What We Learned: Falcons-Vikings

Adrian Peterson, the NFL's leading rusher, was held to 76 and fumbled twice. AP Steve Aschburner's Mailbag Submit a comment or question for Steve. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

MINNEAPOLIS -- Five things we learned from the Falcons' 24-17 victory over the whoops-a-daisy Vikings ...

1. The Vikings shot themselves in the foot so many times, they needed paws.

The more desperate the Vikings got near the end, frantically trying to scrounge a game-tying touchdown with 2 minutes 22 seconds left, the more completely it sank in for them just how responsible they had been for their own demise. Four turnovers that Atlanta turned directly into 10 points and that, at the very least, stymied what Minnesota had been trying to do. Quarterback Tarvaris Jackson fumbled three times, running back Adrian Peterson put the ball on the ground twice, Bernard Berrian muffed a punt and center Matt Birk sent the ball sailing past one of Jackson's ear holes. It was no way to clinch a division title, and it will have the Vikings glumly planted in front of their flat-screens Monday night in hopes of a Chicago Bears loss.

"You really turn things into a left-handed game and play football that you don't want to be playing unless you absolutely have to," Vikings coach Brad Childress said. "We have a standard, in terms of guys touching it, protect it. We didn't do a very good job."

The Falcons got all those takeaway points in the first half, grabbing a 17-7 lead despite a yardage deficit of 180-166. Good things happen when you begin your drives, on average, at your 43-yard line. Then, in the third quarter, it was Minnesota's inability to do unto Atlanta -- defensive backs Darren Sharper and Cedric Griffin both failed to grab Matt Ryan's fumble into the their end zone, Falcons lineman Justin Blalock pouncing on it instead for a 24-7 lead -- that tipped the balance completely. It was Atlanta's only fumble of the afternoon and it earned, rather than cost, that team seven points.

Childress was in no mood to parse the many ways his offensive players coughed up the ball, spoiled a nifty performance early from the resuscitated Jackson and did to the Vikings defense what Falcons quarterback Ryan and cohorts weren't always so effective at doing. "They're all different flavors,'' Childress said. "If you had told me it was [going to be] a seven fumble, lose-four game, I'd have probably called you a liar, yesterday."

2. One of the league's feel-good stories of 2008 got even better.

From a 4-12 mess of a season in 2007, in which their head coach walked on them and their star quarterback was imprisoned on dogfighting charges, the Falcons have spun themselves into a playoff team for the first time since '04. Their victory got them to 10-5, clinching an NFC wild-card berth when Tampa Bay lost to San Diego.

"To come from the beginning of this year with all the negative expectations and negative talk around our camp, it feels pretty good to be here," Blalock said.

Said defensive end John Abraham, whose sack of Jackson with 1:26 left snuffed the Vikings' last chance: "It has been a long time, being on this kind of team and making the playoffs. This is my third year here and it's everything I thought it was coming into here. It just feels good to finally get there."

With rookies at an NFL team's two most vital spots -- quarterback and head coach -- Ryan and Mike Smith have orchestrated a turnaround even more dramatic, given the team's history and relatively recent headlines, than Baltimore with newbies Joe Flacco and John Harbaugh. Atlanta has won six of its past eight games, is only the fifth edition in team history to win at least 10 games and could get a rematch with the Vikings in the playoffs.

"We have talked about from the very beginning that this is a process that we are going through," Smith said. "The guys really have done a great job.'' The coach was particularly appreciative of the Falcons' veterans, like Lawyer Milloy, Mike Schneck, Keith Brooking, Marcus Pollard and a few others who paid serious dues to get to this point. "We have the 'over 30' club," he said. "I can't say enough about those men because they can disseminate that message and what we are trying to get out of the coaching staff."

Said Ryan: "Those guys believed it and it trickles down to the rookies, and you just fall in line and you work the same as everybody has worked here since I've been here."

So when did it hit Smith that his team had accomplished its goal of reaching the postseason? "When I saw us taking a knee at the end," he said. "It was a great play."

3. Tarvaris Jackson's season has gone full circle. The high expectations for him are back, baby.

It began with the sense that Jackson, Childress' hand-picked quarterback of the future in Minnesota, was letting down his teammates. Now the Vikings are headed into, possibly, a dicey final weekend having let down Jackson.

