Vikings done in by the usual suspects in loss to Chargers

If only – for one week anyway – NFL contests were 30 minutes long. If that had been the case in the Vikings first game of the 2011 season, the post-game narrative for this one would have been that Donovan McNabb was solid, if unspectacular, in his Vikings debut, Minnesota’s maligned offensive line and secondary held up and its defence kept San Diego’s excellent All-Pro quarterback Philip Rivers under pressure and uncomfortable all day.

But NFL games are 60 minutes long, not 30, and following the Vikings 24-17 loss to the Chargers, the narrative this week will be decidedly different. It may only be the first game of the season, but the 2011 Minnesota Vikings look pretty much like the team many football experts expected them to be, with little chance the squad will grow into something better.

As many football observers have already predicted, the offensive line looks like it will struggle to keep opposing defenders off McNabb’s back. The passing game doesn’t have a credible deep threat to keep opposing defences' honest. And any quarterback with a pulse routinely exposes the Viking pass defenders.

Two things really struck me watching this game. 1) McNabb rarely had a chance to get comfortable in the pocket. 2) The Vikings defensive unit too often was unable to stop the Chargers when they got them in second and third-and-long situations.

While McNabb was only sacked twice by the Chargers, his pocket was far from clean most of the afternoon. That fact had a profound impact on the Vikings passing game. It meant the team couldn’t call many deep passing routes because they take too long to develop and McNabb would be on his back by the time anyone was open. (This renders Bernard Berrian totally useless.) And because the Vikings could only call short passing plays, San Diego was able to take away the areas of the field where Percy Harvin, Michael Jenkins and Visanthe Shiancoe are most effective – on short-to-medium pass routes.

The result was just 39 yards in passing for McNabb, which has to be a record in passing yard futility for the Vikings. It’s not the kind of game that will silence critics who think McNabb doesn’t have much left to offer after a disastrous 2010 season in Washington.

Defensively, I liked the aggressive blitzing defensive coordinator Fred Pagac dialed up. But screens to running backs burned his unit repeatedly. Ryan Matthews had three catches for 73 yards and Mike Tolbert had nine catches for 58 yards and two TDs. Short stuff to tight end Antonio Gates also killed the Vikes. The Vikings consistently stuffed the Chargers running game and had them in second-and-10 and third-and-nine situations in the second half and couldn’t get off the field. This has long been a problem for the Vikings defence, especially last year, and it looks like it hasn’t changed and won’t change.

My expectations were pretty low for the Vikings going into the 2011 season. Yet I always hold out hope the team will surprise me. This loss stings. For one half, the Vikings played a great road game. But they couldn’t sustain it. This squad looks just good enough to keep most games close and just bad enough to not be able to pull the lion’s share of those close games out. Another 6-10 season could be in the works.