Thursday Night games suck. Especially when your starting quarterback tweaks his ankle the Sunday before the Thursday Night game. Three days isn't nearly enough time to recover from an NFL game for another NFL game even in the best of times.
Minnesota Vikings starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater tweaked his ankle four days ago against the Atlanta Falcons. His status for the Thursday Night game against the Green Bay Packers was a game time decision. His ankle wasn't ready. Christian Ponder got the start. It didn't go to well. The final score doesn't tell the whole story but it sure tells a lot. The Packers thumped the Vikings 42-10.
If Ponder's performance did anything, it proved again that the Vikings decision to trade up in the 2014 NFL Draft to select Bridgewater with the final pick of the first round was, in fact, the correct decision. The Vikings selected Ponder in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft. He was supposed to be the team's franchise quarterback. While he has had some nice moments, he has never maintained any consistency. A terrific pass was always followed by a horrible pass. A good game was often followed by some bad games. Too often he presented a frantic presence in the pocket. He looked like the same frantic quarterback last night. It didn't help that the Packers pass rushers could just tee off on him. Ponder's downfield passing didn't scare them. The Vikings running game didn't scare them. They could rush without concern for anything but harassing the hell out of Ponder. And, they did.
Ponder seems to need a very clean pocket. He rarely had anything close to that last night.
Bridgewater can make playing the quarterback position look easy. Ponder makes it look very, very difficult. The Vikings tried to run some of same plays that Bridgewater smoothly ran four days ago. Ponder didn't run them smoothly.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers makes playing the position look very easy. He didn't have a big game, by his standards, but he didn't really need that big game. He had all the points he was ever going to need in the first quarter. He was through for the night in the third quarter. In three quarters of work, he was 12 of 17 for 156 yards and three touchdowns.
For the Vikings there was a lot of bad in this game but there was some good. The defense actually played well in the first half. All but two of the Packers first half possessions resulted in "three-and-outs." Those two possessions, unfortunately, resulted in touchdowns. Quick touchdowns. Touchdowns that looked way too easy. Each scoring drive took only four plays. Other than those two possessions the Vikings defense was terrific.
The defense wasn't so great against Packers running back Eddie Lacy. He hadn't done much of anything in the previous four games. Last night he looked more like the back that took home the Rookie of the Year award last year. He was a bull last night. 13 carries for 105 yards and 2 touchdowns. In the second half it even looked like some of the Vikings defenders were shying away from tackling Lacy.
About half way through the second quarter things didn't look too bad for the Vikings. It may have been 14-0 but the Vikings defense was starting to get things together. They were getting off the field on the third downs. The offense just had to do something productive. Instead, Ponder started tossing interceptions. Packers linebacker Julius Peppers got the first one and returned it for a touchdown. Linebacker Jamari Lattimore got the second one and returned it to the Vikings 20-yard line. Rodgers threw his third touchdown a few plays later. Suddenly, the Packers had a 28-0 lead and it was basically over.
No Bridgewater. No Adrian Peterson. No Kyle Rudolph. No Brandon Fusco. With a very limited offense, the Vikings really needed some things to fall their way. One thing that never fall their way was field position. The Vikings possessions in the first half started at their own 14, 21, 13, 11, 20, 12, 20, 20, 9. They couldn't generate any drives so they kept serving up nice field position to the Packers. The only play that crossed midfield in the first half for the Vikings ended in a fumble.
The good thing about playing on Thursday is that the teams have ten days until they play again. That's especially good for a team that lost 42-10 and has a starting quarterback with a bum ankle.
The bad thing about playing on Thursday for a team that lost 42-10 is that they have to wait ten days to get back on the field.
If the NFL is truly concerned about player safety, they need to reconsider these Thursday games. The players don't like them and they are the ones that have to play them. Players routinely say that it takes about five days after a game until they start feeling ready to play again. The league office doesn't really care about that. They just care about the TV money that the games generate. That could change if we keep seeing games like the five that we've seen so far this year. The first two games were decided by 20 points. The third was decided by 42 points. The fourth was decided by 31 points. Last night, the Packers won by 32. Pretty sad. Those aren't very compelling games.
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