Vikings @ Cardinals - Week 13

If the Vikings were going to have a game that needs to be forgotten immediately, I'm glad it came now rather than later. Because this was an ugly, tough to watch, all-around terrible game.

After jumping out to a 7-0 lead, the Vikings completely shut down the rest of the night. The problems were numerous, the gaffes were many, and the game was easily the ugliest of the year for the Beloved Purple.

Take the ingredients of a Vikings win this year: Get an efficient game out of Favre, get a variety of receivers involved, feed the playmakers, get a productive performance from Adrian Peterson, pressure the quarterback, and make good tackles. Now...do NONE of the above and that's a recipe for an embarrassing loss.

Actually, embarrassing puts it too mildly. Favre threw a pair of interceptions, and a few additional should have been. AP had 19 yards on 13 carries..and no, that's not a typo. Rice and Shiancoe were...wait...did they even play?!? Ignoring these two guys is how you lose football games.

So with nothing going well on the offensive side, the defense was going to have to dominate this one for the Vikings to have any chance. But in a variety of ways, the defense wilted. Kurt Warner was hardly breathed on, let alone hit. Anquan Boldin caught a pair of touchdowns before the Vikings remembered they were on the field, and incompetent tackling resulted in too many big gains. And speaking of players not in the game...where was Jared Allen?

Things got worse...much worse. E.J. Henderson is done for the year. Don't need to wait for the official injury report to figure that out. An absolutely devastating and gruesome leg injury in the fourth quarter, after the result of the game was no longer in doubt. What a shame. Kudos to NBC for only showing ONE replay of this...it was disgusting and I had no intentions of rewinding the PVR to relive this. I just hope the injury isn't career threatening.

The 30-17 final score was actually deceiving. This game was far worse than the score indicated. Adjustments need to be made in the coming weeks. The tackling desperately needs to improve and we definitely need Antoine Winfield back on the field. Warner had all day to throw, can't let this happen especially if we meet Drew Brees in the playoffs. The Vikings for the second straight year are without Henderson, putting pressure on Chad Greenway and Ben Leber to step up. The lack of production from Adrian is frightening. The lack of throws to the best targets is concerning.

The Vikings left Arizona as a battered team. They come home with a lot of changes that need to be made for them to be a competitive team next Sunday....some related to player execution, others related to game planning. But amidst the endless list of problems from last Sunday, there's a chance for redemption in front of a friendly crowd next week against a good Bengals team.

Plenty of problems were exposed and plenty of challenges have now emerged. Now we get to see just how resilient this team really is...