The Minnesota Vikings' postseason hopes were dealt a serious blow on Sunday with a 21-13 loss to the recently woeful Chicago Bears. The Vikings jumped on the Bears early, but quarterback Jay Cutler, who usually does well against Minnesota, rallied his team for three touchdown passes and the win.

Cutler designated the Vikings' vertically challenged (5-foot-10) cornerback Josh Robinson as the defender to victimize, and he did so every time he needed a reception, a third-down conversion or a touchdown.

But the Vikings offense, playing against one of the worst defenses in the league, could do nothing. Call it post-bye rust, but the Vikings were flat across the board, and it resulted in a devastating loss that likely has them beginning to look toward next season.

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It's difficult to determine which unit was more culpable for the loss, so we will start with the offense. They say numbers don't always tell the whole story, but in the case of this game they tell enough. The Vikings had 243 total yards on offense (with 48 of them coming on a fake punt and a bunch more in what turned out to be garbage/prevent time).

Teddy Bridgewater was 18 of 28 for 158 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He was inaccurate when throwing past five yards down field. He was sacked twice and hit five times, which shows once again that the offensive line that struggled to protect him. It was well into the game before Bridgewater targeted a wide receiver, as either he didn't have time to see them or they were not getting open. Stop me if you've heard this before.

These atrocious numbers came against the 26th ranked defense in the league coming in—a defense that had given up 106 points in their past two games. Were it not for the fake punt that set up the only touchdown, the final score would have been worse. Bridgewater and the offense took a step backwards against a team that had been demoralized. This game for the Vikings was actually worse than the score indicated.

The defense certainly had their work cut out for them, given all the firepower the Bears occasionally display. But with a 10-point lead and Cutler taking a personal foul and moving toward the edge of meltdown, the defense had the Bears right where they wanted them. The imploding Bears were who the Vikings thought they were--but they "let them off the hook."

Poor tackling, an inability to cover the Bears tall receivers and absolutely no pressure on Cutler allowed the opposition to take the lead and put the Vikings away. The Vikings were the number four pass defense and boasted a defensive front that was tied for third in the league in sacks, and they could not stop the Bears. They gave up 468 yards—330 yards through the air—and had no sacks. The defense did pick off Cutler twice, one time after rattling him and forcing him into a bad throw. But throughout most of the game, Cutler had time to pick Robinson apart, and that was all they needed to do to secure the win.

The special teams did little to help the team this week either. Aside from the fake punt, which was masterful, the special teams struggled as well. Blair Walsh hit a 50-yard field goal but missed a 38-yarder. Jeff Locke had a 54-yard punt but also 33-yard to give the Bears great field position.

So let's talk about the fake punt then, which was run for the first time since 2004. Andrew Zendejo raced down the sideline with the speed and moves of a running back until his own man, Mike Mauti, tripped him up at the seven. Head coach Mike Zimmer said the team practices it every week, and he found a good time to run it. It was very well executed, and put the Bears back on their heels when Rhett Ellison caught a 7-yard touchdown pass on the next play. Unfortunately, the play may be more remembered for making Zendejo the leading rusher on the Vikings with 48 yards. It was one of those kinds of days.

Worth Defending

I have tried to give Matt Kalil the benefit of the doubt (and there are plenty in the organization who still have his back), but I thought this would be the game that he would bounce back and return to form. He has moments of good play in the run game and when downfield blocking, but in pass protection, he—for some inexplicable reason—is not playing his position well right now.

Bears defensive end Jared Allen was slowing down last year and hadn't done anything this season until (as we all expected) he was all over the field against the Vikings. Allen only got one sack on Kalil, but he hit Bridgewater three times (tweaking his injured ankle on one play) and made five tackles, one short of the team lead. I thought Kalil would have the motivation and skill to out-duel the aging vet that he faced in practice the past two seasons. But Allen won the day. Kalil and the entire Vikings offensive line clearly lost it.

I would like to defend the play of Josh Robinson, since he was in position most of the afternoon, but his inability to make a play when so many came his way doesn't allow it. Robinson gives up five inches to Alshon Jeffrey and six inches to Brandon Marshall, and while that was a factor, it can't be an excuse. They had their way with Robinson on Sunday--at one point Marshall was waving to his quarterback to show him he had single coverage with the guy they had been torching all afternoon. Marshall simply posted up Robinson like a center being covered by a guard in basketball game and scored the winning touchdown.

