A loss by seven points is actually not as bad a thing as it could have been, because damn did Minnesota look like they had all the pieces of the puzzle — except, amazingly, for a running game. In case you didn’t notice, we shut Adrian Peterson down. He ran for a total of 55 yards — a far cry from what he was expected to do. And to be sure, that guy who used to play for the Jets sure played a good game tonight. But that’s not a surprise to anyone, or at least it shouldn’t be.
But it’s a measure of just how weak our offensive line became that we had to take a coach’s challenge to turn a fumble into a safety. That turned out to be a very smart call — it saved a net five points, and it kept us in a position where we could in theory have made a comeback to tie or, had a few breaks gone our way, even win. And Aaron Rodgers played a pretty damn good game, too — didn’t lose his poise once, didn’t lose his cool once. He did have happy feet for a while there, but you would too if you had been sacked eight times. That’s the key statistic there. Despite that, he threw 384 yards for two touchdowns and a completion percentage of higher than 70%. A remarkable performance.
So while the loss to the bitter division rival Vikings is certainly not a good thing, let’s face it, it was in their house and it could have been much, much worse. Oh, and since my fantasy football team lets me play two quarterbacks a week, and my quarterbacks were Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, the shootout in Minneapolis tonight propels my team into first place overall. So there is a silver lining.
How I wish our old, evil, awful GM King Carl Peterson hadn't run Jared Allen out of Kansas City. I'm not saying it would make the Chiefs a good team this year, but boy would we be a lot better.
I wish you guys had Jared Allen, too. In no small part because that would mean the Vikings wouldn't have him. That and I'd love to see the Chiefs play the Packers in the Super Bowl (or, as it would be called, The "Forty-Fourth AFL-NFL World Championship Game".