That was a tough loss but the Vikings made too many mistakes and left too many plays on the field to deserve a win. They sabotaged themselves with penalties throughout the game, missed blocks, dropped potential first downs, missed potential sacks and INTs, etc.

After watching the first two games of this season I'm already convinced the team's biggest need by FAR is an impact player (or three!) on defense. They have some good players but not enough "finishers" and true difference-makers.

I hope the young players in the secondary improve because right now, they're pretty brutal.

Kudos to Burton for the crazy/lucky TD catch and to Ponder for leading the team back in the 4th quarter two weeks in a row. Harvin's effort today was heroic. I thought the rest of the team was uneven-to-bad. Redding was having his way with the offensive line much of the time.

In the end, I think penalties and poor defense did them in today.

Jim

One could argue that we have impact players, but the scheme hurts them. Case and point is having Sharper for so many years, who made an impact but only really prospered when he went to the Saints.

The Vikings as a whole just play too safe.

How about a failure of playcalling and/or execution by Ponder?

I am getting so tired of watching this seeming fixation on getting AD going. The Colts were ripe to be victimized in the passing game, and once the Vikes did start throwing it they moved the ball and scored. But up to that point I didn't see any WR's even targeted beyond Harvin. It's like the Vikings don't even bother trying to ply the middle and deep parts of the field early. It's either safe, short throws or runs, and it just doesn't work.

I don't know what is in Frazier's head regarding how offense should be played, but if the Vikes are struggling to move the ball against the Colts defense, I can only imagine what the 49ers are going to do to this team next week if the gameplan remains the same.

And one other thing - release John Carlson. What a waste of a roster spot.

Cover-2 hurts you when you play a team that throws mid-range passes like that. They perfected it in 2009 against the Cowboys...don't ask me how.

But cover-2 is an awesome system when your D-Line gets enough pressure in the face of the QB. They didn't get enough of it today. Doesn't help when besides Winfield (who tripped on that one play today) is your only solid corner and the others are question marks. Everyone needs to remember, as much as it hurts to lose, that the secondary is ridiculously young overall. I mean, we have a brand new safety and a second-year safety starting for us.

We need Jerome Simpson - plain and simple.

We're in bad need of a Mike LB that can play in the cover 2 if we're going to insist on keeping this defensive scheme. The Wayne TD before the half is just as inexcusable as the defense letting the offense score late in back to back games.

That being said, the coaching staff needs to find a way to do more with what they have, the personnel excuse is running thin. Indy was a bad team last year, the worst in the league. They come into this game with 4/5 offensive lineman injured or playing out of position. Freeney also out. If they're able to come out and field a team, the Vikings should certainly be able to as well.

I'm open to that possibility if someone can do 2 things: identify those players and tell me how the scheme hurts them?

Jim

Two things I saw in this game: Ponder held onto the ball too long for most of the game. In the fourth, he seemed far more decisive (and that tipped ball TD didn't hurt )

But the the biggest factor was the defense not making many plays at all, or making costly mistakes (that amzing run of two bad penalties) especially when it counted. I think you nailed it, Moth, a serious lack of playmakers.

He plays defense too??!!!! Wow, the man is a STUD!!! (J/K)

I couldn't pin point any player in the secondary that falls under the label of impact player. Greenway, Robison, Raymond, and Harrison actually played decently last week. But no players have shown they can step up and get a much needed int.

The DL makes the biggest impact, everyone else just kind of rides it.

Defensive backs. Defensive backs defensive backs defensive backs. That is our BIGGEST need right now. The safeties and corners NEVER make plays. They are never near the ball. Ever. They don't tackle all that well, either. They don't have any ball skills or awareness on the rare occasion they ARE near the ball.

Winfield is scrappy and tough, but old.
Cook... is Cook.
Smith is a rookie.
Robinson is a rookie.
Raymond wouldn't see the field for any other team in the NFL.
Sanford wouldn't either.

Aaaaaaand there you have it. Wow. Those guys really do make up the 2012 Minnesota Vikings secondary. This should be a fun year.

I'll stick with penalties and missed opportunities. They had 11 penalties for 105 yards today and many of them came at crucial times, stalling drives or giving the Colts the opportunity to continue drives.

