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Welcome to Team Of The Week Ass, a recurring feature in which we celebrate the largest number of teams that the NFL has to offer.
It is important to emphasize from the beginning of this series that a team does not need to be really ass to become the ass team of the week. A team that is very good overall can still dive into the depths of each day, as demonstrated by the Minnesota Vikings. They have come in this season as Super Bowl favorites, and it is quite possible that they are doing it exactly, but on Sunday, oh boy, they were extremely tense.
The Vikings lost 27-6 against the old Buffalo Bills, and they lost quick. The game was over in 10 minutes, which is a wild thing to say about any game played by a Bills team that had conceded a total of 78 points in the first two games of the season. And yet, when the Bills won 17-0 with just over five minutes left in the first quarter, it was clear that there was no way back for the Vikings. They had the appearance of a group of students at the hangover the morning of a test that they had forgotten.
Anyway, how can a team as good as the Vikings lose 17 points in 10 minutes against a lost quarterback team from Jills Allen? If you were asked to evoke a nightmare scenario in which such a thing might be possible, it would involve two strips, unusually bad shots from Kirk Cousins, and Allen turning briefly into Michael Vick. Well, buddy, all these things have happened.
If you want to try to identify the exact moment when the game has moved away from the Vikings, you have many options. The two shoulder bags that ended the first two Vikings in their own territory and led to 10 points for the Bills are obvious choices, but the bad vibrations started earlier. The Bills received the kickoff and immediately found themselves facing a third and fourth. Allen stepped back and was fired at the next game, and the game seemed to have started with a sweet three-out and the Vikings in perfect control. However, Linval Joseph was called to brutalize the smuggler and the Bills had to keep their driving alive. They then scored a touchdown.
Perhaps there is an alternative reality in which Joseph is not called upon to face this penalty, and Allen and the other Bills lose confidence after being forced to throw a throw on the first turn of the game. Maybe the Vikings got the good position on the field and they easily walked into the end zone to lead 7-0, and the rest of the match is as everyone expected. But the universe had other ideas, and he asserted his will from the beginning. I'd like to imagine this early penalty as a way for a cosmic being to reach out, tapping on Mike Zimmer's shoulder and whispering, "Sorry, asshole, but you're losing this game."
Divine intervention is perhaps the only way to explain how all this has happened. Whenever the Vikings arrived at a point where they seemed to have a chance to get back into the game, something happened unexpectedly, terribly wrong. Here we see a series of subatomic vibrations that strike a Cousins course that flies over Stefon Diggs' head.
The cousins were ransacked in the next room.
Here is a moment when the Vikings lost 17-0 and desperately needed a third conversion, when the rotation of the Earth slowed slightly and Cousins passed the ball over Adam Thielen:
On the next Bills tour, the Vikings' defense managed to stand up and force a third and long. Surely, this was the moment for them to finally start the inevitable reversal, right? The angel who came down from the sky, forced Allen to slip the ball and run, then lifted him over a tackler to take first place, along with other ideas:
This record would end with another Bills touchdown, and the score would be 27-0 before the end of the half.
On the basis of the box score, which shows that Minnesota finished the match with more first tries and the same total yards as the Bills, one could think that the Vikings attempted a comeback in the second period. This is not extremely what happened. Their first four races in the second half ended with a punt, an interception, a kick and a falling turnover. They ended up scoring their only touchdown and accumulated 168 of their 292 total yards on the last two orders of the game, the purest of difficult times. The best thing you can say about the Vikings is that they did not let Allen score again in the second half. It will look a lot less impressive when he gets out and throws six interceptions next week and the Bills will lose by 30.
Vikings fans should not worry too much about this game. It's always a team that is stacked on both sides of the ball and has the best shot that anyone can reach and win the Super Bowl. The good people of Minnesota should not waste time thinking that the offensive line is so bad that it could sink a whole season. They certainly should not consider the fact that Kirk Cousins is a kind of puzzle that is not really good. Do not think about these things, Vikings fans! Do not think of them at all.
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