It also sounds like a classic example of a bad team prominently displaying character defects that contribute to their poor performance. The Vikings also provided another such demonstration yesterday: Anyone who missed the last five minutes of the first half and last thirty seconds of the game could be forgiven for thinking Minnesota beat the crap out of a team that only won two games last year.

Down 7-6 but driving toward the end of the second quarter, their QB lost the ball on a third down sack at midfield. The Vikings D stiffened though, giving up no first downs and bringing the Colts punter onto the field—where Minnesota promptly roughed him and gave Indy an automatic first down. Again the D held, as Jared Allen chased Andrew Luck out of bounds on third and long—then hit him anyway, ANOTHER personal foul that carried another automatic first down.

Minnesota kept Indy out of the endzone and forced a FG with about 1:30 left in the half, then caught the kickoff on the endline but ran it out anyway, reaching the 15 before getting tackled. Three incomplete passes later Minnesota punted back to Indy, whom they then let zip downfield for a TD. In five minutes they had gone from 7-6 and just out of FG range to 17-6 at the half.

The D played a good second half, only allowing one FG, and Minnesotas offense finally got a couple desperation TDs on their last two drives to tie the game with 0:31 on the clock, and kicked off through the back of the endzone. Then the Vikings defense that had only given up a single yard in the fourth quarter let a rookie QB on a team that was 2-14 last year race downfield 60 yards in 20 seconds so Vinatieri could kick the game winning FG.

It should be noted that, along the way, after punting to the Colts 2 yard line the Vikings stuffed a run up the gut for -1 yards then completely whiffed an endzone tackle on Andrew Luck that would have given them two points and the ball near midfield. Bad teams find ways to lose; by all accounts the Bucs did so when they blew an 11 point lead over the defending SB Champs. The finale just drove it home.