Vikings miscues add up to loss

Adrian Peterson put on one of his great running exhibitions Sunday, carrying the ball 28 times for 145 yards and a touchdown in the Vikings' 14-10 loss to the Dolphins.

Peterson ran 12 times for 61 yards in the first half and 12 for 80 in the fourth quarter; the mystery is the third quarter, when he had four carries for only 4 yards. Despite his great performance, the running back took the blame for the loss because he was unable to score in the fourth quarter with what could have been the winning touchdown.

While crediting the offensive line for his big day, Peterson said, "It comes back to me on the fourth-and-1 where I know I have to make it happen and get in the end zone, so I'm holding myself accountable for that.

"[The game] was a blur to me, because, you know, we didn't walk off the field with a victory. It's still disappointing with me that we didn't come up with a win. Offensively, we've got to be more productive. We're beating ourselves. We were our own enemies today in a lot of situations, and we just have got to always get on the same page and start eliminating those mistakes."

Peterson made some of his most sensational runs ever in this game, and he explained his success by saying his patience was the reason.

"Sometimes you know what the defense is going to do, you're going to have to pound away sometimes, therefore you've got to just keep pushing, try to find a crease and then it will come open," he said. "That's what we did in the fourth quarter, we kept pounding it and eventually it opened up for us."

Peterson said there isn't any reason to panic because of the two losses.

Had better start In 2009, the Vikings opened by winning at Cleveland 34-20 and at Detroit 27-13, a total of 61 points in the two games. But this year they have scored only two touchdowns and 19 points against the Saints and Dolphins.

No doubt the opposition was tougher this year, and the team is without Sidney Rice, who had surgery on his hip. But Rice didn't do much in either of those first two games last year, combining for five catches for 46 yards.

Look at Sunday's statistics, and the Vikings had the advantage in most of them: net yards (364-226), rushing yards (156-120), passing yards (208-106), time of possession (35:48-24:12). But they still lost the game.

And a week ago, Miami struggled to beat Buffalo 15-10. The Bills got beat by the Packers 34-7 Sunday.

This was a case of the Vikings beating themselves with the four turnovers, including the lost fumble recovered for a Miami touchdown, and with seven penalties for 44 yards compared to only two penalties for Miami.

You don't win games making four turnovers and you don't win when you don't score on three of your five trips inside the opponent's 15-yard line.

"We had four turnovers and then those two fourth-down situations where we stop them, it was like two more turnovers to us," Miami coach Tony Sparano said.

Hutchinson takes blame The Vikings beat themselves by making a lot of mistakes. No one person was to blame. It was a team that failed to execute, especially on offense. But with second-and-9 on the Miami 10-yard line in the second quarter Steve Hutchinson was called for a false start. Two plays later, on third-and-12, Favre was intercepted by Vontae Davis at the 1-yard line.

Nobody felt worse than the Pro Bowl guard.

"I thought there was times when we moved the ball fairly well up and down the field, but then as soon as we get inside the red zone, something would happen," he said. "... A penalty on me, another missed opportunity earlier than that and then at the end we didn't convert the fourth-and-1 on the goal line."

"When you get the ball in the red zone, you've got to score, and [I am] to blame earlier in the game," he said. "I had an offsides that screwed up the rhythm and led to a turnover. So I'm just as much to blame as anybody else.

"Our defense is doing the job, they gave up one touchdown today," Hutchinson said. "... So when the defense is playing like that, you've got to find a way to score. You can't lose games when your defense is only giving up seven points."

Tough Dolphins defense Speaking of the Dolphins defense that gave up 364 yards but only 10 points, Hutchinson said: "They're a well-coached, big, stout defensive front seven, which you would expect in a 3-4 front team, which you would expect from a Bill Parcells team. It was just different. We're not in a division where you see a lot of it, but we're going to face it a lot this year. Half of our games are going to be [against] 3-4 [teams], and we just have got to get used to it."

Receiver Greg Camarillo, who came to the Vikings from Miami in a trade for cornerback Benny Sapp last month, described his old teammates "as a good team, a tough team, and they came to play today.

"They've got a tough front seven," Camarillo said. "They play tough football. When we needed it the most right there on the goal line they made the plays and we didn't."

"We knew what kind of mentality they had coming in, and we needed to match it, and we just didn't make that -- whatever play we needed to get us the victory," Camarillo said. "We fought to the end, and we had an opportunity there at the end, that's all you can ask for."

Need to score more Right guard Anthony Herrera said that moving the football wasn't the problem Sunday.

"That's the game of football," he said. "It doesn't matter how bad you dominate, how much you run for, how much you pass for, the key to the game is getting points and stopping them. I think our defense did a great job for us two weeks running, keeping the offenses to 14 points. This is a physical [Miami] team that came in here. So like you said, we've just got to go ahead and get on top of it and take care of the ball and score points in the red zone. We need sevens [touchdowns] and not threes [field goals], we've just got to score points in the red zone."

As to how to correct the team's problem of putting points on the board, he said: "It's simple, it's football, we're professionals, we get paid to do this. So we're going to come back next week, everybody to a man, we're going to go in and look at the film tomorrow and see what everybody did wrong, correct it, and go out there and practice on Wednesday and we're going to get it corrected.

"It's a veteran, loaded team, and nobody is going to point fingers. Everybody knows we win and we lose as a team."

"If you think Detroit is going to come in here and lay down, you're kidding," Allen said. "Every year I played Detroit, they come out throwing the ball, and they got a lot better."

On what he thinks the Vikings need to do, he said: "You go back to fundamentals and doing the little things right. The guys that are supposed to make plays have to make plays. No one has to be extraordinary or stuff like that, but you've got to play, you've got to grind."

Allen wanted to give the Dolphins some credit, saying: "I feel like this is a game we should have won, but hats off to them. They capitalized on opportunities, they created turnovers, you know they kept giving their offense opportunities."