We tried to be gracious and look big-picture yesterday in making what turned out to be a humor video about how the Vikings, if they could win Monday night, would still have a chance to make the playoffs and save their season.

Never mind.

It's over. It's finished in the most spectacular fashion now that a fourth Vikings starting quarterback in the past seven games (this goes back to Joe Webb in the playoffs last year) has faltered in some way. We can argue over whether the Vikings should have rushed Josh Freeman in or even signed him mid-season in the first place, but what we cannot dispute is just how bad Freeman looked in his debut. Almost everything was an overthrow -- 16 passes total, the most ESPN Stats has ever tracked.

With a bevy of problems that go beyond the quarterback spot, the Vikings are a complete mess. There is no choice now but to treat 2012 as the outlier -- a strangely magical season when everything went right, Adrian Peterson was unstoppable and the Vikings somehow made the playoffs.

If this season continues as is, and there is no reason now to believe it will not, we imagine 2013 won't be the only thing lost. Jobs on and off the field could be as well.