Kansas City Chiefs 13, Minnesota Vikings 10
The Vikings wasted another good defensive effort yesterday in the loss against the Chiefs. QB Kelly Holcomb got his first start with the Vikings and he completed 14 of 28 passes for 165 yards with 0 TD passes and 0 interceptions. Adrian Peterson was outstanding again with 25 carries for 102 yards (4.1 ypc) with 1 TD run and he also caught 3 passes for 48 yards (16.0 avg). Mewelde Moore pitched in with 4 carries for 21 yards (5.3 ypc). TE Visanthe Shiancoe finally showed some life with 3 catches for 51 yards (17.0 avg) and WR Bobby Wade pitched in with 4 grabs for 35 yards (8.8 avg). The Vikings finished up with 123 yards rushing on 29 carries (4.2 ypc) and they completed 14 of 29 passes for 129 yards.
The defense was great against the run but they made some errors against the pass that cost them this game. Linebackers Ben Leber and Chad Greenway both made 8 tackles to lead the way for the defense. The Chiefs only rushed for 50 yards on 31 carries (1.6 ypc) but they completed 20 of 29 passes for 201 yards.
Defense was stellar in this game. In my opinion, in the NFL most games are going to come down to one or two key plays. I am actually not too disappointed with the performance of this game. Very few mistakes were made and they are who they are. The Vikes, once again, are going to be a good defensive team and extremely weak on offense. The Bears went to the Super Bowl last year on that formula. It comes down to this, the Vikings won this game but the refs took it away from them. Shiancoe caught that ball in the end zone no question about it. When is the NFL going to realize that they are not putting the teams on a level playing field when a prime time game would have 6 different cameras/angles on that play. The reviewers had 1, that’s right 1!, camera angle to review the play. Even though that camera angle clearly showed he caught the ball, since it needs to be indisputable evidence to overturn it they did not. Indisputable evidence doesn’t exist when you only have one camera! Vikings 14, Chiefs 13 should have been the final score.
It is kind of strange how most close calls go to the home team and refs don’t like to reverse calls against the home team. Not everyone is going to throw bottles at the refs like they did in Cleveland a few years ago. The refs need to realize that and call the games fair. The Vikings are going to play a lot of close games this season and they can’t afford to have obvious calls going against them.