The Vikings prepared themselves for what might happen in the final seconds of Thursday night's 23-20 loss to Arizona.
They studied how long specific plays could take and where the ball would need to be directed, but they couldn't fully account for how an opposing team might respond. And the Cardinals strip-sacked Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater on third-and-10 from the Arizona 31 and recovered the ball with 5 seconds remaining.
Had the Vikings, out of timeouts, attempted a tying field goal on the play, which started with 13 seconds remaining, it would have been a 48-yard attempt for Blair Walsh. Instead, they elected to try to gain more yardage, but Dwight Freeney beat left tackle Matt Kalil with a spin move and got to Bridgewater as he prepared to throw the ball away.
"It's a play we practice every week for a situation like that," Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said Friday at Winter Park. "They had more people rushing in that particular play than normally when that happens, so that was a little bit different and then we got beat [on the line]. In retrospect, probably could have called something else or we could have kicked the field goal.
"I thought about kicking the field goal with the 13 seconds left on the clock. If we missed the field goal, I'm wrong, we should have got closer. I did the best that I thought we could at that particular time. We've studied that situation many times; to clock the ball inbounds it's approximately 12-14 seconds, so we were right on the verge."
Improved offense
Bridgewater threw for a career-high 335 yards Thursday, which came on the heels of Sunday's ugly 38-7 loss to Seattle in which the Vikings gained only 125 total yards.
Bridgewater was sacked three times Thursday, but Zimmer thought the line play improved.
"Really, the whole team played a lot better and maybe Seattle just did that to us," Zimmer said. "And the offensive line did a good job. They protected much better."
