The beauty of the NFL is that every game matters, if you’ve got any playoff hopes. A three-game losing streak in baseball is a bad weekend and a shrug. In the NFL it can*ruin a*season.
In the Minnesota Vikings’ case, a surprising three-game stretch has exposed a lot of issues.
At 5-0 the Vikings were considered among the NFL’s best. Some considered them the No. 1 team in the NFL. In a 15-day stretch, the Vikings went from looking like Super Bowl contenders to a free fall. In an ugly 22-16 loss to the Detroit Lions, everything fell apart.
Offense: We all knew there were issues here. But it has fallen apart in a hurry. Quarterback Sam Bradford, the light of everyone’s eye early in the season, is looking like 2010-2015 Sam Bradford lately. In other words, he has been underwhelming. It’s fair to blame a bad offensive line. It’s probably fair to blame it on the lack of playmakers around Bradford, too. There’s no consistent running game and there’s not a ton at receiver either. Stefon Diggs got 13 catches but gained only 80 yards on them. And he was the standout of the receiving corps.
Oh, and offensive coordinator Norv Turner quit this week, and told NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport that he thought he was holding the Vikings back. It’s unclear if*anyone can totally fix the Vikings offense, and now they have to try to turn it around without the coordinator who ran the group*for most of the past three years.
Special teams: What are the Vikings going to do with kicker Blair Walsh?
Last season’s playoff goat has carried yips over into this season. He missed an extra point on Sunday, and that was costly in a game that was decided in overtime. He had a field goal blocked in the fourth quarter. And then he got frustrated with reporters afterward. Here was his answer when asked if the missed extra point felt good off his foot:
“I mean, obviously not. It didn’t go in, right?” Walsh said, according to ESPN.com. “I mean, you guys are going to ask me this question a million times. ‘Did it feel good?’ Did I make it?’ No, I didn’t. ‘Do I have to?’ Yes. ‘Do I want to?’ Yes. I mean, if you’ve got something else, please. Seriously.”
He has missed four field goals and three extra points this season. Walsh cost the Vikings a playoff win over the Seahawks last season, and his misses were huge on Sunday.
Defense: No matter what else was going on, the Vikings could count on their defense. It covered up a lot of other flaws.
It doesn’t seem like that’s the case anymore.
On Monday night, Chicago Bears rookie running back Jordan Howard shredded the Vikings for 202 yards. On Sunday the Vikings didn’t give up a ton of yards but they were far from dominant. They couldn’t get a stop on a marathon 17-play, 84-yard, 9:45 scoring drive by the Lions in the second quarter. In overtime, the defense gave up a touchdown that ended the game. Cornerback Xavier Rhodes took huge third-down penalties on both drives. He missed a tackle on Golden Tate’s 28-yard game-winning touchdown.
Minnesota’s defense also couldn’t get a stop at the end of regulation after the offense took a lead. The Vikings played a prevent defense, which allowed Matthew Stafford to complete a very nice 27-yard pass down the middle to set up Matt Prater’s 58-yard, game-tying field goal.
The Vikings’ defense wasn’t the reason they lost on Sunday. But the defense needs to be the main reason Minnesota wins. The rest doesn’t look good enough to carry the team to too many victories.
The good news for the Vikings is that the Green Bay Packers are dealing with their own set of problems. The Lions are creeping up in the NFC North, though they’re hard to trust. Minnesota still might be the best team in the NFC North, but a lot has changed in three games. The Vikings lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, who have lost four of their past five. They lost to a Bears team that was 1-6 coming in. And then they lost to the Lions, who were 3-4 and coming off an unimpressive loss to the Houston Texans.
Even if the Vikings can win the NFC North, they seem a long way from the Super Bowl contender we thought they might be three weeks ago.
The Minnesota Vikings have lost three in a row. (AP) Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 9 of the NFL season:
WINNERS
Jason Witten: Witten has had the kind of career that might lead him to Canton someday.
At 34 he isn’t the same type of player he was when he made 10 Pro Bowls, but the Dallas Cowboys tight end had a throwback game on Sunday.
Witten, who had 290 yards in the Cowboys’ first seven games, had eight catches for 134 yards and a touchdown in Dallas’ easy 35-10 win over the Cleveland Browns. That came right after Witten caught a game-winning touchdown pass in overtime last week against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Witten won’t put up monster numbers this season, but he’s still an effective player. And it’s probably fair to assume personal stats don’t matter to him that much at this point in his career. The more important number is 7-1, which is the Cowboys’ record halfway through this season.

Melvin Gordon: Gordon doesn’t look like a bust anymore.
Gordon, the San Diego Chargers’ second-year back, had an up-and-down start to this season. There weren’t many ups as a rookie first-round pick last year. But Gordon’s last two games have showed why the Chargers drafted him so high.
Gordon had 111 yards last week against a tough Denver defense, the first 100-yard rushing game against the Broncos in more than a year. Gordon followed that up with a career game against the Tennessee Titans. Gordon ran for 196 yards, had 65 receiving yards, and carried San Diego to a 43-35 win. Gordon got some tough yards at the end too, when the Chargers were trying to run out the clock.
It took Gordon a while to get going, but it seems like the Chargers’ pick might pay off after all.

