Vikings postgame

By Judd Zulgad and Chip Scoggins

The Vikings concluded their regular season with a 44-7 victory against the New York Giants on Sunday. They got more good news later when Philadelphia lost at Dallas, giving the Vikings the No. 2 seed and a bye in the NFC playoffs.

Sunday's game was a complete mismatch as the Vikings jumped on the lackluster Giants and had strong performances from all three phases.

Brett Favre had another monster game, completing 25 of 31 passes for 316 yards and four touchdowns and a 148.7 passer rating. We'll have plenty on Favre's day online and in the paper tomorrow, but here was part of what he said after the game.

"It's been a great year," he said. "I'm not surprised by the fact that we are in the playoffs. Once again, where we go from here, we will see. This team is capable of a lot of good things. To sit here now, I thought about that throughout the whole process of coming back, of what acceptable versus not acceptable (was). I had to be cautious with anything less than Super Bowl. Although that is the main goal and the only goal, but I can't beat myself up. I can only do what I can do and hope that that's good enough. I'm very pleased with where we are right now and will obviously be with each win from here on. Hopefully we have a few more. It sure would make it a lot sweeter."

Here are some more notes and quotes from postgame.

Light day for Peterson Adrian Peterson did not touch the ball on the Vikings first two series, but he said he doesn't believe he was being punished for his critical fumble last week. "There have been times where I fumbled and the next series come out and they feed it to me four or five consecutive times so I don't think there was a punishment," he said. Vikings coach Brad Childress described it as a product of the game plan, but Peterson had a relatively light workload. He rushed for only 54 yards and one touchdown on nine carries, which tied for the fewest carries in his career. Peterson had vowed to bounce back after his fumble in overtime last Monday night set up the winning touchdown for Chicago Bears. "We just had a little different set up and things that we could start with that would work," Childress said. "There is no magic to that, just luck of the draw on how we were attacking the defense." Peterson finished the regular season with 1,383 yards rushing and 18 touchdowns. His touchdowns ranked as the second-most in team history, behind Chuck Foreman's 22 in 1975. But Peterson had 49 fewer carries and 377 less yards than last season thanks to the emergence of the passing game under quarterback Brett Favre. "As long as we keep doing what we're doing and we're winning, I don't have any complaints," Peterson said. One working theory was that Favre's arrival would take pressure off Peterson because teams would be forced to play the Vikings offense more honest. But Peterson joked that defenses still put eight men in the box "98 percent" of the time. "I really feel like even though the running game doesn't see the touches like we have the past few years, I feel like we have contributed in a major way," he said. "It opens up things for [Favre] in the passing game with the play-action and things like that. That really helps him with his reads and puts those [receivers] in one-on-ones and give those guys opportunity to make plays." Safety shuffle

"We wanted to get Jamarca in there a little bit and get his feet wet," Childress said. "He has done a good job with the snaps that he's had. He's played extremely well and continued to play extremely well today on special teams. He's a good ball player, a good hitter."

Sanford made a quick impression by bursting through to stop Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw for a 2-yard loss on a third-and-1 play from the New York 44 during his first series.

"It just gives you confidence to calm down and play, be yourself and just do your job," Sanford said. "I know my role. I'm just waiting and being patient."