If the fat lady had sung, Joe Buck certainly didn’t hear her.
A frustrated Vikings team looked lethargic, dismayed and shocked as they slowly went to the line of scrimmage and were still running the ball Monday while trailing the Rams by 18 with 6:24 remaining.
“The Vikings, I assume, are aware they’re down 18 points,” Buck said on the telecast as Minnesota allowed the play clock to dwindle down to nine seconds in an embarrassing 27-9 season-ending defeat.
“I was kinda thinking the same thing,” Buck’s broadcast partner, Troy Aikman, responded.
Buck appeared annoyed with the Vikings’ lack of urgency, adding, “I mean, they’re running the ball. They’re slow to the line.”
The Vikings also looked shocked and frustrated at the end of the first half after quarterback Sam Darnold coughed up a fumble for a touchdown, immediately followed by the defense letting Los Angeles meticulously drive down the field for a score to close the second quarter.
The Vikings never regained their composure as Darnold took nine sacks throughout the wild-card contest.
Darnold lost 82 yards on those nine sacks, the most in the history of the NFL playoffs, previously beating Bart Starr’s dubious record of 76 yards taken during the 1967 Ice Bowl.
While the game likely was over, Aikman and Buck could not believe that the Vikings essentially conceded.
“Just seeing now if they’re going to kinda speed things up, which they’re not,” Aikman said as the Vikings executed a quarterback sneak for a first down on fourth-and-1 with less than seven minutes remaining. “Minnesota has kinda conceded this one. They’re in no rush to get the ball snapped.”
The Vikings head into an uncertain offseason where they won 14 games behind Darnold, but went down with a whimper after being decimated by the Lions in Week 18 and then embarrassed by the Rams.
Darnold, a free agent to be, finds himself in a peculiar place as the Vikings prepare for the return of first-round pick J.J. McCarthy, who went down with an injury that forced him to have knee surgery.
Previously, Darnold had put himself in a position to assume that role with McCarthy potentially on the outside looking in, but the poor end to the season casts doubt on his Vikings future.
“That conversation’s a different conversation today than it was two weeks ago,” Aikman said after the game.
With the win, the Rams now head to Philadelphia as an underdog to the Eagles.
