Hartman: Vikings offense having a tough time adjusting

As the Fox broadcast team of Tim Brando and Brendon Ayanbadejo noted, the Vikings have now scored two touchdowns in their past three games while giving up 19 sacks, a stat that tells the story of why they are 2-5 with three losses in a row.

And the loss of center John Sullivan and right guard Vladimir Ducasse for a reasonable amount of time won't help the situation. Sunday, they were replaced by Joe Berger and Mike Harris, the only two reserve offensive linemen in uniform in the last-second 17-16 loss the Bills.

Add those injuries to the losses of Adrian Peterson, Kyle Rudolph, Matt Cassel and Brandon Fusco, and you wouldn't blame Mike Zimmer and his coaching staff for wanting a magic wand to replace the talent his team has lost this season. It's hard to blame the coaches for the 2-5 record.

Zimmer was asked by reporters after the game if he is worried about the offensive line going forward.

"My concern level isn't real high," he said. "I'm proud of the way they guys went in there and continued to fight. We lost those two guys [Sullivan and Ducasse] on the same play early in the ballgame and we ran the ball good in the second half and we had some opportunities in there. We played good enough defensively that we should have won that last drive."

Buffalo is 4-3 with three of the victories coming against NFC North teams, as the Bills have won at Chicago and Detroit. And speaking of injuries, the Bills won Sunday despite losing their top two running backs, Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller, in the first half, forcing them to go with Anthony Dixon the rest of the game. Dixon had only 14 carries for 86 yards this season before Sunday.

Meanwhile, it's worth noting that the Vikings running game performed well Sunday, with an encouraging performance from rookie Jerick McKinnon, who rushed for 103 yards on 19 carries, a 5.4-yard average. The Vikings ran 29 times for 158 yards.

Still, Zimmer said Sunday that he doesn't believe last season's results are on the team's mind this year.

"I don't really worry about what happened last year," he said. "You go back and you think about the situations we had them in, had them in a lot of long-yardage situations, we sacked them a bunch of times at the end of this thing, and we allowed them to make really two plays and they hit the last play."

Zimmer praised the defense, and it is hard to blame that unit when it forced four turnovers and had six sacks — those are usually good indicators that a team is going to win on the road.

"Defensively, I think we continue to work to where we want to get to," Zimmer said. "We're young, but we're starting to get a lot of experience and we have to continue to do these things. It's more about where we are and where we have to go."

The Bills won the statistical battle by a big margin: 22 first downs to 16 by the Vikings, and a total of 373 yards to 276 by the Vikings.

Bridgewater showed improvement from his performance vs. Detroit last week when he completed 23 of 37 passes for 188 yards and had three interceptions. Sunday, he went 15-for-26 for 157 yards and threw his first touchdown as a pro, a 4-yarder to Cordarrelle Patterson.

Bridgewater also was under pressure for a lot of the game, with eight quarterback hits and five sacks. It's also obvious he has to learn to get rid of the ball a lot faster than he has been, something he admits he has to work on.

Bridgewater had two interceptions on back-to-back plays, which led veteran Greg Jennings to pull him aside and give him a talk on the sidelines. After that, Bridgewater had his best drive of the game, completing back-to-back passes to Jennings for 38 and 15 yards, and then throwing the TD to Patterson.

"It was up and down," Zimmer said of Bridgewater's play. "He missed a throw to Cordarrelle there at the end [a deep pass play late in the game] and had some other situations that came up in the ballgame, but I thought he settled down better in the third quarter and end of the second quarter. He kind of settled down and was more like him. We continue to have high expectations of him, and so he needs to keep being put in these situations, as well."

Speaking of rookie QBs, it's worth noting that as a fourth-round pick out of Purdue in 2005, Orton was forced into starting for the Bears, going 10-5 and leading Chicago to the playoffs.

Santoso, who is from Pace, Fla., and was ranked as the seventh-best kicker in the country by ESPN, was asked how he ended up in Minnesota.

"A great opportunity up here," he said. "Coach [Jerry] Kill lured me in and the coaching staff was great, a great opportunity to have a degree from a Big Ten school and also to play in the Big Ten."

Santoso, whose longest kick in high school was 42 yards, is on scholarship. That's a rarity for kickers, who often walk on.

The Gophers also ran a fake extra point Saturday, and Santoso nearly had a gap to run through but didn't quite make it. He said the team had practiced the play.

"We had it planned out all week," he said. "We kind of game-planned off of Western Michigan a few years ago when Purdue played them. It played out well after I missed the extra point, we had to get two points, but I guess I have to take more lessons from David Cobb on how to run the ball."

"I got a great hold and a great snap and great blocking from the guys," Santoso said. "I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity.

"It felt great off of my foot. I wasn't sure if it went through, but as soon as I saw the guys in my face I was like, 'Well, I guess it went through.' "

Santoso, who weighed 280 pounds and is now down to 240, credits the loss of weight for his better kicking.