The Bucs Stop Here

[VikingPaul73]

I didn’t watch game but saw stats and score.

For those who watched, how did it happen? 27 1st downs to 17 and double the time of possession!!! And only 1 TO.

I get that Bailey was a total disaster but sheesh how did they manage to lose this by double digits ?

It's pretty simple.

Bailey missed 3 FGs and an extra point. There's 10 of the 12 points (well, 9 ... we went for 2 and converted on our second TD).

When he missed, he gave the Bucs good field position and allowed them to climb out of the early offensive hole they were in.

Then there were a bunch of penalties in the first half. An unnecessary roughness penalty on Harrison Smith (total bull ... the refs are looking for him now), a DPI on Gladney in the end zone when Mike Evans slipped (also B.S.) and a DPI on a freaking Hail Mary as time expired in the first half, which led to a field goal (even the biased Fox announcers thought that call was garbage).

After that, it was injuries as much as anything else. O'Neill went down, then Rashod Hill went down replacing O'Neill. That forced Cleveland to move out to RT and Dru "Turnstile" Samia into the game at RG. That led to a bunch of late sacks of Cousins, two of them coming when the Vikings had first-and-goal at the 8 with lots of time left and could have made it 23-21 with a TD. They lost 19 yards on the two straight sacks, leading to yet another missed FG by Bailey.

So yeah ... we dominated the stat sheet and lost by 12.

Thanks Kapp!!!! I really appreciate the detailed feedback

I don’t know - maybe it’s because I didn’t see the game but this doesn’t seem like a terrible loss to me

Think about it- we’re missing probably 4 of our top 5 D players. Insane amount of roster turnover. Injuries on OL, etc . Yet we travelled down south to play a playoff team coming off a bye week and had 10 more 1st downs and double the TOP. I know I might get flamed for being optimistic about a loss, but clean up the ST , get healthy this off-season, another strong draft..and we should be competitive next year!!!

[Thaumaturgist]

https://twitter.com/goesslingstrib/stat ... 72675?s=21

He fired Carlson Zimmer is an idiot

Or he's learned from mistakes. That's something I'm comfortable with.

[Thaumaturgist]

obligatory weight that I must drag through this life .

Us Catholics call that penance.

[VikeFanInEagleLand]

I didn’t watch game but saw stats and score.

For those who watched, how did it happen? 27 1st downs to 17 and double the time of possession!!! And only 1 TO.

I get that Bailey was a total disaster but sheesh how did they manage to lose this by double digits ?

It's pretty simple.

Bailey missed 3 FGs and an extra point. There's 10 of the 12 points (well, 9 ... we went for 2 and converted on our second TD).

When he missed, he gave the Bucs good field position and allowed them to climb out of the early offensive hole they were in.

Then there were a bunch of penalties in the first half. An unnecessary roughness penalty on Harrison Smith (total bull ... the refs are looking for him now), a DPI on Gladney in the end zone when Mike Evans slipped (also B.S.) and a DPI on a freaking Hail Mary as time expired in the first half, which led to a field goal (even the biased Fox announcers thought that call was garbage).

After that, it was injuries as much as anything else. O'Neill went down, then Rashod Hill went down replacing O'Neill. That forced Cleveland to move out to RT and Dru "Turnstile" Samia into the game at RG. That led to a bunch of late sacks of Cousins, two of them coming when the Vikings had first-and-goal at the 8 with lots of time left and could have made it 23-21 with a TD. They lost 19 yards on the two straight sacks, leading to yet another missed FG by Bailey.

So yeah ... we dominated the stat sheet and lost by 12.

The thing about the terrible PI call on the hail mary...it should have never come to that. Vikings should have just run out the clock and gone into the locker room. Instead they gave it back to TB. Then the clock operator screwed us. All this to set up getting hosed by the refs.

[RandyMoss84]

He fired Carlson Zimmer is an idiot

Or he's learned from mistakes. That's something I'm comfortable with.

