Brian Billick, who served as Vikings offensive coordinator for seven years before coaching the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl championship in the 2000 season, was impressed by what he saw from the Vikings on Sunday, except for the fact that they didn't protect the ball.
Billick was part of the Fox broadcasting crew that televised Atlanta's 24-17 victory at the Metrodome on Sunday. He praised the Falcons for coming back from all the trouble they had last season.
"What a championship-caliber game," said Billick, who was on Dennis Green's coaching staff from 1992 to '98. "You have to take your hats off to the Atlanta Falcons. I know it's tough for the Vikings fans right now. But you're talking about an organization in Atlanta that, who was in worse shape last year? You're talking about the Michael Vick incident. You're talking about the embarrassment of Bob Petrino leaving the organization. The way they pieced it back together and to be able to make the playoffs, you just have to take your hats off to what they've overcome."
Certainly, the Falcons are a wonderful story, having bounced back from a 4-12 season in 2007, when Vick was in jail for dogfighting charges and Petrino left the team with three games to play to take the coaching job at Arkansas. They clinched a playoff berth Sunday at the expense of the Vikings, who can still clinch the NFC North championship if the Bears lose at home to the Packers tonight.
Billick was impressed by quarterback Tarvaris Jackson and the Vikings despite the loss.
"You saw everything that Tarvaris Jackson gives you," Billick said. "The first half he was like 8-for-9, he was very efficient. He made huge plays with his legs. In the second half, obviously the precision that you're looking for out of a quarterback is to be able to move a team down the field. That's the next challenge and hurdle for Tarvaris Jackson, to develop that part of his game.
"He's a good, young quarterback. He's got a lot to learn, obviously. He has all the physical tools. There's no reason why Tarvaris Jackson can't develop into a good NFL quarterback."
Jackson completed 22 of 36 passes for 233 yards and rushed eight times for 76 yards, an average of 9.5 yards per carry. His favorite receiver was tight end Visanthe Shiancoe, who had the biggest day of his NFL career with seven receptions for 136 yards and two touchdowns.
Jackson had a 98.5 quarterback ranking to compared to the 84.4 rating of Atlanta rookie star Matt Ryan, who completed 13 of 24 passes for 134 yards and one touchdown.
Looks at fumbles Billick liked what he saw from Adrian Peterson but pointed to the star's two fumbles as a problem. This came two weeks after he had two fumbles at Detroit. Peterson lost one of his two fumbles Sunday against the Falcons, and the Vikings also lost a fumble on a botched handoff to Peterson; that fumble was charged to Jackson.
Peterson has a league-high eight fumbles this season, losing four. He has touched the ball 364 times in all (342 rushes, 21 receptions and one kickoff return).
"Obviously the turnovers are going to be the thing that everybody points to, as they should," Billick said. "You can't turn the ball over that many times and expect to win in the National Football League, everybody kind of contributed. It looked to me like [Peterson] was just trying too hard, that's an odd thing to say, trying to make too much happen."
Peterson rushed for 76 yards on 22 carries Sunday, and he had two catches for 16 yards.
As for the 9-6 Vikings overall, Billick said: "I think they are a good football team. Obviously, it's tough to win in the National Football League. They had some tough breaks today, and as I said, you need to give Atlanta credit for what they did."
If the Bears win tonight, then their fate and the Vikings' will be decided in Week 17, when Chicago visits Houston and the Vikings play host to the NFC East winner and defending Super Bowl champion Giants, who clinched a the NFC's No. 1 seed by beating Carolina 34-28 in overtime on Sunday night.
"Right now, the Vikings have to refocus very quickly, not worry about all the other permutations, go beat the Giants, and if you make the playoffs, somebody will come tell you," Billick said. "... You kind of lick your wounds after a tough loss, and you bring that focus that you've got to have, and preparation. If you've got a chance to stay alive in this league, that's all you can really ask for in the last game of the season."
Not good enough Jackson made his share of mistakes Sunday, fumbling three times and losing two. He lost the ball when he was sacked, a play that resulted in a turnover, and also had to scramble to recover the ball after he didn't catch a Matt Birk snap in a shotgun formation.
"It wasn't a bad snap," Birk said. "He wasn't ready for it. It was miscommunication between him and me."
Jackson wasn't happy with his performance, despite the strong statistics. "It wasn't good enough. It wasn't good enough, man," he said. "We lost the game. We shot ourselves in the foot four times, four turnovers, so we've got to do a better job taking care of the football."
Asked if this was his best game, he said: "I don't know. It wasn't good enough. When I play, I say I play good whenever we win. We didn't win today, so I didn't play good enough."
Said Birk of the loss: "It's frustrating, but at the same time, too, I mean, we know the problem. It's always better when you know what you did wrong and you can identify what you did wrong and work on it -- as opposed to going out there and going three-and-out every time and not knowing what the hell is going on."
Tough on defense The turnovers created a short field for the Falcons, making it tough for the Vikings defense.
"Yeah, it's frustrating as a defense, but at the same time it's part of the game and we understand that," linebacker Chad Greenway said. "As a defensive unit, we're frustrated with not being able to go out there and get off the field. We understand the offense can turn the ball over, it happens in this game. We have to go out there, grit our teeth and get off the field, and create turnovers and we didn't do that."
Greenway said it was up to the defense to pick up the offense by getting the ball back. "No turnovers, that's probably the difference," he said. "They had four or five or whatever they had and we didn't have any. You can say it's the offense, but really it's the defense and not creating any."
Sid Hartman can be heard weekdays on WCCO AM-830 at 6:40, 7:40 and 8:40 a.m. and on his Podcast once a week at www.startribune.com/sidcast. shartman@startribune.com