Being on the west coast, until early December, we never got the Vikings games on TV here in Reno.
Since then, I've been able to watch them every week.
Their defense is awesome and they lead the league in points-per-game allowed.
But what was more impressive was time-after-time after-time when the defense faced 3rd and very short on third down, they not only did not give up the first down, they stopped the attempt for a loss.
My ears are still ringing from my wife and daughter's screeching, when this happened. We had basically given up on the queens as they were doing their usual "pull defeat from the jaws of victory" routine. This team may finally drag me back into being a Vikes fan, something I hadn't seriously considered since their last Superbowl... Yeah its been that long.
&%*#@*!%^&#^......... I had the weekend pool in the bag...... including the total score tiebreaker dead nuts spot on at 47.....Listened to it on the radio driving off the mountain after a pheasant hunt.... WTF...... pretty much sums up the week......
The defender for the Saints lost the game for them with that tackle attempt...or lack of. All he had to do was grab the receiver and pull him down...game over. I feel bad for that guy. If he was a kneeler, then maybe not so much.
Yeah, all he had to do was put out his arms and wrap him up and game over. Instead he threw his shoulder and missed!!! He's going to have to get in the witness protection program fast.
It almost looked like he was thinking Thelen was going to get the pass and tried to tackle him - but, who knows? The saints wouldn't have been in the game if the same guy hadn't intercepted a pass earlier in the 2nd half.
I think the defender was thinking about pass interference and ducked at the last second. He was a little early. I'm sure coaches cautioned them about it prior to that series since they were burned by it earlier in the game. Would have thought saints would have left a safety back. At any rate, it was a great play!! Skol Vikings!!!!
both games were fun to watch. it'salways great when the Steelers lose. The other game was completely boring until the 4th quarter. First ever walk off to in playoff history. That Rookie safety will have nightmares for a year. be had his eyes closed and never used his arms. fantastic finish
It appeared he'd mistimed his would-be hit on Diggs and got there a fraction too early. He tried to hit Diggs low, but Diggs was high in the air at that moment.
Even if he'd timed it well and had knocked Diggs out-of-bounds, the ball would have been at ~ the Saint's 32-33 yard line with four seconds to go. If Forbath makes the field goal, the Vikings still win.
I think you’re right, Kyle. I’d guess in the split second he had to make the tackle two things were at play. He was likely a little early and was worried about a PI call and he was worried about gaining leverage to keep Diggs in bound. It should have been a routine play but you ended up with that^^^^
The Saints got away with one in 2009, so I guess the Vikes got to return the favor. They’re fan base deserves one. That said...Who Dat!!
Great read from the San Jose Mercury-News. If you're a long-time Vikings fan, you'll totally understand it all!
"Vikings outrun their tortured history, stun Saints with miraculous final play
MINNEAPOLIS – This doesn’t happen, not in the NFL, not in the playoffs, not when what is on the line are such things as legacies and franchise curses and – oh, my. All of it.
The Minnesota Vikings were dead, just as they have always been in the playoffs. Their fan base – none of which had left their seats – was resigned to another chapter of abject disappointment and despair. The Vikings had blown a 17-point lead at halftime, a 10-point lead to start the fourth quarter, a six-point lead with six minutes left and a one-point lead with 89 ticks on the clock.
There were 10 seconds left. And as loud a building as this country contains was all but silent.
And then, Case Keenum. And then, Stefon Diggs, inexplicably behind the defense. And then, with 61 yards between the end of the season and a chance to miraculously extend it, Diggs was dancing in the end zone. The clock showed zeroes. And a franchise that is used to losing playoff games in the worst ways imaginable had somehow won one, 29-24, over a New Orleans Saints team that had it won.
So rewrite the franchise lore, Minnesota. The collective athletic psyche here doesn’t want to allow itself to reach that point, to think about what logically comes next, because it would be just too much.
Not every NFL team plays in a venue worthy of hosting a Super Bowl. The Vikings, tenants in glorious new U.S. Bank Stadium, do. Not every NFL team, when its stadium is due to host the sport’s signature event, has a team capable of reaching that point.
The Vikings, it’s clear now, do.
Don’t tease these rabid yet restless Minnesotans with possibilities, not just yet. They have been conditioned, over a few generations, to expect the worst, and they nearly added a new, devastating chapter Sunday.
Instead, they have a new bit of glory: Keenum-to-Diggs, a play that started with 10 seconds on the clock, a play that ended with zero ticks left.
