The Vikings, as of Sunday morning, were 3-2. They\u2019re now 3-4.<\/p>\n
And the loss to the Chargers was the low point of the season, a 37-10 blowout loss.<\/p>\n
After the game, coach Kevin O\u2019Connell was candid.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got outplayed,\u201d O\u2019Connell said. \u201cWe got outcoached. We did not \u2014 there are no excuses. Injuries, short week, whatever it is, that is not in any way, shape, or form our standard of what we want to put on the field, and we\u2019ve got \u2014 as I told our team \u2014 we\u2019ve got an opportunity in front of us where we need to own this. This is not a bury the tape kind of time for our organization. This is a \u2018watch it, view it, own it\u2019. Every coach, every player. And it starts with me. I did not have our team prepared to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Can it change?<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in our players, wholeheartedly,\u201d O\u2019Connell said. \u201cI believe in every opportunity we have, we\u2019re gonna go out there and put our best foot forward, both on the practice field and every opportunity we have as a team. I think we\u2019ll be able to get, you know, healthy in some spots here that, you know, are critical for our ability to have success. But once again, injuries and any other excuse if you go looking for them you\u2019ll find them. We will not be doing that. We\u2019re going to meet this head on as an organization. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re gonna do.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll have some extra time to do it. But the next stop is a return to Detroit, where last season\u2019s magical push for the No. 1 seed became a one-and-out wild-card run. And the Lions are looking like the team they were last year.<\/p>\n
The Vikings, frankly, are not.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s the challenge. That\u2019s the test. Can they do it? Most will think they can\u2019t. Based on Thursday night\u2019s game, it\u2019s hard to find many\/any reasons to believe they can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vikings, as of Sunday morning, were 3-2. They\u2019re now 3-4. And the loss to the Chargers was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-248080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}