Making excuses for the Vikings' pitiful performance in Green Bay on Thursday isn't a good look. You come off as a homer, drunk on Purple Kool Aid. The Vikings played poorly on many levels, no doubt. And while Christian Ponder doesn't deserve the over-the-top pounding he's taking on social media, he does deserve his substantial share of blame.

In short: there are no excuses, but if you look back at the first five weeks it's pretty easy to see reasons why the Vikings have wound up in such a haze.

First of all, take a deep breath. There are still 11 games left on the schedule – whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm not sure yet. But it is a lot of time. The Vikings are off to a 2-3 start to the season – which, if you recall my preseason Vikings Predictions column (and why wouldn't you?), is exactly where I forecasted they would be, with wins against the Rams and Falcons and losses to the Patriots, Saints and Packers. You didn't need a particularly clear crystal ball to envision this kind of start against that kind of competition.

For those who missed it, here is how I envisioned the Vikings' 2014 roadmap:

WEEK 1 at St. Louis – WIN (1-0)
WEEK 2 vs. New England – LOSS (1-1)
WEEK 3 at New Orleans – LOSS (1-2)
WEEK 4 vs. Atlanta – WIN (2-2)
WEEK 5 at Green Bay – LOSS (2-3)
WEEK 6 vs. Detroit – WIN (3-3)
WEEK 7 at Buffalo – WIN (4-3)
WEEK 8 at Tampa Bay – LOSS (4-4)
WEEK 9 vs. Washington – WIN (5-4)
WEEK 10 BYE WEEK
WEEK 11 at Chicago – LOSS (5-5)
WEEK 12 vs. Green Bay – WIN (6-5)
WEEK 13 vs. Carolina – WIN (7-5)
WEEK 14 vs. New York Jets – WIN (8-5)
WEEK 15 at Detroit – LOSS (8-6)
WEEK 16 at Miami – WIN (9-6)
WEEK 17 vs. Chicago – LOSS (9-7)

Thus, they are still on track for the 9-7 finish I forecasted.

That's the tricky part, though. I made that forecast back on Sept. 5 – back when Adrian Peterson was on the team and Kyle Rudolph and Matt Cassel, Brandon Fusco and Chad Greenway were healthy. Back when the crystal ball was a lot less hazy. It's not that I thought the Vikings wouldn't sustain any injuries this season. Of course you have to assume they will and bake that into any kind of expectations you might have. However, I didn't foresee them losing their best player right away and their starting quarterback two weeks later.

In other words, they've arrived at 2-3 as I suspected they would, winning and losing the same games I thought they would. But the road traveled to get here is nothing like I could have imagined.

I have to think things have also played out differently than the Vikings coaches could have anticipated. Yes, coaches have to expect the unexpected, prepare for worst-case scenarios and make adjustments on the fly. That's part of being a coach. But this is a little crazy.

Again, not making excuses. Heck, the Vikings are right where I thought they would be. Looking back, however, it's easy to see why even the coaching acumen of Mike Zimmer and Norv Turner hasn't been able to keep pace with the ever-changing landscape.

Zimmer and Turner crafted their offseason game plan for the offense on basis of their best player (Peterson) being in the backfield. Turner said repeatedly that he planned to get him more involved in the passing game, get him in space, maybe line him up out wide on occasion, etc. Everything worked great in Week 1. Heck, the threat of Peterson was enough. Cordarrelle Patterson was the primary beneficiary. Vikings fans were riding high following the dismantling of the Rams.

Then the other shoe(s) dropped and scrambling to make adjustments ensued.

In Week 2, with a new game plan in place, new running backs in place and a controversy/distraction overshadowing the organization, the Vikings lost in lopsided fashion to the Patriots thanks in no small part to turnovers and a blocked field goal that was returned for a touchdown. You can never plan for such things as losing your star player in such an awful, embarrassing, scandalous (pick your adjective) way. The master plan was compromised significantly after one week. So they made adjustments and moved on like all coaches must.

In Week 3 They lost to the Saints in New Orleans (which was hardly unexpected) but also lost their starting quarterback. Okay, so the guy they groomed all offseason to run Turner's offense was now gone for the season. Make adjustments (again) and move on without the quarterback and running back star. Oh but they also lost their starting right guard for the season, their defensive captain to broken bones and their starting tight end for a few months. Level of difficulty increases.

Adjustments were made.

Week 4 brought a brief return of giddiness to Vikings fans as they leveled the Falcons behind rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, whom they seemingly had to get ready in a hurry. The good thing was that Bridgewater had been splitting a lot of first team reps in practice with Cassel and played a lot in preseason so there was already a sense of chemistry in place when he had to take the reins. The coaching staff had prepared for this scenario and it showed.

What they hadn't really prepared for was losing Bridgewater to an injury as well. Christian Ponder was pressed into emergency duty at the end of the Falcons game and then asked to get ready for the Packers four days later – after he really hadn't spent any significant time at all working in Norv Turner's offense. Judd Zulgad of 1500ESPN and several others in the media pointed out that this would be a problem. Ponder barely played in the preseason outside of a few third and fourth quarters with second and third stringers.

So the Vikings were on their third quarterback in three games – their third quarterback in 12 days. If they wanted to use an excuse, I'd give them that one regardless of who that third quarterback was.

Ponder just wasn't ready. Where have I heard that before? Seriously, few backup NFL quarterbacks would have been significantly better in this scenario with so little prep. This doesn't excuse the horrible lack of accuracy, the indecisiveness and the rest of the Ponder-isms. It was a train wreck waiting to happen.

Looking back, you can only make so many adjustments so quickly. Zimmer, Turner and the rest of the coaching staff kept the team treading water for four weeks, but they drowned in the Green Bay rain on Thursday night after the adjustments fell short and time ran out.

The Vikings at 2-3 have been victims of really odd circumstances. This isn't an excuse. It's a fact, though I really hesitate to use the word "victim." I don't even want to call it bad luck. Maybe it's just fair to say: no team could comfortably survive such a strange amalgam of issues in such a short amount of time. Every team deals with injuries and teams have to find a way to overcome the losses of players like Fusco, Greenway and Rudolph. "Next man up" is the mantra league-wide. But look around the NFL and let me know if you see another first-year head coach directing a team without its best player that has used three quarterbacks already. This is weird stuff. Then again, Vikings fans have grown used to weirdness. It comes with the territory.

They now have nine days to rest up, emerge from their current haze, make even more adjustments, find a way to get Patterson involved again, get Bridgewater and perhaps even Greenway back on the practice field, and get ready for the Lions. Greenway is probably a long shot since he revealed Friday that he's dealing with three broken ribs. Anyway, the toughest part of the schedule is behind them.

Maybe the need to make adjustments to adapt to a flurry of significant and unforeseeable circumstances can take some time off as well. Haven't the Vikings had their fair share of that for a while? Oh yeah, it's the Vikings. Never mind.

Though I think Zimmer is ready for just about anything at this point.

Head on over to VikingsJournal.com for more on where the Vikings go from here after the 2-3 start. While you're there, you can check out Bo's weekly fantasy football rankings.

Bo Mitchell is the Vice President of Content at SportsData, head writer at VikingsJournal.com, co-host of the Fantasy Football Pants Party at 1500ESPN.com and a member of the Pro Football Writers of America.

You can follow Bo on Twitter at @Bo_Mitchell