GUT PUNCHES ABOUND

49ERS 34

VIKINGS 26

Well, we did get a couple days to actually enjoy this Vikings season. 

The high coming off the victory over the Packers lasted just a couple days. Then the Everson Griffen thing happened, which is of course not about football, but then sort of IS when you factor in how it effects the rest of the team.

It was just one more blindside hit to this franchise in 2021, a season that just never lets up in forcing the Vikings to deal with major adversity, and often not of their own doing.

The Vikings took a bunch more hits on Sunday out in San Francisco, during a hugely frustrating and at times positively chaotic loss to a fellow NFC wild card hopeful.

Going in this was already a terrible matchup, to face a 49ers team built around running the ball. Add in Dalvin Tomlinson being out with COVID and we had our top 4 guys out on the defensive front, from a team already struggling to stop the run. It's pretty much the singular reason I picked the Vikings to lose. 

But they should have won.

Our offense was complete feast or famine in the first half. We were either going 3 and out or we were putting one in the endzone. Our own run game was doing nothing, but Kirk was playing well and we got a couple Thielen touchdowns. We hit on a flea flicker.

As expected our run defense was not good. Less expected was that we let an erratic Jimmy Garappolo make throws on us. We did get a Harrison Smith pick early, and a couple other near misses, but we also let Garappolo get hot. And wouldn't you know it, it happened late in the 2nd quarter, that hellish part of every football game where the Vikings defense becomes incapable of doing anything right.

This was maybe the most infuriating such example all year. Granted, it did all begin following a complete horseshit holding call on Pat P, but after this we had them 2nd and 20 after a penalty, then proceeded to give a chunk back and then a 24 yard completion on 3rd and long. Then a quick TD to seal the deal. Completely unacceptable to let this happen.

And as so often happens in 2021, one of these late scores took a game we were either leading or close, and sent us to halftime angry.

Then came the 3rd quarter, which was pure chaos.

First our defense resumed their awfulness and let the 49ers run right down the field to take the lead.

The first offensive play of the quarter for us was a disaster. Kirk dropped back, and completely unpressured threw the ball right to the linebacker, who almost pick sixed the thing. It was easily Kirk's worst play of the season, a terrible, terrible pick at the worst time. Obviously this made the Kirk Cousins Derangement Syndrome crowd deliriously happy. They have been waiting for weeks to see Kirk screw up something big.

The 49ers quickly cashed in and at that point you pretty much think game over.

But in less than 3 minutes we made it a game again. Cook broke a long run. Kirk hit JJ, then JJ threw a pass himself to Cook for 24 yards. Mattison scampered in and it's a game again. This team never quits. But of course Greg Joseph missed the PAT, cause yeah.

We at least held them to a field goal next drive, which hit the crossbar and bounced in, cause yeah. 

Then Kene Nwangwu took the ensuing kickoff and raced 99 yards for his 2nd touchdown in 4 weeks.

The missing points doubled though when on the 2 point try Kirk missed pretty badly on a throw to JJ.

Then after forcing a punt, on our 1st play disaster struck again. Oli Udoh got completely destroyed, and was shoved back into Cook as soon as he got the handoff. The whole pile pushed back, twisting Dalvin's body in ways it isn't supposed to, and causing him to fumble. San Francisco recovered and had the ball inside the 10 just like that. Cook had to leave the field on a cart. Naturally you fear the worst. 

We got lucky on a near touchdown right after this that was overturned, but the defense did at least hold them to 3, pushing the lead back to 8. 

Thus ended the most chaotic 3rd quarter of a football game you will ever see.

Despite it all we were still in this, and the offense got on the move. It seemed nothing was going to stop them on this drive. Not the obligatory Oli Udoh holding penalty. Not an enraging replay review where a clear Thielen catch was not called so. Not even the Conklin fumble inside the 10 that he fell on.

But then Klint struck. In a must score TD spot, where Kirk had just zipped us down the field, Klint calls back to back Mattison runs up the middle. Utterly wasted plays with zero chance to score on. A 3rd down pass was incomplete. Then we had a mess of a thing where our receivers are lining up wrong, Kirk has to hurriedly get them right, but then momentarily lines up behind Udoh before calling timeout. We'll get back to this. 

