Tipping their hand

Looking back on the Vikings' 18-15 loss to the Colts on Sunday, one play spotlighted the ongoing folly of the coaching staff's high opinion of quarterback Tarvaris Jackson. Leading 15-7 midway through the fourth quarter, the Vikings faced a 3rd-and-5 from the Indianapolis 31.

Now, on 3rd-and-5, most teams are going to pass, because it's tough to get five yards on a running play when the defense is pretty much stacked between the line of scrimmage and about seven yards downfield. However, the Vikings figured all they needed was three more points -- to stretch their lead to 11 -- so they ran Chester Taylor into the line, figuring he'd at least keep them in field goal position.

Taylor gained a yard, and Ryan Longwell trotted onto the field to attempt a 47-yard field goal. The fact that he missed it didn't make the 3rd down play a bad call -- it was a bad call regardless of what happened on that play or on the field goal attempt. Because by running Taylor into the line instead of giving T-Jax a chance to make a play to keep the drive alive, chew up some more clock and maybe actually put six points on the board instead of three, the Vikings coaches were saying, "We don't trust our quarterback to be able to convert a 3rd-and-5 midway through the fourth quarter as we're protecting an 8-point lead."

And that's just sad. If they don't trust Jackson enough to give him a chance to throw (or scramble) for a first down in that situation, then he has no business being on the field right now.

It's too early to jump off the Vikings bandwagon -- yeah, they're 0-2, but they've played arguably their two toughest games of the year, at Green Bay and home against the Colts, and look at the other teams who are 0-2 today (San Diego, Jacksonville, and Cleveland all had major playoff aspirations going into the season). But the quarterback and coaching staff have done little to ease the concerns of Viking Nation with their performance through two weeks.