He still did not learn from his mistakes, remember when Zimmer decided to go for it instead of kicking the field goal and it costs the game against the Seahawks a few weeks ago?

[J. Kapp 11]

It's pretty simple.

Bailey missed 3 FGs and an extra point. There's 10 of the 12 points (well, 9 ... we went for 2 and converted on our second TD).

When he missed, he gave the Bucs good field position and allowed them to climb out of the early offensive hole they were in.

Then there were a bunch of penalties in the first half. An unnecessary roughness penalty on Harrison Smith (total bull ... the refs are looking for him now), a DPI on Gladney in the end zone when Mike Evans slipped (also B.S.) and a DPI on a freaking Hail Mary as time expired in the first half, which led to a field goal (even the biased Fox announcers thought that call was garbage).

After that, it was injuries as much as anything else. O'Neill went down, then Rashod Hill went down replacing O'Neill. That forced Cleveland to move out to RT and Dru "Turnstile" Samia into the game at RG. That led to a bunch of late sacks of Cousins, two of them coming when the Vikings had first-and-goal at the 8 with lots of time left and could have made it 23-21 with a TD. They lost 19 yards on the two straight sacks, leading to yet another missed FG by Bailey.

So yeah ... we dominated the stat sheet and lost by 12.

The thing about the terrible PI call on the hail mary...it should have never come to that. Vikings should have just run out the clock and gone into the locker room. Instead they gave it back to TB. Then the clock operator screwed us. All this to set up getting hosed by the refs.

That was the truly heinous part of it. Absolutely unbelievable. That clock hit 1 second, and Brady spiked the ball about 2.5 seconds later. No wonder he's such a "master of the 2-minute drill."

There will be some who flame on me for this, but as others have said, I thought we did pretty well given the circumstances. This likely ended our slim playoff hopes, but I'm looking forward to next year. Every team in the league is going to be in trouble with the cap, but we've got a lot of young players on rookie deals who are getting a lot of experience and doing some nice things. Not consistently enough, but they'll get better.

Unless we can't find a kicker. Then we're screwed.

[J. Kapp 11]

Just to piggyback on my last reply regarding our kicker ...

According to ESPN Stats & Information, the last player with at least three missed field goals and a missed extra point without a make of either was John Aveni for Washington in 1961.

[StumpHunter]

The thing about the terrible PI call on the hail mary...it should have never come to that. Vikings should have just run out the clock and gone into the locker room. Instead they gave it back to TB. Then the clock operator screwed us. All this to set up getting hosed by the refs.

That was the truly heinous part of it. Absolutely unbelievable. That clock hit 1 second, and Brady spiked the ball about 2.5 seconds later. No wonder he's such a "master of the 2-minute drill."

There will be some who flame on me for this, but as others have said, I thought we did pretty well given the circumstances. This likely ended our slim playoff hopes, but I'm looking forward to next year. Every team in the league is going to be in trouble with the cap, but we've got a lot of young players on rookie deals who are getting a lot of experience and doing some nice things. Not consistently enough, but they'll get better.

Unless we can't find a kicker. Then we're screwed.

Bailey is a good kicker, he just needs a new holder.

I agree about the 1 second thing. That is complete garbage when even the announcers are saying it stuck at 1 second forever. Will have to watch the tape, but to me that is the bigger kick in the nuts than the PI, which was technically PI, even if they usually don't call it there.

[StumpHunter]

Or he's learned from mistakes. That's something I'm comfortable with.

He still did not learn from his mistakes, remember when Zimmer decided to go for it instead of kicking the field goal and it costs the game against the Seahawks a few weeks ago?

Seems like not trusting kickers to make routine kicks is learning from his mistakes...

[StumpHunter]

Watching the replay I didn’t realize O’Neill came back in and actually struggled quite a bit. Makes me less optimistic.