Ponder executed well most of the day. He wasn't great by any means. He missed a few throws (most notably the pass to Harvin on their last drive of the first half), made a bad mistake on the fumble and was fortunate that a pass he threw in the second half (I forget when) wasn't intercepted. Otherwise, for the most part, he was doing what he was asked to do. He completed an efficient 27 of 35 passes and at least a couple were dropped (including a sure first down Rudolph allowed to go through his hands) so I don't think Ponder's execution was a major issue.



He had 16 carries on the day so I find it hard to believe that was a big problem. I know you have running game issues with this coaching staff but I don't see how you can complain about them establishing Peterson early in this game. He started the game with 4 carries, each for 5+ yards. That's problematic? On the second drive, he had two carries, one for 3 yards and one for 6 yards. On their 3rd possession, Peterson carried for 6 yards and 5 yards. In other words, he had 5+ yard gains on 7 of his first 8 carries. That's nothing but helpful.



They were... but not often. Wasn't the mantra around here last season that Harvin wasn't targeted enough? Weren't people saying after last week's game that they should have involved Harvin a lot more early in the game? They did that today and people still complained, despite the fact that Harvin was effective and they were moving the ball.



That seems premature to me. Let's see how he looks further into the season. He missed a lot of time this preseason.

Simpson "should" help but who knows, it's still very confusing what happened in the first half passing game. Harvin excelled but everyone else was non existent, and yet in the 2nd half rudolph and jenkins came up with some decent grabs. Rudolph especially seems like you should be able to take advantage of the mismatches he creates yet I don't think he had a target the entire first half.

Ponder did complete all the little crap they asked him to make and when they went a little more down field he was decent in the 2nd half too, so I don't know, it feels like it might be a musgrave issue. I just don't get how you can't get AD, gerhart, rudolph, etc involved more in the passing game, even if all you want to do is short stuff.

27-35 245 yrds and 2 TD's, that's a 77% completion rate so it's hard to say ponder was "bad." Musgrave needs to call a better game and get more creative with players NOT named harvin...

Aren't you glad we drafted Ellison and Wright in the early rounds? Forget more defensive players, we needed another slot and some sort of FB/TE guy.

Exactly! I think they desperately need a real difference-maker at LB. Greenway is good but not great.

As admvp pointed out, they obviously need better play from their secondary too. At least most of that unit is young enough to offer hope. I don't even see a potential impact LB on the roster.

I agree. It seems like most of the time these guys catch the ball out of the backfield, good things happen. Peterson's best play of the game was the catch across the middle on the tying TD drive, and Gerhart had a nice screen play.

Almost no downfield passing attempts until they had to start throwing late.

No urgency late.

Ponder continues to tuck and run when he feels pressure. Few plays made outside the pocket.

Small things, but they add up over the course of a game.



And all that production resulted in how many points from those early drives?



Maybe it isn't Harvin's involvement per se - it's the lack of challenge to the middle and deep thirds of the field and the resulting free pass that gives the defense to focus on the short 3rd. It's a failure of imagination on the part of the playcaller, and a failure on the part of the QB to challenge the defense. I know the Vikes have crap for WR's for the most part, but that is no excuse for taking 2/3rds of the field off the table in terms of a plan of attack.

The production speaks for itself. Once the Vikes had to start throwing and involving their WR's, the ball moved and they scored points. When they were mostly running, the ball didn't move and they didn't score points. Same thing happened the prior week at home again the Jags, and the same thing is going to happen next week against the 49ers if the Vikes insist on doing the same thing.



That's what I love about you Jim. You're always willing to wait and see how things turn out.

The way I look at it, 1/8th of the season is gone and a guy the Vikes paid $5 million has done nada. He's been invisible. You're telling me they couldn't get that same level of production out of a rookie like Rhett Ellison at a fraction of the cost?

I said it was a huge mistake when they inked Carlson and I stand by that now. If it changes this year, I'll be shocked. The guy can't stay healthy, and even when he is healthy he's invisible.

