“This was a weird game but to win the weird ones shows the character of your team”, Palmer said.
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It slipped away with one swipe of Dwight Freeney’s large hand. Few teams have struggled more to protect their quarterback than the Vikings, although Zimmer said after the game that he was happy with the team’s protection, last play aside. Minnesota (8-5) plays at home against Chicago (5-7) a week from Sunday. It wasn’t a LOLVikings moment; just a microcosmic reminder that Minnesota isn’t as good at football as the Cardinals are right now. This one felt different for some reason, it felt like we were controlling the game a lot of the time.
Minnesota’s final turnover, a lost fumble statistically attributed to Bridgewater, cost it a chance of tying the game with a field goal.
The Cardinals blew a 10-point, fourth-quarter lead but got a 47-yard field goal from Chandler Catanzaro, his third of the game, with 1:23 remaining to snap a tie and take the lead for good. With 3:57 left in the first quarter the Vikings took their only and last lead of the game at 7-3. “We had all the receivers coming from the left side of the field”. “The play was created to push the ball down a little and allow our guy to make the catch and get out of bounds”.
The decision backfired when Freeney used a spin move to break free and hit Bridgewater’s arm just as he was about to throw, causing Minnesota’s third fumble of the game.
Teddy Bridgewater had a career best 25 of 36 for 336 yards for 1 touchdown and a QB rating of 108.
“I don’t know. We’ll see how that goes in the future”. Peterson ran for just 45 yards.
But Peterson wasn’t able to do much after Arizona started clogging his running lanes. Then the Arizona Cardinals came calling, looking to boost their troubled pass rush.
“It’s amusing because I spun three times on that series”, he said. That task is more hard than it sounds, as the team’s receiving corps doesn’t specialize in separating from defenders at the line of scrimmage. This is the fifth time in franchise history that a Cardinals team has won 11: the others were 1925, 1948, 1975 and 2014.
Minnesota’s defense was mostly solid.
Quarterbacks Carson Palmer and Teddy Bridgewater were outstanding as each passed for over 300 yards, at least one touchdown and no interceptions.
Palmer produced an impressive stat line against the Vikings – 25-of-35 passing for 310 yards and two touchdowns – but the numbers don’t fully tell the story. The sack for Freeney was one of three recorded by the Cardinals, upping the amount of sacks given up by the Vikings to 38, the fifth-highest total in the NFL. A field goal from about 49 yards out would have tied the score and likely sent the game to overtime.
“You know, it’s a play we practice every week for a situation like that”, Zimmer said, via ESPN.com.
Bridgewater moved the Vikings to the Arizona 31-yard line, well within the range of Blair Walsh.
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The Vikings’ coverage units were also on their game, holding Patrick Peterson in check on punt returns and keeping Kerwynn Williams completely irrelevant.
