The Vikings’ ship remains rudderless, as well as clueless, practically scoreless and one game from winless. This sorry state of affairs and Sunday’s pathetic exercise thrusts the Vikings into the thick of the NFC North Division mud-wrestling contest.
Coach Mike Tice dared to identify a silver lining, citing next week’s game against rival Green Bay as reason for renewed focus and resilience. It promises to be a most anticipated clash between two 1-4 teams.
“We can still do what we set out to do,” quarterback Daunte Culpepper said. “We have a lot of season left.”
He meant it as a promise more than a threat, although it would be hard to convince Vikings fans, or find them.
If the NFL truly believed in charity, the Bears would have to give back their 28-3 victory on grounds of mental cruelty. But there is no rule against kicking a team when it is down. There is also no rule against kicking, which the Vikings and ex-Bear Paul Edinger evidently did not know.
Owner Zygi Wilf has promised to punish the players involved in an Oct. 6 pleasure cruise on Lake Minnetonka. Already he has started to punish Tice by insisting he will not be fired this season. Hasn’t the man suffered enough?
Wilf apologized to the citizens of Minnesota for what took place off the field on Oct. 6. Offending taxpayers is no way to convince them to build you a stadium. Building a Viking barge and tying the whole team to an ice floe would be an easier sell at the moment.
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Further apology was in order Sunday as the Vikings played a 3-0 lead into another ignominious defeat. As the fourth quarter wound down, Wilf huddled with associates underneath Soldier Field, either too embarrassed or too enlightened to watch. If he didn’t already wear sunglasses and a mustache, he would be looking for them.
“It was a long week for us,” Tice said.
Road losses of 37-8 at Cincinnati, 30-10 at Atlanta and 28-3 at Chicago have left the Vikings reeling like sailors on a month-long pass.
“No comment,” Culpepper said when asked if reports were true that he was one of the players on two boats under investigation for lewd behavior.
Culpepper’s uninspired play did enough talking for one day. He was simply awful, unable to connect long or short or audible out of plays that were called by coordinator Steve Loney, approved by Tice, filtered by new consultant Jerry Rhome, relayed by quarterbacks coach Rich Olson, sniffed out by linebacker Brian Urlacher and cheered by Bears fans.
On nine consecutive possessions Sunday, the Vikings had 3, 3, 7, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3 and 4 plays. They gained a net 45 yards. The Bears’ defense is not that good.
Strangely, the Vikings looked relatively sharp in the first half, controlling the ball twice as long as the Bears only to fall behind. From the start, they seemed to be playing for field goals, diving up the middle on third-and-2 from the Bears’ 19. Before it was over, they committed a near-impossibility in the NFL–they won the turnover battle and got blown out.
They looked like a team of dead men sinking, although Tice and Culpepper insisted there is still life with 11 games to play
“Guys are mad and should be because we lost,” Culpepper said.
Tice said it was easy to say players didn’t look like they played hard, but the videotape will prove otherwise.
“You can’t tell watching with the naked eye,” Tice said.
You sure couldn’t. The Vikings made wholesale changes on offense and defense during the off-season, boldly adding big-name players in an effort to take the next step. So far, the road looks more like a plank and the players look like a ragtag bunch of misfit has-beens and never-weres. They were penalized 14 times Sunday, six for false starts or offsides that Tice admitted revealed a lack of concentration.
Only a few weeks ago, the Vikings were consensus favorites to win the division.
“You still have to build a team and put the chemistry together,” Tice said. “The pieces don’t win football games. The overall team has to have chemistry and jell and play together for 60 minutes to win games.”
Asked if the boat party played a role in Sunday’s game, safety Darren Sharper said: “No. We’ve been playing poorly all week . . . the last couple of weeks. I mean, we can point to not getting it done on offense, turnovers and no output on offense, penalties and not stopping teams when we need to on defense. Not playing solid in all three phases of the game. I’m shocked. When I came here, I thought we would have a chance to win a championship and right now, it doesn’t look like we have a chance at all.
“Right now, we’re just not playing smart football, and you have to keep looking for a bright spot and hope to turn this thing around.”
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