The Minnesota Vikings resembled nothing that made them a trendy pick to make the playoff leap in 2015 as they bumbled and slunk their way to a 20-3 loss to the San Francisco 49ers Monday night.
The Vikes looked discombobulated on offense and got gashed repeatedly on defense by Niners running back Carlos Hyde, who averaged 6.5 yards per carry.
"You know, maybe we're just not ready for prime time yet," coach Mike Zimmer said following the loss, via the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Teddy Bridgewater played the most disappointing game of his career, but was under siege all night from a furious pass rush, including some brilliantly-timed blitzes from 49ers defensive coordinator Eric Mangini. Despite the poor line play in front of Bridgewater, Zimmer heaped a lot of the blame on the quarterback.
"I don't know if it was all the offensive line," Zimmer said. "Some of it was Teddy. Probably a lot of it was Teddy tonight. Teddy did not play well."
Adrian Peterson carried the ball just 10 times for 31 yards and didn't looked comfortable taking most of his handoffs from the shotgun formation.
After they entered the contest as the media darling, it was a rude awakening for the Vikings, and Zimmer let them know about it.
"Everybody's been talking about us for 11 months. Maybe we thought we were better than we are," he said.
From the offensive woes, to a defense that displayed poor tackling, to special teams errors, it was the worst-played game in Zimmer's short reign in Minnesota.
"In 17 ballgames here, that did not look like the football team that I know," Zimmer said. "It was a disappointing effort. A lot of credit goes to San Francisco. They were much more physical than we were. That's more of (the kind of) team that I would like to be like."
