The first playoff game that I ever watched was the push-off game in 1976 when the Cowboys beat the Vikings – the last outdoor NFL playoff game ever played in Minnesota – until this past Sunday. I cried then as an 8-year-old. On Sunday when the Vikings lost again in the waning moments, I smiled. The debacles get better with age.
While so many fans are reeling Blair Walsh for the chip-shot miss in the debacle of debacles for the Vikings faithful, I’ve given in to temptation to hit the rewind button – several plays before the mother of all missed kicks in Vikings history.
Teddy Bridgewater, while his stat line didn’t show it, played magnificently in that last drive. Cool under pressure, hitting open receivers, moving the chains the way a quarterback needs to move them. Kyle Rudolph drawing defensive pass interference, etc. It was blueprint all the way.
Until the last minute and a half . . . and that’s where the rewind starts. With just over a minute and a half and hte Vikings well into Seahawks territory, but maybe not quite far enough for Walsh, Bridgewater threw one of his best passes all year when he hit a tightly-covered Rudolph streaking across the middle. The ball could not have been placed in any better position than it was – just outside the reach of the defender and not so far that Rudolph could not easily grasp it. And it seems Bridgewater threw it side arm as well. In the heat of the moment, with the score as it was, and time not on the Vikings side, it was one of the best playoff passes ever thrown by a Vikings quarterback.
And then things got more interesting. For starters, Rudolph, while making a great catch and picking up extra yardage, runs out of bounds instead of staying in bounds and letting the clock continue to run. There was 1:26 on the clock and the Seahawks only had 2 timeouts left. The Vikings had a 1st and 10 upcoming. If Rudolph stays in bounds, it forces the Seahawks’ hand to stop the clock, leaving them with only 1 timeout left.
By leaving the Seahawks with only 1 timeout left and 1:26 on the clock, they would not have been able to stop the clock any longer. Going out of bounds gave them an extra timeout, in effect. The Vikings would not have had to run another play – risking an Adrian Peterson fumble again and allowing Teddy Bridgewater to take a knee – in the middle of the field by the way – not on the left hash mark as was the result of where AP ran on third down with about 26 seconds left on the clock when the Vikes called a timeout to set up Walsh’s kick.
How does that change things to make a difference? After all, 27 yards is 27 yards no matter where you kick it from on the field.
If Rudolph stays in bounds, the Seahawks would have been forced to take 1 of 2 remaining timeouts. That means Bridgewater would have been able to take a knee on the second and third down plays, and the Seahawks would have been out of timeouts. Bridgewater would have been able to rest the ball in perfect middle field position for Walsh. Rather than giving him only one side of the goal post to work with – he would have had both sides of the middle to work with. And had he made it, there would have been no kicking off to Seattle because time would have expired.
Now in this paragraph there are about 7 “woulds.” That’s a lot.
But, before we as fans assail Walsh again and again, let’s also look at the last minute and a half of the game and some of the great plays, as well as mistakes, that were made not only by other players other than Walsh, but also by the coaching staff. You win as a team and you lose as a team.
Chip shot? Absolutely. Would, could, should the field goal try have been made easier at that monumental juncture of the game? Absolutely as well – and that’s where the responsibility goes to the whole team, not just one player.
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