Where I do defend Robinson is for him standing up in the locker room and making no excuses.

"I think there are some things I probably could have differently," told WCCO-TV. "We will go back and evaluate and see what I could have done differently and improve in those areas, but in most of the coverages, I was in good position but didn't make the play. I failed to make the play."

It doesn't take much to defend Zimmer's challenge of the first quarter play in which Brian Robison knocked the ball out of Cutler's hand, he fumbled, the ball bounced around and then Captain Munnerlyn pounced on it. It initially looked like an incomplete pass on the field, but the call Zimmer challenged was "runner down by contact ruling," which is only the first thing I don't get about this play.

I'm not sure anyone can give me a decent explanation of what the referees came up with after reviewing the play. The refs basically upheld the call even after overturning the call and calling it a fumble without a recovery. The CBS referee in residence Mike Carey said it was a fumble but since the players weren't all scrambling for the ball, it reverted back to the original call. Now if there were a whistle, which no one was clear if there was, that would make some sense. But this is wrong on so many levels.

Just because no one immediately fell on the ball shouldn't negate that it is a fumble. How can it then revert back to the "runner down by contact" when no runner was down by contact. And if it is runner down by contact, shouldn't that move the position of the ball to a different spot?

The replay shows that Munnerlyn did scramble for the ball. He was slightly delayed but then jumped on the ball. Just because others didn't have the presence of mind to do so, shouldn't negate the fact that Munnerlyn did. There was a play a couple weeks ago (albeit in college) when a player dropped the ball before crossing the goal line and a defender not immediately in the play picked it up and ran the other way for a score. Does someone have a clock on how these balls are laying on the ground?

Finally, how can you possibly penalize the team that challenges the call? The call was overturned to the degree that it wasn't runner down by contact and in fact was a fumble, yet since no recovered it in a timely fashion, the Vikings lost a challenge and a time out. Zimmer is going to be even more ticked when he watches film of that play.

Should be Ending

Zimmer was asked about the Vikings' difficulty in playing in Chicago (where they haven't won since 2007) and whether there is something about the locale that affects their ability to play well. Zimmer paused a long time before answering, seemingly holding back on really telling reporters what he thinks of that theory.

"I don't know. We didn't play good today, I know that," Zimmer told the Star Tribune. "We did not tackle; we did not block; we did not . . . third down and the critical areas of the ball game, we did not play good. I don't know if anything had to do with [playing in] Chicago. You go up 10 to nothing and maybe your mindset changes a little bit, as opposed to now we're going to put our foot on their throat. And we kind of went the opposite way . . . so it's disappointing."

Perhaps it's time to put those theories aside, and just blame poor execution. At least Zimmer seems to think so.

The stadium clock at Soldier Field was malfunctioning all afternoon. And to hear Zimmer talk about it, it is not the first time. Zimmer didn't make an excuse out of it when his rookie quarterback was trying to make a final game-tying drive without any decent idea about how much time was left, but you get the feeling that he wasn't too happy about it.

"No, I don't believe so, there was still a quite a bit of time left and we had moved the ball down," Zimmer said. "But it's another new experience when . . . I mean it's hard to know when . . . because no one is telling you how much time is left and you know . . . the clocks here are [expletive deleted]. I mean the whole day the whole thing was going out, so it's just another thing."

With a 4-6 record, six games remaining and the high-flying Green Bay Packers coming to town next week, the Vikings playoff chances are not mathematically gone, but should be ending very soon. Winning out would give them a 10-6 record, which might give them a chance at a Wild Card, but last season the wild card teams were 11-5 and 12-4. The Packers and Lions have a three-game lead and a game in hand for the division. But after what we saw in Chicago on Sunday, it's time to start looking for improvement rather than holding out hope for the postseason. The Vikings have played better than they did today this season, so let's hope they do so again soon—or next week could get ugly at The Bank.

Head over to VikingsJournal.com and check out A.J. Mansour's and Arif Hasan's game recaps and then join in the conversation on the Vikings Journal forums, where everything Purple is dissected and discussed.

Joe Oberle is a senior writer at VikingsJournal.com, covers the NFL for The Sports Post and is managing editor of Minnesota Golfer magazine. He is an author and longtime Minnesota-based writer.