Thursday night was the 25th anniversary of Game 7 of the Twins-Cardinals World Series. It was the night Matt Blair would go in the Vikings Ring of Honor. The NFL season thus far on Thursday night’s has the home team only losing once. All this and the end result was seeing mass exit early in the 4th quarter as fans were making their way home after a disappointing performance.
It was history in Minnesota football as they hosted their first home game featured on the NFL Network. The atmosphere was just had a different feeling than normal. The crowd was the biggest of the year.
One of the best experiences of the night cane early as I went down to where the NFL Network panel of experts were on stage. It was awesome to see the cast live seeing ex- NFL stars and coach with Steve Mariucci, LaDanian Tomlinson, Michael Irvin, Deion Sanders on stage.
The game itself started with the blowing of the Gjallarhorn by Matt Blair who also served as the honorary team captain for the coin toss. Who can ever forget Blair and how good he was at blocking kicks. He blocked 20 in his career. Will that feat ever be accomplished in our lifetime? He was certainly special and a great Vikings linebacker as well.
The opening kickoff by Tampa Bay’s Michael Koenen was booted out of the end zone and with that a chorus of boos rang throughout the Dome. The crowd I believe was anticipating Percy bringing down the roof with a huge return on national TV.
The first 3 drives by Minnesota totaled 6 yards with drives of 8, 5, and -7 yards in a total of 3 minutes and 43 seconds was so hard to watch and hearing boos get louder each failure. I was even hearing chants of Webb, Webb, Webb in the upper deck.
The touchdown pass from Ponder to Percy Harvin was a thing of beauty and leaves you wishing it could happen more often. The chants again rang out from the upper deck except this time the chant was MVP, MVP, MVP referring to Harvin and everything he has done for this team so far this year.
Halftime came and being down only 10 I really felt the team had a chance. If only the Vikings could come out and shut the Buccaneer’s first drive down and get the ball back. Wow, 1:30 into the second half and there goes Bucs running back Doug Martin with a 64 yard screen pass. Can you say emotional deflation?
This is 2 weeks a row a little back has really hurt the Vikings. Cardinal’s Stephen-Howling standing in at 5’7” and then Bucs Martin 5’9”. These 2 guys really gave the Vikings defense fits
Bucs leading 30-10 and kickoff specialist Michael Koenen had frustrated Harvin all night as I watched Percy try all night to keep the ball from going out of the end zone. Time after time he slammed the ball down frustrated with no returns. Then an oddity Koenen kicked one that Harvin could return and he gave the Vikings good field position. It seemed to spark the offense because not to long after there goes AP on a long touchdown run. This is the spark the team needed at the time.
On a bright note from the game Adrian rushed for over 100 yards giving him 30 in his career and now stands alone as number one in Vikings history for most 100 yard games. Congrats to AP
Other then the TD run the game really seemed like maybe a Bucs victory until late third quarter when the squirmish between Jared Allen and Bucs left tackle Donald Penn really got the crowd into the game. .It was as loud as I have heard in over 2 years. It was deafening and awesome to be in. The first sack of the game by Jared Allen I really thought that was it the game has swung. The Vikes were still down by 2 scores yet it seemed possible the emotional roller coaster has finally swung to the Vikings.
The offense takes over and before you know it is 3rd and 6 for the Vikes. I really thought the way the emotion is in the stadium it would be piece of cake. Then the unimaginable event Vikings center John Sullivan snap was low casing Ponder to chase and that was it forcing the team to punt. I will never know, but what if? What if the team had gotten the third down conversion? It is only an after thought now.
Fourth quarter I happen to notice with around 7 minutes plus left in the game, fans were filing out quickly as many blue seats were showing around the stadium. What heartache as I really thought Thursday would be much better and even felt a win was achievable.
Yes, Tampa Bay was 2-4 but that is one of the best 2-4 teams I have seen. They did everything they wanted and their defense had a heck of a game.
As we were leaving fans were given a Christian Ponder poster. I have not seen a scene like this since 1998 NFC Championship as I witnessed many car flags lying in the streets of Minneapolis back in ‘98. Thursday night to my disappointment I saw many ripped up Ponder posters lying in the streets.
This team is young and will now have 10 days to get ready for an extremely tough game in Seattle. The Seahawks have already beaten the Packers and Patriots at home. We will find out the character out our favorite team next Sunday.
Thanks for reading
Purplestick
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