Ponder clearly has issues targeting anyone but Harvin. Now, is this because:

A) Musgrave continually uses play designs that forces Ponder to look for Harvin immediately (not a horrible idea)
B) Our receivers outside of Harvin cannot separate
C) Ponder doesn't feel comfortable attempting passes aside from Harvin (and occasionally Rudolph)
D) The offensive line isn't allowing Ponder to get through his progressions
E) All of the above

Regardless, this needs to be addressed and fixed. Despite this, the Vikings did put up a string of great drives that marched up the field and stalled late. But we have other options out there and you can't expect Harvin to get the ball 15 times/game and have that not wear on him.

I have no issues using Adrian Peterson. This is a much better offensive line and AD is our best offensive weapon (aside from Harvin). Utilizing your best offensive weapon makes sense. What doesn't make sense is taking the ball out of his hands and forcing it to lesser playmakers. Where I take issues is that it seemed when Harvin was given a rest it was always a run with AD. Harvin came back in and it was a pass to Harvin. I saw far too much predicable play calling for my tastes. However I think if the defense would've made a few more plays and maybe stopped a couple more third downs, leaning on the run game even more (with the success they were having) would've produced a win.

After two weeks Charlie Johnson is currently #1 on my Sh*t List. He was poor again today. I'd like to see Schwartz given a chance to unseat him. He's clearly the worst offensive lineman out there.

HOW did our defensive line not feast on that battered Colts' offensive line? That's inexcusable and cause for grave concern going forward. I expected Allen and Robison to go off. Unless there was some max protect scheme that I missed (which is possible) this is two weeks that I've been very unimpressed. The Griffen sack was nice.

Run defense was solid, as it should have been (84 yards, 2.8 YPC). 20 of those yards were Luck.

The difference from Ponder to Luck is noticeable. Ponder looks much better than his rookie year, but Luck is the superior talent already and it's not close. Ponder is still staring down some receivers.

The Vikings are doing a good job of not turning the ball over (Ponder's fumble notwithstanding). The problem is, we need our defense to get some #### takaways. Seriously.

The Vikings HAVE GOT TO capitalize in the red zone if they want to win games. Ponder was the best in the red zone last year. I don't know what's happening now, especially with targets like Harvin, Rudolph, Jenkins (to some extent), Carlson. I'd argue the talent he has this year is superior to last year. Why the team/Ponder has regressed in this area is beyond me. The only explanation I have is that he's attempting to minimize mistakes so much he's not taking shots when they're there.

WHERE is our two-tight end awesomeness? Do the Vikings feel Carlson isn't up to speed enough yet? This is baffling to me.

Can I say Ponder sucked? Im still a Vikes fan. I dont care for him. I do care that his little short PH passes are about all he can handle. And maybe he throws to Kyle once or twice. But even the annoucners were talking about the open players he missed that were open.

The main problem is coaching. From Fraizer on down. The D is terrible, and hasnt shown any improvement. Close doesnt count, yet so many people talk about close plays or close plays. Esp. Fraizer. I guesss he thinks he is coaching Horseshoes? No improvement in the D week after week, year after years proves he needs to go now.

We played 2 real bad teams and barely won a game. My guess is maybe, just maybe we win 2 more.

THIS ^^^

The problem is the drives stalled when they got in obvious passing situations and Ponder didn't deliver. To me, that's not a slam on the running game. An argument could be made it was more successful than the passing game. I don't think you can assume if the Vikings would've passed more the drives would've resulted in more points.



I can't recall specifically, but the two instances you reference could be when the opposing defenses played more "prevent" style, opening up more underneath stuff. It happens all the time in the fourth quarter when teams are protecting a lead. By nature of that coverage there are going to be more intermediate lanes available and offenses take advantage as the defense gives them the short/intermediate stuff to take away the potential for a quick deep strike.

I cant decide which is worse.......

A coaching staff who has their heads planted so far up their own ars (and their gameplan) that they cant (or worse yet just wont) make adjustments on either side of the ball, have no concept what it is to actually manage a clock and aparently have never heard of a hurry up offense even when you are down by 2 touchdowns late in the 4th quarter...... OR

A defense (if you can call it that) whos O line spends more time complaining to the refs than they do in the opposing teams backfield, cant sack a Q/B even when left untouched on their rush, gets pushed around week in and week out and then parades around the field on the rare occasion that they actually make a play. We have a secondary that quite simply could'nt cover my grandmother and who must think its against the rules to intercept a pass. This entire group of so called professionals should be embarrased and ashamed to pick up their paychecks.