This came with all the gnaw-your-fingernails moments Vikings fans have become used to. Oh, toss garden-variety anxiousness aside. When prosperity seems possible, Vikings fans have been trained to turn it to dread. Thus, they held a 17-0 lead at halftime. Poll the Minnesota fan base – the people in the crowd of 66,612 here dressed in purple hats with purple horns and purple face paint – and 17-0 didn’t seem safe. No, 17-0 seemed set up for heartbreak.
So it was something other than surprising when New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees – far more accomplished than his counterpart, Keenum, absolutely capable of leading a comeback – drove the Saints 80 yards on their first second-half possession. Brees finished that off with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Michael Thomas, and U.S. Bank Stadium had itself a ballgame.
That same fan base, too, might have predicted what came next: Keenum’s lone mistake, a fling of a pass as he was all but in the grasp of New Orleans lineman Cameron Jordan. It reeked of desperation at a time when the Vikings weren’t desperate. Saints safety Marcus Williams easily slid over and intercepted it. That, then, set up another Brees-to-Thomas touchdown pass, this one of three yards. And the lead was effectively erased. New Orleans was within 17-14.
So, then, the angst was real. Given the backdrop of all the disappointments gone by, it made sense. People can still tell you here, in vivid detail, about Drew Pearson’s catch from Roger Staubach at old Met Stadium out in the burbs, and of field goal misses by Gary Andersen and Blair Walsh and all the letdowns in between. Trepidation was warranted, something of a way of life. Those reservations, though, belied what the Vikings showed their fans in 30 mostly flawless minutes.
The Saints’ first five possessions went like this: punt, punt, punt, interception, interception. The Vikings’ first four possessions: touchdown, field goal, punt, touchdown.
With Minnesota up 10-0 late in the first quarter, Brees held onto the ball long enough to allow speedster Ted Ginn Jr. to break open over the middle downfield. This is the kind of play that defines the Saints, that allows them to be in games other teams might fall out of. Ginn had a step on his defender, and Brees laid the ball out for him. But breaking back on the play was Vikings safety Andrew Sendejo. Sendejo leapt. If he mis-timed it, Ginn would have been gone. But he laid out perfectly, picking Brees off, setting up Minnesota’s third scoring drive.
Then, the sequence that might have allowed the people here that dangerous-yet-intoxicating quality: optimism. The Saints drove inside the Minnesota 30, and Brees found Ginn toward the left pylon. New Orleans had the touchdown that would pull it back into the game. But . . . no. A flag for an illegal shift brought the score back. Three plays later, working from the Minnesota 14, Brees dropped back and looked across the middle. But Minnesota defensive end Everson Griffen, with his back basically to the quarterback, stuck up his hand and deflected the ball. There was linebacker Anthony Barr waiting for the ball to float into his hands. There was the Saints’ best hope snuffed out. And there was the Minnesota optimism.
Now, by the time the fourth quarter was two minutes old and the Saints had pulled within a field goal, that optimism had been buried under three feet of snow. Minnesota managed to extend the lead with Kai Forbath’s 49-yard field goal. But if the Vikings were going to prevail, they were going to have to stop Brees, who needed only one touchdown to win.
He got that, a 14-yard toss to rookie running back Alvin Kamara with 3:01 left for a 21-20 advantage. Even when Minnesota countered with Forbath’s booming 53-yard field goal, Brees played the role of Brees, converting a fourth-and-10 pass to push to the Minnesota 33, then managing down and distance and clock well enough to get Wil Lutz in comfortable position for the 43-yard field goal that appeared to have won it.
How fitting, for the Vikings.
And then, Keenum and Diggs. Sixty-one yards. Another deafening chant of “Skol!” And the best finish in Vikings history."
Yeah, agree BB. I think there was plenty of room from the sideline to make the tackle in bounds. That's what pressure can do to you! Poor angle, poor effort. To top it off, he takes out the other Saints defender who (I would argue) would have had a great chance of tackling Diggs from behind (he's got a running start and is less than five yards behind Diggs who's totally stationary)!
I don't have a dog in the NFL but I wouldn't over analyze the last play. The Vikes did not have any time outs. All the defender(s) had to do was catch the receiver when he landed and put him on the ground inbounds....it's that simple. No idea what the defender was thinking in those few moments but he took his eye off the receiver....and the rest is history. That play will be used forever by defensive coaches across the league and colleges.
Diggs was within 4-5' of the sideline when he caught the ball. So if he'd been hit, a simple tackle from the field side, which was where Williams was coming from, could have easily resulted in his not being down until he was out-of-bounds.
