It was a familiar feeling. Minnesota’s 34-31 loss on Justin Tucker’s 36-yard field goal was its second overtime loss this season, and fifth decided in the closing seconds.
“Mondays are tough, I’m not going to lie to you,” receiver Adam Thielen said Monday. “Sunday nights, Mondays after a tough loss, after an opportunity to win a game, it’s difficult.”
The Vikings have won a couple similar games this season, beating Detroit on a last-second field goal and Carolina in overtime, but at this point it’s not much comfort. They head into Sunday’s game against the Chargers in Los Angeles with a 3-5 record — and 0-2 since climbing back to .500 before their bye.
“I’ve got to figure out a way to, uh, teach them how to finish these games so we’re on the other side of this thing as opposed to the way it came out yesterday,” head coach Mike Zimmer said Monday. “We’re working on doing that.”
Before losing to the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium, and blowing a 14-point first-half lead, the Vikings lost to Dallas at home on a last-minute touchdown pass from backup quarterback Cooper Rush. They lost at Cincinnati in overtime, after fumbling on the opening drive, and missed a last-second field goal in a 34-33 loss at 8-1 Arizona.
So close, yet rarely there.
“Personally, it’s very frustrating,” Zimmer said. “And it’s frustrating for the players. They fight their rear ends off like crazy, and it comes down to those situations, and you really feel like we’ve got a smart team.
“And typically when you go out there and you win those games at the end, it changes the attitude, it changes the complexion of the season and everything else.”
Beating the Chargers (5-3) on the road might give the Vikings the juice to finish strong, but something will have to change for the Vikings. What exactly that is is something of a mystery. One can point to weaknesses — third-down conversions on offense, allowing game-winning drives on defense — but the Vikings are also doing some things well. They have held a lead in all eight of their games, and were up 24-10 in the third quarter Sunday after a 98-yard touchdown from Kene Nwangwu on the second-half kickoff.
They also intercepted Lamar Jackson twice without a turnover of their own and are plus-6 in turnover margin this season — tied for third-best in the NFL.
“Obviously, when you have some scheme issues, you always try to fix it and change it and do some things there,” Zimmer said. “But I keep talking to our guys about, ‘Do the things we do good and stick with it,’ and continue to build off of those things as opposed to throwing everything out the window and starting new. It’s not to that point.”
The Vikings looked at film on Monday and have Tuesday off before starting three days of practice on Wednesday. At that point, Thielen said, “It’s got to be a mindset (to) say, ‘Screw it, whatever has happened, it doesn’t matter.’”
That remains true. The Vikings were two games out of the seventh and final NFC playoff spot with nine games still to play. They’re also 3-2 in NFC games and 1-0 in the North with five division games remaining, and have the head-to-head tiebreaker over the team directly ahead of them in the pecking order, Carolina.
That is one reality. The other is that Minnesota is 0-5 against winning teams — those five teams are a combined 30-13 — and their next two games are against winning teams. Tied atop the AFC West with the Las Vegas Raiders, the Chargers are the third straight first-place opponent for the Vikings, who will face NFC North leader Green Bay when they return to U.S. Bank Stadium on Nov. 21.
“What’s so great about sports is you get another opportunity to prove people wrong,” Thielen said. “Because, you know, everybody right now is going to write us off.”
Not that Thielen particularly blames the naysayers.
“I think the positive is we know that we can do it,” he said. “We know we have the guys, we know we have the quarterback, the skill-position guys. We know we have the offensive line. We know the coaches are busting their tails to do whatever it takes. But it’s kind of getting old.
“I know the fans are done with us coming back every single week and saying, ‘We have the guys, we’ve just got to go and execute.’ So, I don’t really know what to say because it’s the same thing each week.”
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