Vikes Blogging

Well the Vikes managed to get beat by Tampa Bay today 19-13. I knew going in this would probably be a tough one for the Vikes to win because the Bucs are a pretty good team and they were at home. Still I hoped that the Vikes just might be a better team then I give them credit for.

The first half was played pretty even and the Vikes went into half-time with a 13-6 lead. Adrian Peterson had something like 70 yards in the first half. The second half was dominated by the Bucs offense.

The Vikes just did not have an answer for the scrambling Jeff Garcia who made play after play with his feet. If the Bucs would have had an immobile QB like Ferotte, they probably would have gotten beat. I think the key play of the game for the Bucs was a 2nd and 25 where Garcia threw a perfect pass to his Tight End for 31 yards and a first and goal on the 1. It had to be a perfectly thrown ball or else the pass would have been broken up or intercepted by Darrin Sharper. This perfect pass set up the Bucs only TD.

I think there were a few key plays by the Vikes that cost them the game. The first was in the 3rd Quarter when the Vikes were at mid-field and went for it on 4th and 1. They tried a pass where Frerotte nearly got sacked, but he got away only to throw an incomplete pass to Adrian Peterson. I think had Frerotte thrown a better ball with a little air under it that AP probably would have scored a TD because he was behind the defence.

Another key play was what I considered to be a bad play call at the end of the 3rd Quarter. On first down AP was hit in the backfield for a 3 yard loss. No big deal I figured give the ball back to AP cause he will most likely get at least 5 yards if not more. AP had some big runs in the first half, but it turned out the 3 yard loss was to be the last rush of the game for AP. Instead of handing off to AP Childress went with the more predictable play of a pass and Frerotte got sacked by Chris fricking Hovan of all people. I believe it was Hovan's first sack of the year. Frerotte then got sacked again on 3rd down.

The last key play came in the 4th quarter with under 4 minutes to play and the Vikes needing to make a 80 yard drive for a touchdown. The Vikes had two timeouts left so there was plenty of time on the clock for running the football. The Vikes were in a similar position last week and AP took the game over. On first down Frerotte threw an 8 yard pass to Bobby Wade. At this point you need to be thinking first downs rather than big plays, so I would have run AP on 2nd down because that would most likely move the chains. Instead of a run it was 3 straight incomplete passes.

Amazingly enough the Vikes got one more shot when the Bucs missed the 36yard field goal attempt. However Bobby Wade got a pass interference penalty. What in the world was Frerotte thinking throwing a jump ball up to little Bobby Wade? Sidney Rice or Bernard Berrien are our jump ball guys. Then Frerotte got sacked and Chester Taylor fumbled and the 2nd half Buc domination was complete.

I am not very optimistic about our chances next week vs Jacksonville even though they probably are not as good as the Bucs. At the dome I think the Vikes win, in sunny Florida, not so much.

I just noticed that Chad Greenway had 16 tackles. WOW!