Yikes. Looking forward to seeing who was the weakest spot on the line when PFF posts their numbers.

[S197]

An interesting stat I saw, there are only 2 losses in the entire NFL when an offense has a TOP of 39+ minutes. Both losses belong to the Vikings.

There’s a few ways to take that I think. One is that our defense is giving up far too many points too fast. The other is our game plan to run out the clock often comes too early. Or there is too heavy a reliance on the run even when playing from behind. With Zimmer being a defensive minded coach, none of those scenarios makes him look particularly good.

[J. Kapp 11]

Tampa Bay scored 17 points following missed field goals.

I'm not sure there's anything more damaging to a team's morale than a kicker missing field goals, especially when two of the three missed kicks were easily makable and the other missed kick was an extra point. I mean, the guy has missed four field goals and three extra points in two games. This is professional football. You can't make a lower percentage than high-school kickers.

Not sure who's available out there, if anybody. But I do know this ... watching Matt Prater and Mason Crosby kick in the game following ours just about made me puke. A big reason the Vikings have a losing record is exceptionally poor special teams play overall. A month ago, I never dreamed our kicker would go all Walsh on us.

[J. Kapp 11]

That was the truly heinous part of it. Absolutely unbelievable. That clock hit 1 second, and Brady spiked the ball about 2.5 seconds later. No wonder he's such a "master of the 2-minute drill."

There will be some who flame on me for this, but as others have said, I thought we did pretty well given the circumstances. This likely ended our slim playoff hopes, but I'm looking forward to next year. Every team in the league is going to be in trouble with the cap, but we've got a lot of young players on rookie deals who are getting a lot of experience and doing some nice things. Not consistently enough, but they'll get better.

Unless we can't find a kicker. Then we're screwed.

Bailey is a good kicker, he just needs a new holder.

You can't be serious.

Bailey was having trouble until the Vikings added Colquitt last year. After Colquitt joined the team, Bailey suddenly started making kicks. You can't turn around and blame the same holder who pulled him out of his last funk.

The holds are fine. Bailey's head is f---ed up. He's accountable for his own failures.

[IIsweet]

Vedvik

[VikingLord]

There will be some who flame on me for this, but as others have said, I thought we did pretty well given the circumstances. This likely ended our slim playoff hopes, but I'm looking forward to next year. Every team in the league is going to be in trouble with the cap, but we've got a lot of young players on rookie deals who are getting a lot of experience and doing some nice things. Not consistently enough, but they'll get better.

Unless we can't find a kicker. Then we're screwed.

No flamin' from me. I see it the same way - the Vikings outplayed the Bucs but were done in largely by some poor refereeing coupled with a kicker who has a bad case of the yips. For most of the game prior to half of the starting offensive line going out with injury, the Vikings ran and passed on the Bucs at will. I thought they could have been more aggressive down the field in the passing game had they wanted to do that, but didn't for some reason. Defensively, I thought the Vikes played par for the course this season - not great, but not terrible. Certainly well enough to win. Take away the Brady deep heave TD which probably should have been covered by Harris, the BS call at the end of the 1st half to spot the Bucs another 3 points, and the BS roughing call against Harrison Smith on what looked like a legit tackle (especially when compared to the non-calls when the Bucs hit Beebe *after* he was down and started to get up and the forearm to Cousin's head that was obvious and far more egregious than the Harrison Smith hit) that put the Bucs into position to score another TD, and no way the Bucs win that game even with Bailey missing all those field goals.

I don't like to complain about the refs, but that was one of the more poorly officiated games I've watched in a while, and that includes the recent loss against Dallas that was pretty shaky too.

Still, even though the loss is frustrating, I don't see how the Bucs get much better than they are right now with an aging QB and a bunch of hired gun free agents making up their defense. The Vikes, OTOH, still have lots of room to improve with their young players and the vets they will hopefully get back for next season. The longer-term future is bright for one of the two teams that played today, and that team isn't the Bucs.