
The Giants began their second drive of the game, outmatched, for a moment, by Minnesota's improving defense. That continued until Corey Chavous was flagged for pass interference to the tune of 38 yards, moving the ball to the Vikings' 22. That one play was largely responsible for the Giants' subsequent TD.
The Vikings responded with another 3 and out series, highlighted by a false start by Minnesota center Matt Birk.
E.J. Henderson was flagged for defensive holding during the Giants' subsequent drive, but the Vikings defense once again forced the Giants to punt. The Giants downed the punt at the 1-yard line and, despite the visual evidence and situational prudence, Tice used his second, and last, challenge to challenge the spot of the ball. At the time, the Giants were ahead 10-0 with 3.16 left in the first quarter. The 1-yard line is a tough place to start a drive, but even tougher is relinquishing challenges for the remainder of the game in what, at that point, was still a tight contest.
Tice's two challenges call into question who it is that is advising Tice to challenge plays. At times, Tice gets the challenge right. But far too often, it appears that Tice's emotions get the better of him and he challenges a play with his fingers, toes, ears, and eyes crossed, hoping that the replay monitor will show the play as Tice envisions the play in his best-case-scenario, inner-mind, rewind. Absent clear evidence, it is foolhardy to use both challenges in the first quarter of a game. And the loss of his challenges came back to haunt Tice in the second quarter when the Giants were credited with a reception that clearly should not have been. Tice could have and probably would have challenged the reception that kept alive the Giants drive at the end of the half, particularly given that it was a defining play in the game, but he had no challenges remaining. That led to a Giants' field goal.
And to make matters worse, following Tice's second challenge, the Vikings proceeded to move the ball to the Giants' 39, showing that starting at the 1-yard line is not disconcerting enough to warrant use of a final challenge early in the game. Unfortunately, however, the Vikings again self-destructed as Daunte threw the first of his two interceptions on what was a miserable day for the Vikings' QB. The Giants returned the pick to the Minnesota 36 and promptly proceeded to take a 17 to 0 lead.
The Vikings picked up on their next drive where they left off on their previous, by making mistakes. The Vikings began the drive with good field position, but Adam Goldberg--he of the oft-penalized Dorsey-Goldberg duo--committed a false start that helped stunt a Vikings' drive. The drive ended, appropriately enough, with a missed 38-yard field goal attempt that left some dreaming of a return to the Aaron Elling year.
On the Vikings' seventh drive of the game, Dorsey was flagged for a false start. The penalty once again created long-yardage situations for the Vikings, who appeared unable to convert such situations without Randy Moss. Owing to Dorsey's penalty and the Vikings sudden offensive inabilities, Minnesota was forced to punt on the stalled drive.
With halftime approaching, the Giants used the clock to produce another field goal, despite their own attempts to self-destruct.
The second half was more of the same for the Vikings. On their first possession of the second half, the Vikings drove deep into Giants' territory before Daunte made a poor pass to the flat. The pass was picked and returned to the Giants' 45. The Giants converted this mistake, Daunte's second interception of the game, into a quick touchdown and essentially ended the game.
And, as if to remind us of what quickly is becoming every Vikings' fans 2004 master lament (in a season full of lamentable issues), the Vikings' defense once again squandered several turnover opportunities as defenders dropped at least two interceptions and failed to recover two fumbles that were in their grasp.
As Tice said, and as this time rings true, the Vikings lost because they did not make plays on Sunday. Although it is true that the Giants played some decent defense and converted on their opportunities (4 of 5 times in the red zone), the Vikings did little to stand in the way of the Giants on the offensive side of the ball. Instead, the Vikings' offense committed miscue after miscue with at least one glaring miscue--either by the players or the coaching staff--in each of its first eight series. That's how games are lost in the NFL, as seemingly sufferable miscues accumulate.
The Vikings are not as bad as they looked on Sunday, but if they do not eliminate the mistakes that cost them the field-position battle on Sunday, it is unlikely that they will meet their goal of a deep playoff run this season, when the teams that they face will be at least the equal of the Giants.
Up Next: Spilled Milk.
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