Depth at corner is tested after Winfield is lost

Jared Allen ran onto the field in the fourth quarter, looked around the Vikings defense and didn't see cornerback Antoine Winfield. So he asked Kevin Williams if he knew where Winfield was.

"He was like, 'Dude, he's been out since the first quarter,'" Allen recalled, laughing. "I was focused on my job."

Winfield actually left in the second quarter because of a foot injury, but his absence was particularly glaring in the fourth quarter of a 33-31 victory over the Ravens on Sunday.

With Winfield on the sideline, the Ravens put together an offensive deluge that erased the Vikings' comfortable lead. The Ravens rolled up 222 total yards and scored 21 points in the fourth quarter as Joe Flacco completed 10 of 16 pass for 196 yards and two TDs.

"Antoine is a guy in the fourth quarter that's experienced," Allen said. "Maybe some of those passes don't happen, who knows? But obviously their goal in the fourth quarter was to take advantage of some matchups on a younger corner [Karl Paymah]."

Winfield said he suffered an injury to the top of his right foot. He will have an MRI today.

"The receiver made a good move, and I stepped to the right," Winfield said. "As soon as I tried to push off going back to my left, it twisted. I don't know really what's wrong. It's a little swollen and sore right now, but I have seven days to get ready for Pittsburgh."

Nickel back Benny Sapp was dizzy after a second-quarter hit, and the medical staff took his helmet so that he wouldn't try to get back into the game.

"They did the right thing," said Sapp, who was able to return in the second half.

Their absences left the Vikings thin at cornerback. Paymah replaced Winfield and safety Husain Abdullah moved into the nickel role for the first time since high school.

"[Defensive backs coach Joe Woods] has been teaching it to me, telling me I'm the emergency guy if something happens," Abdullah said. "Antoine went down, Sapp went down. He looked at me and said, 'You ready?' I'm like, 'Let's go.' "

Safety Tyrell Johnson called the situation "chaotic."

"We had a lot of guys hurting," Johnson said. "We were fortunate to get a win the way things were going."

The Ravens targeted Paymah in the fourth quarter, and Mark Clayton beat him on a 32-yard touchdown. Paymah claimed Clayton pushed off.

"It's tough being a DB," he said. "The slightest shove right before the ball comes, they don't really call that. But that's really effective for them as far as throwing off your jump. But you just have to keep playing. They're not going to call that so you have to find a way to make a play.

"We got the win; that's all that matters. I felt I played good. There's always a lot of stuff to correct and come back and learn from it and play better next week."

That goes for the entire defense, which again allowed an opponent to make big plays in the fourth quarter.

"I was looking at guys' eyes and stuff and the game was so fast and physical we just wore down a little bit," Johnson said.

Allen called the fourth-quarter problems a "blessing in disguise."

"At 6-0 and especially if you dominate a good team like the Ravens, who knows where your head goes?" he said. "If there was a bubble, it just got popped."