Through three quarters Sunday, Jackson -- benched just two games into the season for his ineffectiveness -- played well enough to win. He had completed 13 of 17 passes for 155 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. He also had goosed the offense with nine carries and 50 yards rushing, one shy of Peterson's total to that point. Childress' decision to start Jackson for a second consecutive Sunday -- with veteran Gus Frerotte (and his 8-3 mark as a starter) healthy enough to go -- was the right one and, in this one narrow area, deserved a better fate.

"They wanted to play a lot of man-to-man and my first preference -- and his [Jackson's] first preference -- is to have him scramble," the Vikings coach said. "I thought he broke their backs on a couple of those breakouts, which he has the ability to do. But I thought he threw it very well as well."

Instead of having a lead of one or two touchdowns, the Vikings' fumbles and mistakes forced an urgency on Jackson that eventually caught up with him. Besides the "miscommunication" with Birk, who snapped the ball behind Jackson for a 22-yard loss in the second quarter, his mistakes mostly came late. There were failures to prudently throw the ball away rather than lose yardage, and he missed an open Sidney Rice on a pivotal third down in the second half. Jackson did put tight end Visanthe Shiancoe (seven receptions, 136 yards, two touchdowns) to his best use ever.

Now Jackson wants to shake off a disappointing game the way he learned -- eventually -- to shake off the season's unfortunate start. "The coaches preach that all the time," he said. "You can't do anything about the last play, you can't do anything about the future -- about the next play. You've just got to take care of what you are doing right now. ... I am just having fun, playing loose, making quick decisions, going out there and just being me. Earlier in the year, I was putting too much pressure on myself, thinking too much, not being Tarvaris."

4. Hold those Adrian Peterson-Walter Payton comparisons. Better yet, just hold the darn football.

Peterson, for all his magnificence and even his "violence" as a punishing running back, continues to torment the Vikings and their fans by putting the ball on the turf. After his first fumble Sunday, he donned a pair of gloves. Three carries into Minnesota's next possession, Peterson botched a handoff from Jackson that Atlanta also recovered. Later he had the ball poked out of his grasp by offensive lineman Bryant McKinnie, though the Vikings' runner was able to fall on it.

"Other than the fact that it's happening, I don't see any one thing that is an issue," Childress said. "Whether it's a high-and-tight issue. It's an issue of he gets himself in some different positions. I didn't see anybody pulling it or ripping it or stripping it to cause that. I just thought it was a lack of security and forget the reads and the movement and all that."

Folks who know Peterson have said that his grip, his hand strength, are absolutely not the problem; shaking hands with him is like sticking your mitt into some Inquisition equipment. But the way he tucks the ball to his forearm, and then dangles that arm out, exposes about three-quarters of the ball to reaching arms, errant helmets and stumbling teammates. At least when Payton had the ball out there, that arm typically was near the sideline, where the ball could squirt harmlessly out of play.

"I'm hurting right now inside. It's killing me," Peterson said. "The first thing that goes through my mind when I go out there is to make sure to take care of the ball. The type of running back I am, I find myself out there fighting for yards and that can sometimes put me in a vulnerable position."

5. Gentlemen and ladies of the Upper Midwest, start your nightmares.

It was 10 years ago that the Falcons came to the Metrodome in the dead of winter and spoiled the Vikings' season. That was in the NFC title game after the 1998 season, decided when kicker Gary Anderson missed a 38-yard field goal for the 15-1 Vikings at the end of regulation and Morten Andersen made one from the same distance for the 14-2 Falcons in overtime.

Now -- barring a loss Monday night by Chicago -- the Vikings will face the New York Giants in the season finale for another possible dose of deja doo-doo. It was after the 2000 season that Minnesota, with Daunte Culpepper, Randy Moss and Cris Carter, took their explosive attack to the Meadowlands for another NFC championship game and forgot to pack their fuses. The result was a 41-0 crusher that, in many ways, began a downward spiral the team was hoping to end Sunday by nailing down the NFC North with a week to spare.

No wonder the Vikings were hoping as day turned into night for someone else to do the heavy lifting for them. All of a sudden, the Vikings are Packer fans. "Absolutely," said receiver Bobby Wade, one of the many Minnesota players who will be wishing for a Bears loss. "Hopefully they'll blow it. Where is it?" Told that the game is in Chicago, Wade added: "Great. They're definitely going to blow it."

If not, the Vikings will get that chance themselves, against an opponent -- 2008 playoff picture aside -- they're still a little haunted by.