Take your choice, either way its going to be another long year of embarrasing football and another top 5 draft pick.

6... but that doesn't work as an argument for the strategy being ineffective. Establishing Peterson early helped them score the only points they had until the 4th quarter. Those drives didn't stall because they were trying to get Peterson going in the first quarter.



I think it depends on what their overall strategy was for the game. What were they planning to do on some of those first half pass plays where Ponder dropped back, the pocket collapsed and he had to get away? Like everybody else, I took note of the playcalling strategy in the first half but they were moving the ball with it and I was thinking Musgrave might be trying to set the Indy defense up for something by getting them to focus on the short quick passes and on Harvin in particular. That could be a good way to open things up further downfield for Rudolph or Aromashodu. Maybe that's what they were trying to do and maybe it isn't but coaches certainly employ that type of strategy.

I also wonder if they're trying to possess the ball and keep opposing offenses off the field since the Vikings defense is struggling to prevent long drives so far this season.



Yes, but they were doing that in the fourth quarter against a team clearly trying to sit on a lead. I'll have to watch again and see if I can tell what the Colts were doing on defense (especially with their safeties) but that late passing production sure looked like the kind of thing you see when a team is playing a soft zone to prevent giving up a big scoring play. We see that dynamic all the time in the NFL. I'm not sure the same strategy would have worked earlier in the game.



But they did. Again, fully half of Peterson's carries came on the first two drives... the only two drives in the first 3 quarters on which the Vikings scored points.



Thanks. I've grown a lot more patient over the years but I AM disappointed that Carlson's been a complete non-factor thus far.



Sure, but it's 1/8 of the season and that's not much. If he ends up making a significant contribution in 50% to 75% of this season and in 100% of the next two, that would more than make up for his invisibility the past two weeks, wouldn't it?

I agree with most of your post but I find that last comment puzzling. Other than Carlson, that IS the talent Ponder had to throw to last year.



I'm assuming that's the answer.

It seems to me that they managed that just fine. After all, they got the 2 TDs they needed to tie the game, didn't they? If anything, they didn't take quite enough time off the clock. Their pathetic pass defense couldn't stop Luck from driving indy 40+ yards on 30 seconds.

Ha! You're right. But the offense just "feels" better, doesn't it? (well, maybe not after this game). I just don't understand why they're not getting a few more TDs after being so efficient when Ponder was inserted into the lineup last year. Settling for field goals while the defense gives up touchdowns seems to be a difficult formula to winning.

And yet the irony being that they left too much time on the clock (apparently) when they scored the tying touchdown...

Edit: Jim beat me to it

I think they're making some mistakes and failing to execute in the red zone. Musgrave also seems to get a bit too conservative down there.

It is somewhat ironic but that simply speaks volums to the original question:

Game 1: gave up a touchdown to the Jags and they take the lead in the last minute of regulation
Game 2: gave up a touchdown in the last minute of the 1st half
Game 2: gave up the winning field goal in the last minute of regulation

The question is : is it the scheme the coaches are putting the players in or are the players simply incompetent

I'll take answer B for 500, Alex.

Hopefully, they're only incompetent because other than Winfield, they have about 1 season of actual NFL game experience between all of them. If tehy don't improve with experience... it will be a weekly purple-tinged horror movie for us fans.

Solid post.

I agree with Charlie Johnson being atop the S___ list. Sully looked pretty pathetic at times today too, IMO. They made Redding look like a monster.

The other huge let down today was our D line, which is supposed to be our single strength on Defense. It seems to me like Allen is not in game shape yet. I believe he's done this in year's past too (started a season slow); I wonder what the deal is. His offseason training may not be sufficient.

I've seen some posters diss our LB corps on here. I thought they looked decent today, especially Erin Henderson and Greenway. Our secondary looks absolutely brutal. On any given pass there appears to be 5 Vikings around any opponent's receiver and yet we can't knock a ball down or even dream of an interception. We look VERY far away from making an INT>.

I believe our secondary woes are at least 75% scheme. Amazing to think Frazier used to play in the secondary.