Photo By Brian Curski
Written By Sam Ekstrom
The last four Vikings losses have all come by single digits, and in each one there have been some head-scratching decisions made – both by the players and the coaches.
The latest debacle was perhaps the most egregious as Minnesota erred several times in the closing sequence at Detroit and cost themselves a better chance at the game-winning field goal, as Blair Walsh’s 68-yard prayer came up short.
“We didn’t handle the fourth quarter well,” said Zimmer on Monday. “As I’m trying to teach this team that when you play good, you still have to win the fourth quarter, the critical parts.”
The Vikings inherited the ball with no timeouts at their own 30-yard line, likely needing at least 30 yards for Walsh to attempt a high-percentage – or at least a 50/50 – field goal.
After a first-down incompletion, Matt Asiata caught a pass on second down in the flat, not far from the sidelines. Instead of immediately getting out of bounds, Asiata dove forward for a few extra yards but cost his team about 15 seconds of clock time as they hurried back to spike the football. Not only did Asiata fail to get out of bounds, but he didn’t pick up the first down, meaning Teddy Bridgewater’s spike put the Vikings in a fourth-down situation.
“We talked to the guys about, ‘If you don’t think you can get out of bounds, get as much as you can and get down,’” Zimmer said. “Well, Matt got down, but he should have got the first down before he did.”
The 4th-and-1 play went for five yards on a pass over the middle to Kyle Rudolph. The tight end was tackled quickly after picking up the first-down conversion, but it cost more precious time. Bridgewater’s spike stopped the clock with just five seconds remaining.
“On the 4th-and-1,” said Zimmer, “we need the first down, but we need yards at that point in time. We had a guy open down the field; we should have tried to get the ball down in there.”
According to Zimmer, Bridgewater’s headset cut out with five seconds left. Fox Sports captured Bridgewater looking perplexed as he tried to organize the team, followed by Zimmer waving his arm and looking agitated on the sidelines. The rookie evidently could not hear the play call, which led to a messy-looking delay of game penalty where most of the 11 men on the field were not set at the line of scrimmage.
The Vikings managed to run a 6-yard passing play to get out of bounds at midfield with one second left and elected to try a 68-yard field goal instead of taking their chances on a Hail Mary. While Hail Mary’s have an extremely low chance of success – and Walsh had actually hit an uncontested 70-yard field goal in pregame warmups – making an in-game 68-yarder had never been done at the pro or college levels.
Walsh said he lobbied to make the attempt and deemed the kick “makeable.”
“I just tried to keep it as close to the middle of the uprights as possible and give it a shot,” said Walsh, now 1 for 6 in his last two games. “I didn’t want to make it egregiously short or make an error on it that I would regret. I felt like I tried to give it my all there and give it a ride.”
The field goal attempt by Walsh may have been the most justifiable decision on the drive. The Vikings were put in that position by at least three poor decisions leading up to the kick.
“The execution probably frustrated me the most,” Zimmer said of the final drive.
An unpleasant trend
Sunday wasn’t the first botched two-minute drill of the season. At Soldier Field in Week 11, the stadium clocks malfunctioned and left the Vikings uncertain of the time remaining. “It was musical clocks,” Zimmer said after the game.
Though they can’t be blamed for the probably-now-unemployed scoreboard makers at Daktronics, Zimmer said he never considered having an assistant coach or player keep time on the sidelines. “I didn’t think of that,” Zimmer said the day after the loss. The game clock ambiguity opened the door for Bridgewater to underestimate the amount of time remaining and led to an ill-advised, game-ending interception.
“The clock became an issue because of not knowing how much time was left on the clock, and Teddy thought at that point when he threw the ball — when he threw the interception — he thought the clock was down and he had to make a play in the end.
“You’ve got a young quarterback running a two-minute drill and you can’t find anywhere in the place how much time is left, and so that is a little bit disconcerting.”
Think back even further to the Buffalo Bills loss in Week 7. Leading by six points with under two minutes to go, the Vikings merely needed to stop the Bills – who hadn’t moved the ball on offense all afternoon – on a 4th-and-20 conversion to get out of Buffalo with a hard-earned road win. On the critical play, linebacker Chad Greenway had his head turned at the snap of the football as he translated a call to his defensive teammates. Buffalo tight end Scott Chandler snuck past Greenway and hauled in a pass for 24 yards and a first down. The Bills eventually won the game with a touchdown pass to Sammy Watkins with one second on the clock.
Zimmer admitted that he should have called a timeout prior to the 4th-and-20 to get his defense on the same page. Safety Harrison Smith spoke about the scenario the day after the loss.
“When it’s a two minute, you’re thinking, ‘Keep them in bounds, clock’s running,’ but then when it’s fourth down, it doesn’t really matter about the clock anymore because we stop them the game’s over,” said Smith. “There’s a lot to process there when you go no-huddle kind of quick.”
A more minor mistake cost the Vikings about 10 seconds of time in their 24-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers. The Vikings needed a defensive stop to get the ball back and have an opportunity for the win or tie. They had one timeout and the two-minute warning in front of them. Green Bay had just converted a first down, and the clock was running.
The Vikings chose not to use their timeout and allowed the clock to stop at the two-minute warning. Had they used their timeout right away, Green Bay’s first down would have been completed before the two-minute stoppage, and their second-down play would have begun at the two-minute mark instead of their first-down play. It all became a moot point when Green Bay iced the game with another Eddie Lacy first down but could have played a factor had the Vikings received the ball again.
In all four scenarios presented here, the Vikings were not guaranteed to win the game. Blair Walsh could still have missed a field goal from 58 yards instead of 68, Buffalo may still have converted if Zimmer called timeout before the 4th-and-20 and Bridgewater may not have engineered a touchdown drive had he known the time left.
But in terms of giving the team the best chance to win, fourth quarter execution has to improve. Before the season, Zimmer sat down for an hour per day, according to ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, with general manager Rick Spielman to test the first-time coach with tricky in-game scenarios. Even long-time assistants like Zimmer are not accustomed to making strategic decisions, sometimes in a matter of seconds.
"I think I have a decent idea of how I'm going to do things," Zimmer said in the article. "I just never looked at it this way before because I always tried to do my job [as an assistant] as best I could. I never worried about it. Obviously throughout the years, you talk about certain situations that come up. But you don't focus on it like I would focus on calling a defensive game or anything like that."
The pressure on an average NFL coach is tremendous, and Zimmer – who is deeply involved with the defensive calls on a game-to-game basis – already has a very full plate. The coach referred to Bridgewater’s rookie season as “on-the-job training” at Monday’s press conference, which isn’t totally different from Zimmer’s role as decision maker late in games.
Expectations will be higher for Zimmer next year – as well as the team in general. The close losses that have plagued the Vikings for two seasons will have to become W’s for the team to be successful.
Sam Ekstrom is a staff writer for Cold Omaha at 105 The Ticket and a play-by-play broadcaster in Burnsville, Minn. Hear him on 105 The Ticket Sunday mornings from 8-10 a.m. on “The Wake Up Call.” Follow him on Twitter @SamEkstrom for further insights.