Kenyan Drake: It’s not too often you’d call a kickoff return clutch, but what else would you call Drake’s fourth quarter return for the Miami Dolphins?
Just after the New York Jets took a 23-20 lead with a little more than five minutes left, and after a Jets offsides penalty on the ensuing kickoff forced a re-kick, Drake made a wonderful run on a 98-yard return. His score stood up as the game-winner as the Dolphins won their third in a row to get back to 4-4.
Drake, a surprise as a third-round pick this season, hasn’t done much to distinguish himself on offense. But his big play might end up being huge for the Dolphins’ season if they keep this momentum going into the second half.

Andy Reid: Sure, the Kansas City Chiefs were playing the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, but the degree of difficulty was higher than usual. Quarterback Alex Smith and running back Spencer Ware were ruled out with injuries. Receiver Jeremy Maclin was knocked out of the game after suffering a groin injury on the first series. Tight end Travis Kelce got ejected for throwing a towel at an official to argue a call.
And still, the Chiefs won 19-14.
A lot of that was the Jaguars’ ineptitude, which included four turnovers. One was a brutal fumble at the goal line in the fourth quarter. But the Chiefs just keep quietly rolling along. They’re 6-2.
A lot of that is due to Reid. Including the playoffs, the Chiefs have won 17 of their past 20 games. They’ve been without defensive star Justin Houston all season, and it hasn’t mattered. They were without many of their offensive playmakers on Sunday, and it didn’t matter. Some of that has to be coaching.

LOSERS
AFC North: What has happened to a division that has put multiple teams in the playoffs seven of the last eight seasons?
The North will put in one playoff team this season, though its record might not be that pretty. The division*doesn’t look very good this season. The Pittsburgh Steelers, once thought of as a Super Bowl contender, looked awful in Ben Roethlisberger’s return from knee surgery on Sunday. The Steelers lost 21-14 to the Baltimore Ravens, and didn’t score until late in the fourth quarter after the Ravens had a 21-0 lead.

The Ravens played well on Sunday, but do we believe they’re good? This is the same team that came into Sunday on a four-game losing streak and was drubbed by the New York Jets their last game. The Ravens and Steelers are tied for first place in the AFC North at 4-4. The disappointing Cincinnati Bengals are 3-4-1. And the Cleveland Browns are 0-9 without an end to that losing streak in sight.
It’s obvious this isn’t the best division in football this season. Are any of these teams good?

Doug Pederson: Well, Pederson’s honeymoon period didn’t last long.
The Philadelphia Eagles coach’s decisions will be talked about often in Philly this week. Pederson decided to go for it twice on fourth down, passing up field-goal chances each time. And the Eagles didn’t get it either time.
On the first attempt, a fourth-and-2 to start the second quarter, Carson Wentz was stuffed on a read-option run. Later in the second quarter, Darren Sproles was stuffed on fourth-and-1 at the Giants’ 6. Sproles does many things well, but fourth-and-short isn’t one of them. And in a five-point game, passing up six points is easy to criticize.
“I think it’s a momentum thing,” Pederson said about the fourth-down decisions, according to the Eagles’ transcripts. “I get what you’re saying. Listen, it’s an opportunity for us offensively to score seven points over three. I truly believe in our defense and special teams. They showed up and made some great plays in those two phases of the game. If we don’t start the ball game the way we do, it’s different. It’s totally different. I’m going to continue to show confidence in our guys and believe in our guys.”
Going for it on fourth down is often the right move for coaches. Too many coaches don’t go for it when they should. But when it doesn’t work, it will be second-guessed. Especially when your team has lost four of five, like the Eagles have.

The Saints and 49ers defenses: Maybe you thought the 6-6 Arizona Cardinals-Seattle Seahawks tie was the worst game ever. Well, the New Orleans Saints’ 41-23 win over the San Francisco 49ers wasn’t good either.
There were 1,057 yards and just about as many missed tackles and blown defensive assignments. It was an awful defensive game from both teams that ended up producing some surprising stat lines. 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who hasn’t played well since being reinstated as a starter, had 398 yards passing. Mark Ingram was benched for Tim Hightower last week, and he had 158 rushing yards. 49ers running back DuJuan Harris, playing because of injuries and with 550 career rushing yards on his resume since breaking into the NFL in 2011, had 143 yards from scrimmage on Sunday.
The 49ers in particular are horrendous on defense. According to ESPN, the 49ers are the first team since the 1977 Chiefs to allow 240 yards in three straight games, and they’re the first team in NFL history to allow a 100-yard rusher in seven straight.
Sunday was proof that scoring and yards don’t necessarily add up to better football.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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