Vikings special teams unit makes another costly mistake: ‘Should’ve just got out the way’

GREEN BAY, WIS. — The game was still well within reach for the Vikings when disaster, once again, struck on special teams.

The Vikings defense had just forced Green Bay off the field six plays into the second half, and Minnesota only trailed 10-6.

Packers punter Daniel Whelan sailed the ball 42 yards downfield inside the Vikings 10-yard line and over rookie returner Myles Price’s head.

As Price went to help pick up teammate Jay Ward’s block, aiming to prevent the ball from being downed inside the 5, the punt took a pro-Packers bounce back toward Price and the ball hit him.

For the third straight week, the special teams unit made a costly error while the Vikings were either ahead or within one score.

Against the Ravens on Nov. 9, it had been a fumbled kick return Baltimore turned into a 19-10 third-quarter lead with a touchdown shortly afterward. Against the Bears last week, a 56-yard kick return helped set up Chicago’s winning field goal as time expired.

And in a 23-6 loss Sunday at Lambeau Field, the muffed punt return extended the Packers’ possession when they recovered the live ball after it hit Price. Running back Emanuel Wilson rushed in a touchdown to give Green Bay a 17-6 lead two plays later.

Price, still half in uniform sitting at his locker, said he thought the ball would head out the back of the end zone instead of taking the roughly 5-yard bounce it did.

“I guess you could say luck, whatever you want to call it,” Price said. “I should’ve just got out the way.”

Outside of the muffed return, the special teams unit played serviceably against the Packers.

Price had two kick returns and a fair catch after the muff. He had one punt return and one kick return previously, too, and came out averaging 24.3 kick return yards with a long of 29 yards.

Price’s fellow rookie Tai Felton also logged a 21-yard kick return.

“Situations like that, it’s a funny-shaped ball,” DePaola said. “It’s gonna bounce, who knows where, and just try to tell him that. ... Sometimes the ball just takes a funny bounce and that stuff happens. It’s football.”

Vikings kicker Will Reichard and punter Ryan Wright carried their weight, too.

Reichard made two field goals of longer than 50 yards, including a 59-yarder 10 seconds before halftime that narrowed the Packers’ lead to 10-6.

DePaola said Vikings coaches deliberated whether to send Reichard on to attempt the kick, but his teammates knew immediately it was the right call.

Reichard said he had to “get after” the kick a bit at that distance because of the wind and cold but that he had felt comfortable from 55 with a few yards to spare kicking that direction in warmups.

He also hit a 59-yarder outdoors at Soldier Field in Week 1, and he has made a 62-yarder and another 59-yarder indoors at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“Try to treat every kick like it’s the same,” Reichard said. “Go out there and try to execute as best as I can. Don’t try to make anything too complicated, just try to go out there and do my job for our team.”

Wright, meanwhile, averaged 55.5 yards on four punts and dropped two inside the 20. The Packers started inside Vikings territory off a punt only once, in the fourth quarter.

Singular special teams mistakes would, in many other games and seasons, not be as costly as they have been for the Vikings recently, especially when the rest of the unit’s play was solid.

With quarterback J.J. McCarthy still struggling, though, the Vikings are expecting every other player in every other phase to be their best in order to succeed.

“But it does require as a football team not doing things that lose games,” O’Connell said, pointing to the special teams turnover. “As some of those things happen, or you start stacking negatives, that becomes incredibly difficult for any quarterback, never mind a guy still in his single-digit world of career starts and all that.”