Vikings special teams not living up to name

The vibe felt starkly dissimilar for Vikings players than it had the past few Monday mornings when they arrived at Winter Park yesterday. After all, snapping a three-game losing streak with a thrilling overtime victory on the road can be quite the mood-enhancer.

Coach Mike Zimmer, who couldn't even stop himself from nitpicking Anthony Barr's game-winning play in its immediate aftermath Sunday, isn't the type to come in walking on sunshine on Monday after a long night of watching and re-watching the game film, even the winning variety.

But as far as Zimmer goes — or at least as far as Zimmer has gone in a challenging start to his first head-coaching gig — he was practically beaming when his team entered the meeting room.

"I've seen coach smile for the first time in a couple weeks, so that's a good sign," Barr said.

Still, despite some of the improvements that showed up on tape and the resiliency that the Vikings showed by bouncing back to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 19-13 after blowing a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter, Zimmer wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to hammer home a critical point while his players had their guards down.

So what was it that irritated Zimmer so much that he had to harp on it?

Was it his defense giving up another late lead? Was it his offense not picking up the slack? Was it young wide receiver Adam Thielen calling tails instead of heads on the coin toss at the start of overtime?

No, Zimmer expanded upon the concerns he shared with media after the game about the touchbacks, penalties and other miscues on special teams that were costing the Vikings field position and nearly helped cost them a game they had no business losing.

"We had a long talk today, me and the team, about some of these things that are causing us to not give them the opportunity to win football games," Zimmer said. "We will continue to look at it. I think they understand the message pretty clear right now. So we will see."

In the second quarter, a holding penalty on rookie cornerback Jabari Price wiped out a 42-yard punt return by cornerback Marcus Sherels. In the third quarter, rookie safety Antone Exum got caught holding on another punt return, his third special-teams penalty in four weeks. The Vikings committed a third special-teams penalty on the opening kickoff in overtime, but thankfully for their sake the Buccaneers negated it by committing one, too.

And then there were the three touchbacks that came after Jeff Locke punted from on top of the Buccaneers logo at midfield. Instead of pinning the home team deep, the touchbacks bailed out the Buccaneers and prevented the Vikings from getting a shorter field on the ensuing drives. Locke didn't give the coverage a chance on two of his career-high three touchbacks.

Those blunders cost the Vikings a total of more than 100 yards in field position, which was extra significant in a game during which their offense struggled to finish off drives and their defense held the Buccaneers to just 97 yards of total offense through three quarters.

A day later, Zimmer, still irked by the errors, said he and special teams coordinator Mike Priefer would consider personnel changes, something that should make the young players and fringe veterans who play sparingly, if at all, on offense or defense nervous in the coming days.

And while he gave a vote of confidence to second-year punter Locke, who ranks 25th in the NFL with a net punting average of 38.8 yards, it is clear Zimmer is losing patience with the punting game.

"I really think Jeff is a good punter, I really do," Zimmer said. "I think he is a very, very good punter. I think maybe he tries to be too precise sometimes, and I think he probably understands what I'm looking for now, too."

That's not to say there haven't been bright spots. Blair Walsh, who made a game-tying field goal at the end of regulation, has kicked consistently. The kickoff coverage team has gotten it done on the rare occasion that Walsh didn't boot it through the back of the end zone. And wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson is again among the league leaders in kickoff return average.

But more often than not in recent weeks, special teams have cost the Vikings, enough so that Zimmer felt the need to call out that unit during yesterday's team-wide meeting, in between the few winning plays that actually got Zimmer to crack a smile.

"I wanted to make sure everybody on the team understood," Zimmer said.