Hartman: Vikings giving up too much too early

Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen signed a five-year, $42.5 million contract in the offseason, and his potential was a big reason why the team was willing to let Jared Allen leave via free agency. Griffen has so far played well, leading the team with four sacks, to go along with 17 tackles.

Still, Griffen acknowledged that the defense simply can't allow opposing teams to come out in the first quarter and get early leads, like the Packers and Lions did in back-to-back losses for the Vikings.

The Packers scored 14 points early and the Lions scored a touchdown on their opening drive in only 3 minutes, 54 seconds.

"We have to come out that first quarter and we can't let them jump out on us," Griffen said. "We have to stop them. We have to be able to come out strong. I think we're going to get it. We have to keep on building on what we're doing and allow ourselves to just trust in each other, trust in our team, trust in the technique and what we've been taught each and every play to do to be able to win games.

"I mean, we can't let the team come out and jump out on us every time. We're allowing them to get the momentum right away. We have to fix what we're doing wrong and come out there with some energy and not be flat. We have to come out strong and finish strong."

What's going wrong at the start?

"I can't tell you what it is, we have to find a way to stop them," Griffen said. "We can't let them be the front-runners. We have to be able to be the front-runners, three-and-out or stop them, don't let them get a field goal. It's something we have to change to be able to get to the next level."

Griffen said that on several occasions the Vikings were close to stopping Detroit from big plays, but that hasn't translated into victories lately.

"We just have to keep on fighting," he said. "Trust in your technique, trust the guy next to you, and we have to win. To win as a team you have to do your job, and that's the biggest thing, as a team we have to do our job. We can't fault anybody but ourselves. You just have to do your job and keep battling to get where you want to go.

"You have to go out there at practice and practice better, listen better, do everything better to win games. We just have to go out there and execute our calls and just win as a team. It's not really hard. Football is not hard. We're making it hard on ourselves … with penalties and holding calls and hands to the face and different stuff. We have to eliminate all that and play as a team."

Griffen refused to blame injuries for the team's four defeats.

"No, no, no, we expect the guys to step up and win," he said. "We have 10 more games to go. We're 2-4 right now, and we just have to keep on pushing and bounce back and try to get a win next week."

"We've been having musical chairs at guard," Gophers coach Jerry Kill said. "We have been all right at the other spots, but the guard has been the problem. Joe Bjorklund started there last week for Foster Bush, and Joe did a good job. Right now Foster Bush is still questionable with a concussion. Connor Mayes, who is a true freshman, we played him just a little bit because we felt we needed to because we have so many injuries up there at offensive guard.

"Zac Epping, with his high ankle sprain, he came out of [the Northwestern] game pretty good. But we have a lack of depth there right now, so right now going into this week, Joe Bjorklund is starting. I think you realize how that offensive line is, you have to have continuity up there and we're still trying to find that."

So depth is an issue?

"We're running out of depth, which is why we had to pull that redshirt off of Connor Mayes," Kill said. "Depth is a concern right now both in the offensive and defensive line. The freshman have stepped up in the defensive line and now Connor is going to have to step up in the offensive line."

• You can imagine how high the Vikings' franchise value might be once their new stadium opens if you consider that the Buffalo Bills, who have a 41-year-old building in Ralph Wilson Stadium, sold for $1.2 billion. … The Bills, the Vikings' opponent on Sunday, have beaten two NFC North teams, Chicago (23-20 in OT) and Detroit (17-14), for two of their three victories. … Buffalo had 10 penalties in its 37-22 loss to New England on Sunday and is the third-most penalized team in the NFL this season. … The Vikings have several tickets left for games at TCF Bank Stadium: Nov. 30 against the Panthers, Dec. 7 against the Jets and Dec. 28 against the Bears.

• Gaston Diedhiou, the 6-9 Gophers basketball recruit from Senegal who was approved by the NCAA Clearinghouse but denied by the university's office of admissions, still has hopes to be eligible to participate with Richard Pitino's team in January. … Pitino made a strong addition to his basketball staff when Nate Pomeday left Oregon State to become director of basketball operations for the Gophers. Pomeday played basketball for Kevin O'Neill at Northwestern.

• No doubt the late Murray Warmath, the former Gophers football coach, would get some satisfaction out of the success of Mississippi State being ranked No. 1 in the country after crushing Auburn 38-23 on Saturday. Warmath coached for two years at Mississippi State, going 10-6-3 in 1952-53, before replacing Wes Fesler at Minnesota. Warmath coached the Gophers for 18 years before joining the Vikings coaching staff.

• Jeff Schemmel, who was an assistant athletic director at Minnesota before becoming athletic director at San Diego State and then running a coaching hiring office, has now started his own company in Georgia called College Sports Solutions.

• Former Gophers graduate assistant and Columbia head coach Norries Wilson is an assistant head coach/running backs at Rutgers. Ex-Gophers assistant Mitch Browning, who was here under Glen Mason, is the offensive line coach for the Scarlet Knights.