Nva.....the 2nd defender was approaching from the opposite direction. Their would have been a sandwich collision and the receiver would have been the meat. But for the sake of the discussion, if he did make out of bounds, that would have stopped the clock. I believe with under two minutes left to play (someone please correct me if I'm wet on that), the refs would immediately spot the ball back inside the hash marks and immediately signal to start the clock. I don't believe there would have been enough time for the whole offense to run up to the new line of scrimmage and spike the ball to stop the clock. Remember there was only 10 seconds left when the play even started and 5 seconds when Diggs caught the ball. Figure a scrum or jukin and jivin to get out of bounds and there is another second or two...down to 3-4 seconds tops now. The refs would immediately re-spot the ball and start the clock. The whole offense would of needed to run about 29 yards down to the new line of scrimmage, set and then spike the ball all with in 3-4 seconds (or less!) after the clock starts again. I think it would be extremely difficult to pull off with only 3-4 seconds...or less left on the clock unless the refs were slow to re-spot the ball and allow the Vikings to run down the field to the line of scrimmage....which would have caused a riot in some parts of the country.
I've rooted against the Vikes since the late 60's but this year was the first I finally just felt sorry for their fans and was pulling for them in this game. Really sucks for Saints and the horrible coverage for that last play. Anyway I'm glad both Minn & Philly made it, hope one of these can win SB. Any of the 3 but NE, they won enough. Would be really special for 3 of these team's fans.
"I believe with under two minutes left to play (someone please correct me if I'm wet on that), the refs would immediately spot the ball back inside the hash marks and immediately signal to start the clock."
The second defender was coming down the sideline and was a few yards farther upfield than Diggs was. Most likely, if he'd caught Diggs, it would have been from behind, not towards the field.
Perhaps Diggs would have gone down in bounds if the second defender had caught him. But it's likely Diggs would have been closer to the sideline if he knew a defender was bearing down on him.
See the post game interview with him where he said he'd been planning to go out of bounds, but when he saw he was in the clear, he went for the end zone instead.
The clock doesn’t restart when a player goes out of bounds with the ball in the last 5 minutes of the second half. It’s the last 2 minutes in the first half.
I think this angle shows it pretty well. I tend to agree, JL that there was a lot more than 4’ from the sideline and had he timed and executed the tackle better its likely Diggs stays in bounds. It’s also possible that Williams lost his bearings and thought he was a lot closer to the sidelines than he was.
Come on Pat... he hasn't been in Office since 2003.... I don't know anything about him and I don't watch wrestling.... but Wikipedia says he served in the Navy during Vietnam.....
Jesse started as a UDT guy during VN and later transitioned to a SEAL team. It would be fun to sit down and talk to him about it.
""Ventura joined the Navy after high school and was on active duty during the Vietnam era. He served in the US military for a total of six years - four on active duty (1969-1973), and two in the Reserves (1973-1975) with the Navy UDT - Underwater Demolition Team 12. In the Naval Reserves, Ventura was assigned to SEAL Team One. He would later describe SEAL training as the toughest experience of his life. Ventura is still entitled to use the title of Navy "SEAL," for his service in the UDT and SEAL teams, and his successful graduation from UDT.""
Viqueens will choke just like always, then the bandwagon will get much lighter, just like always. The fun part is watching them and their "fangirls" get really close to glory and fall off the cllff, gonna be fun....again
"Come on Pat... he hasn't been in Office since 2003.... I don't know anything about him and I don't watch wrestling.... but Wikipedia says he served in the Navy during Vietnam..... "
After Minnysoda gave us Jesse, they then gave us Al Franken.
Given the choice, I'll take Jesse in a nano-second.
Vikings, Vikings, terrors of the sea. Vikings, Vikings, failing miserably..
I had to watch family and friends suffer through it again. After taking out my book from the 70s when they embarrassed the state just like they do now.
Classic Vikes laying an egg when it really counts. You'd think I'd learn...but no, they sucked me in again...and then took a big dump on us moron fans. Lol
"Viqueens will choke just like always, then the bandwagon will get much lighter, just like always. The fun part is watching them and their "fangirls" get really close to glory and fall off the cllff, gonna be fun....again" And the viqueens balloon fizzles again, pfffffft
Skol! Ha Ha Vi_Queens. Queens show once again that they can't ever compete when the real teams show up in the playoffs. What an embarrassing beating they took. Love it!
