Painful stats this week:
Vikings - 13 first downs
Ravens - 36 first downs
Vikings - 52 total offensive plays
Ravens - 89 total offensive plays
Vikings - 318 yards of offense (187 passing, 131 rushing, much of which came on a single big run)
Ravens - 500 yards of offense (253 passing,
247 rushing
- yes you read that right...)
Vikings - 23:40 Time of possession
Ravens - 46:04 Time of possession
This game should never have gone into overtime, but not because I think the Vikings were that close to winning it. Its the other way around. Take away the kickoff return for a TD, and the Vikings aren't anywhere near sending this into overtime. Take away the sketchy play by Jackson early where he was clearly a bit off, and the Vikings aren't anywhere near winning it, either. The fact it was so close was more a product of those two factors than the Vikings being competitive, because even a blind monkey can look at those stats and see just how uncompetitive they actually were. On BOTH sides of the ball.
There was one true deep passing attempt in the game. One.
The Ravens love to bring extra blitzers, and had several free runners all game. How did the Vikings respond? By sending their WRs into long routes and essentially giving Cousins however long it took for the free runner to reach him to get rid of it.
Defensively, they never took Jackson away. Rush four, try to contain him, but if not, he just took off over and over and over. Well, at least the Vikings didn't give up anything big down the field. Chose to die by a thousand paper cuts I guess.
And Harrison Smith - FU dude. You're emblematic of the crap player leadership on this team. Your decision to put your hair-brained personal choice nonsense above your team cost you and likely cost them too. The non-vaccinated players on the Vikings at least aren't lying about their status, and they get credit for that, but the result of their decisions still affects their teammates and costs them games. This is your job. It's literally all you do. To be so irresponsible about it is unconscionable.
Waiting for the game here where Cousins tests positive and has to sit... Its coming as sure as the sun rises.