Then after the timeout we run a stupid play where Kirk is given nowhere to throw to, with every possible receiver in the endzone and covered, with zero underneath routes to ease coverage. So we turn it over on downs.

I figured the odds we would even touch the ball again on offense were slim to none. And indeed we did let the 49ers easily chew up most of the 4th quarter and try a field goal past the 2 minute warning.

But wait, a field goal means an 11 point lead. We can't have a multi-score game. That's against the rules. So Robbie Gould missed the field goal and we had one last shot.

68 yards to go in 2 minutes, needing a TD and a 2. I mean, we have faced even tougher spots than this this year. And once Kirk hit a 20 some yarder over the middle to a juggling JJ it seemed like we for sure were gonna do it again.

But then 2 targets to Mattison gained only 2 yards (and Mattison couldn't even get out of bounds on his catch). A pass to Osborn was incomplete and probably should have been DPI. And finally a 4th down throw to JJ was off and we lost and fell under .500 again and FUUUUUUCK!

So much happened in this game. A million different talkers. But the only thing anyone seemed to want to discuss was Kirk lining up under Udoh. Yes, it was a mistake. Nobody disputes this at all. Not Kirk, not me, not anyone. But it was a mistake. It only cost us a timeout that ultimately would not have factored in to the finish. (The refs stole a timeout from us on the Thielen review, but that gets ignored) And given how that played out, it was either a timeout or a really rushed 4th down play no matter where Kirk stood for a couple seconds.

But of course this is Kirk Cousins, the most preposterously hated and annoyingly scrutinized player maybe in Vikings history. So no mistake can ever just be a mistake. No, it gets blown up into the greatest blunder in the history of pro sports. All the great, clutch plays Kirk has made this year get erased by 1 clunker, because that is how the Kirk Cousins Derangement Syndrome crowd insists it must be. 

Kirk did have probably his worst game of the year on Sunday. His key mistakes were not the fault of pass protection, or even playcalling necessarily. He blew a few plays, and was not able to overcome them with yet another last minute drive. I'm sorry. He is not literally perfect every snap of every game. Nobody is. Even the super elite QBs screw up occasionally. Kirk is not super elite, but he's damn good, and it was frankly disgusting to watch the KCDS crowd swarm like vultures the moment he did something bad. Phil Mackey probably had to change his pants after that interception.

Kirk was of course required to be perfect due to the rather expected performance of the defense. We got no help by an officiating crew that let the 49ers hold constantly, to the degree that even Zimmer called them out in the postgame press conference, but this unit was just bad. Bad tackling, the pass rush was at times effective but didn't get Garappolo on the ground enough, and several really bad 3rd down secondary breakdowns.

Overall the officiating was shit. The no calls on holding, the awful Pat P call, the Thielen review, the personal foul we alone got during a fight between TWO guys, and Osborn getting grabbed on the final drive. Sorry, these things matter. A couple of these things called correctly.and maybe things are different.

This team does not need to be dealing with this kind of shit week after week. On top of all the shit that has befallen this team in 2021, we now lose Dalvin Cook to an injury that looked to be season ending in real time but turns out may not be. He's out for a bit though, and the games left are dwindling. Injuries won't stop. Barr got dinged up again. Darrisaw was hurt during the game.

COVID is seemingly a factor every week. On Monday Pat P was put on the COVID list. TBD if Tomlinson returns next week.

Griffen is gone. Pierce may never come back. It just does not end.

Through it all, through all the gut punches, this team's fight can not be doubted. I know they are paid professionals and effort is to be expected, but I don't know that every team could withstand the last 3 months and still enter December in contention. 

And the Vikings did end the day still in the 7 seed. They still have 4 games that on paper (which, I know, doesn't mean a thing) should be wins: Lions, Steelers, Bears twice. God help them if they lose at Detroit next week. But while a win Sunday would have been enormously helpful, we still hold tiebreakers over most of these other wild card hopefuls, and a lot of these teams all still have to play each other over the final weeks. I see no way we can finish 4-2 and not get in. That doesn't even require beating the Rams or winning in Lambeau. Just take care of the "easy" ones and you become probably the most battle tested team in the whole damn playoff field.