A look at Minnesota Vikings’ failure in last NFL season (Part I)
The National Football Conference (NFC) North division of the National Football League (NFL) contained a few threatening teams last season, but there was one team that failed to live up to the benchmark set by other teams of the division.
Minnesota Vikings brought utter disgrace to the division and to the fans, who expected a competitive performance, at least, from the team.
The Vikings finished the last season by winning only three games. They lost 13 games and ended up at the bottom of the division.
The main reason behind their failure, apparently, was injuries to their major players.
In this space, we are going to have a look at overall performance of the team in the last season and review score of every game Vikings played.
Let’s start with the season-opener.
At San Diego
Vikings play their first game of the season on San Diego Chargers’ home field.
Minnesota started off well, but they surprisingly gave the game away in the second half with both offence and defence struggling badly.
In the first quarter, Vikings made the first scoring move of the game and got a touchdown, but the lead was soon neutralised by the Chargers, who scored their first touchdown of the game a few minutes after the first scoring move.
The first quarter ended with the score level, but Vikings got ahead in the second quarter in which they scored a field goal and a touchdown to take a 10-point lead.
In the second half, however, Vikings were miserable and pathetic. They allowed the Chargers to score a touchdown in the third quarter and conceded 10 more points in the final to lose the game.
The final score settled at 24-17.
Vikings’ quarterback, Donovan McNabb, who was playing his first game, was far from being impressive. He ended the game after completing only seven of meagre 15 attempted passes for 39 yards. He sent one touchdown-pass and one interception and received a
quarterback rating of 47.9.
He said after the game:
"It's embarrassing to have the numbers that we had, whatever we had. I can do that in one series and we'll get them corrected."
Against Tampa Bay Buccaneers
After losing the first game of the season, Vikings returned home, hoping to get their first win of the season by making a strong and positive start on their home field.
To achieve that goal, however, they needed a solid performance, which they failed to deliver and once again gave away a healthy lead in the second half of the game.
Vikings started off well again and got a touchdown in the first quarter. They added a field goal and another touchdown in the second quarter and were able to defend properly in the first half as the Bucs had not scored yet.
Entering the halftime with a 17-point lead, it was looking that Vikings might get their first win of the season, but as look would have it, things went in completely other direction for them in the next half.
In the third quarter, the Bucs scored a touchdown and a field goal without conceding any point to reduce the deficit to seven points.
In the final quarter, Vikings got a field goal, but Tampa Bay responded by scoring two touchdowns.
The final score, 24-20, settled in favour of the Bucs.
McNabb said after the game:
"We have to have that attitude that we can't be stopped.”
To be continued...
The views do not represent the editorial policy of bettor.com
Tags: