Vikings Blow Winnable Game Thanks to Costly Mistakes and Jalen Hurts’ Heroics
Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It’s the loser’s lament that haunts the Vikings after a game they had so many opportunities to win against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles, but it wound up as a costly defeat. Now the Vikings are in a tough spot at 3-3 and headed to two difficult games on the road against teams with winning records–the Chargers and Lions.
Minnesota Vikings miscues and Jalen Hurts’ brilliance define loss to Eagles as winnable game slips away, raising QB and playoff questions.
There’s so much to unpack in breaking down the 28-22 home loss on Sunday.
The major points are the Vikings lost due to red zone inefficiency (one TD and five field goals in six trips inside the Philly 20), QB Carson Wentz’s inconsistency, losing the turnover battle 2-0, center Blake Brandel’s bad game with four major miscues, the outstanding play of Eagles QB Jalen Hurts and his star receivers DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown, the overall inability of the pass rushers to keep Hurts from extending plays (Andrew Van Ginkel is much needed) and some awful secondary play, some coaching mistakes by Kevin O’Connell and Brian Flores and a pair of highly suspect officials calls that wiped out two potential Vikings TDs.
Catch all that?
Heading into the short week Chargers game in L.A. on Thursday night, the biggest question is whether J.J. McCarthy will return as starting QB after Wentz’s wildly up-and-down performance against the Eagles. I say it’s time to get McCarthy back at the helm, which was the original plan. Wentz is a decent backup, but not good enough to start for a hopeful playoff team.
Put McCarthy back in if his ankle is in decent shape (or as soon as he reaches that point) and hope his play gets better and better as the season progresses to where the Vikings make the playoffs and then McCarthy will be in a much better position experience-wise for greater success as soon as next season.
Here are my other reactions to the Vikings’ frustrating loss to Philly
Addressing my above points in order:
1. Red zone inefficiency: one TD and five field goals in six red zone trips will usually get a team beat. The red zone failures were caused by a variety of issues: inaccurate passes from Wentz (missing Jordan Addison, C.J. Ham and Justin Jefferson for potential TDs), a terrible intentional grounding by Wentz on the play he missed Ham wide open in the flat, poor play calls (2nd and 1 from the 6-yard line and three straight pass plays called), a questionable holding call on Blake Brandel that nullified a TD pass to Jalen Nailor, a bad snap by Brandel over Wentz’s head on the first drive and a couple sacks in the fourth quarter with Brandel and Brian O’Neill beat on the plays.
2. Wentz’s inconsistency: see my above references to red zone inconsistency/failures, as Wentz made a lot of good throws between the 20s but couldn’t come through with TDs to finish drives. He did have a couple nice runs for first downs late in the game.
Wentz rushed a few throws and locked in on one receiver when he overthrew Nailor in the end zone. His two interceptions were terrible decisions and awful throws. He panicked under pressure on the Pick 6 in the second quarter and didn’t see linebacker Jalyx Hunt dropping into coverage.
3. Losing the turnover battle: for the third straight game, the Vikings lost the turnover battle 2-0. They’re now minus four for the season after having the third-best ratio in the league last season at plus 12. The Vikings D has only seven takeaways after leading the league with 33 last year. They also led the NFL with 24 interceptions and have only two through the first six games.
4. Blake Brandel followed up his fine initial start at center against Cleveland with a bad game. He had four major miscues: his bad snap for a 22-yard loss, getting beat by Jalen Carter for the pressure that caused the Pick 6, his questionable holding call to nullify Nailor’s TD and getting beat for a sack on 3rd-and-5 from the Eagles 10 with 10:49 remaining to force another field goal.
But the Vikings coaches should not have put Brandel in a position of having to block the Pro Bowler Carter one-on-one on any snap, since it’s obvious Carter is a game-wrecker.
With Ryan Kelly’s concussion problem landing him on I.R. for at least two more games and Michael Jurgens shaky play when he’s been in there, it appears Brandel remains the best option, but he has to play better even if center is not his best position compared to being a backup guard or tackle.
5. Great games from Hurts, Smith and Brown coupled with Vikings pass rush issues and some bad coverage by the DBs: the Vikings D did a great job stopping Saquon Barkley and the Eagles rushing attack (18 carries for 44 yards with a 2.4 average for Barkley; 45 rushing yards total for Philly).
But it came with the Vikings often putting extra defenders in the box and opening the door for the passing game to finally emerge, with a 326 yard game for Hurts, nine catches for 183 yards and one TD for the speedy Smith and four catches for 121 yards and two TDs for Brown.
Hurts extended plays by escaping pressure on several of his big plays, including the 3rd-and-13 completion to Brown that kept the drive alive and led to Brown’s 26 yard TD (beating Byron Murphy) for a 28-19 lead with 6:35 left.
The Vikings need more sacks from Jonathan Greenard (none in this game and only one in six games after he had 12 as a Pro Bowler last year). Dallas Turner had a half-sack, but he allowed Hurts to get outside on the 3rd-and-13 play and was not very effective overall against all-pro tackle Lane Johnson.
Van Ginkel is definitely missed, as a pass rusher and overall playmaker on defense, and when he’s playing, Turner can be on the field with Van Ginkel and Greenard on obvious passing downs. The Vikings are certainly hoping Van Ginkel (neck injury) can return for the Chargers game.
Javon Hargrave had too quiet of a game with only one assisted tackle as he played only 36% of the defensive snaps. Much more is expected from a $15 million per year player.
As for the Vikings DBs, what a rough day. As good as Isaiah Rodgers was against the Bengals with his two defensive TDs, he was just as bad in allowing two long pass plays on double moves—the 79-yard TD to Smith and the 45-yard game clincher to Brown on 3rd-and 9 with 1:45 left (but he should have had safety help on the Brown play as Flores guessed wrong that the Eagles would run the ball and not risk an incompletion to stop the clock… credit to Eagles Coach Nick Sirianni for that gutsy call).
I don’t blame safety/LB Josh Metellus for being beat by Brown on the opening drive TD (on 4th-and-4 from the Vikings 37). Brown is an elite wide receiver who should be covered by a corner (not a safety who often lines up as a linebacker) and on that play, the Vikings had a three-man rush, so where were the corners and safeties to put a double team on Brown and Smith in this situation? That’s either a really bad coaching move by Flores or one of the DBs blew an assignment to double Brown.
There also was the fourth-quarter 21-yard pass to Smith where he was open by 10 yards and that led to the last Eagles TD on the next play to Brown when he beat Vikings Pro Bowl corner Murphy.
Going into the season, I thought the Vikings pass rush would be so good it could compensate for potentially suspect corner play, even as I felt the Vikings were undermanned at corner with Rodgers never having been a full-time starter and Jeff Okudah frequently injured or not effective enough. Okudah was beat by Brown on the big 3rd-and-13 play. The Vikings secondary had played much better over the first five games.
Perhaps Van Ginkel’s return can improve the pass rush and the secondary will play better than they did against Philly. With the Chargers and Lions up next and both having prolific QBs and passing attacks, the Vikings D must play much better against the pass while continuing their fine run defense from the Eagles game as compared with earlier shaky performances in run D against Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
6. Coaching miscues—O’Connell was pass-happy in the red zone especially in the second quarter series with three pass plays after 2nd-and-1 from the Eagles 6 (although it appeared Wentz changed from run to pass on the second down corner throw to Jefferson that he said he should’ve held onto before Cooper DeJean broke it up).
I say the Vikings should have run the ball behind Christian Darrisaw and Donovan Jackson with Josh Oliver also blocking. Wasn’t Jordan Mason supposed to be the power back for such a short yardage play as he was on the wildcat TD run on 2nd-and-Goal from the 1 in the third quarter?
Flores was overly focused on stopping Barkley and not double covering Smith and Brown on several game-changing plays. We also have to question the three-man rush and no double coverage to help Metellus on Brown on the first TD. Where was a corner to cover a top wide receiver and where was the help over the top? This just can’t happen.
7. Officials’ questionable calls: the two calls in question were the Brandel hold that nullified a TD catch by Nailor and the Hockenson TD catch that was overturned remotely by New York on replay and infuriated Hockenson (and likely O’Connell).
This was a huge play with 3:05 left that would’ve made it a two-point game and the Vikings lost one minute on the clock and had to settle for a field goal so they would’ve needed a TD instead of a field goal to win the game if they got the ball back. I agree this was too close to have the on-field call of touchdown overturned as I didn’t see indisputable evidence that Hockenson lost control.
8. Special teams mixed bag: it was a great game for Will Reichard (5 for 5 on field goals including the 59-yarder on the first drive); an excellent 38-yard kickoff return by Myles Price to open the second half but bad kickoff coverage resulting in a 37-yard return by Xavier Gipson to start the final drive at the Eagles 43.
9. Another positive was in the penalty area as the Vikings entered the game as the most penalized team in the league and had only three penalties for 30 yards (with the hold on Brandel a very questionable call) while the Eagles had eight for 64 yards.
I’m back on Thursday with my Vikings-Chargers preview and prediction.
Around the NFL Observations from Week 7
1. The Vikings next opponent—the Los Angeles Chargers—lost at home to the Colts 38-24 after falling behind 23-3 in the first half. It’s their third loss in the last four games after a 3-1 start. Jonathan Taylor rushed for 94 yards and three TDs and Daniel Jones passed for 288 yards and two TDs for the 6-1 Colts. Justin Herbert threw for 288 yards and two TDs but the Chargers had only 54 yards on the ground.
The Chargers have had major injury issues at running back (lost Najee Harris to a torn Achilles and first-rounder Omarion Hampton to IR with an ankle injury) and on the O-line (Pro Bowl tackle Rashawn Slater is out for the season with a torn patellar tendon). An old Vikings nemesis from his Chicago years—Khalil Mack—returned after missing four games with an elbow injury and had a sack.
2. The Packers rallied to beat the Cardinals 27-23. Micah Parsons had three sacks and Josh Jacobs ran one yard for the winning score with 1:54 left. The Packers lead the NFC North at 4-1-1 and are at AFC North leading Pittsburgh (4-2) this Sunday night. The Lions (5-2) beat the Bucs on Monday night to stay virtually even with the Packers. Detroit has a bye next weekend before hosting the Vikings in Week 9.
The Bears are now 4-2 after winning their fourth straight game–26-14 over the Saints. The defense has fueled the turnaround after an 0-2 start. Chicago had four takeaways on Sunday to raise their lead-leading total to 16 with a plus 11 turnover ratio that also is tops in the NFL. The Bears are at struggling Baltimore (1-5) this Sunday as the Ravens come off their bye and still do not have Lamar Jackson back to practice as of Monday with his hamstring injury.
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