Monday night was a struggle for the Vikings, who made the critical mistake of throwing new quarterback Josh Freeman into the fire too soon. They also failed to feed Adrian Peterson the ball enough -- just 13 carries for 28 yards -- which didn't seem to sit well with Peterson.
Not that AP would ever actually complain, but he did note after the game that the Vikes were "out of whack" and called Monday's disaster "tough sledding."
"It was definitely tough sledding," Peterson said. "We just really couldn't get anything established up front, and that's where everything starts. We're just kind of out of whack. [The Giants] were bringing some stunts and a lot of movement up front. Nothing we haven't seen before, but it kind of put us in an uncomfortable position and we just struggled with that all night."
Anything, perhaps, more specific from Peterson when it comes to the Vikings offensive play? Why, yes, yes there was.
"One thing I'm going to stress on is being more physical as an offensive unit," Peterson said. "Definitely be more physical. We were more physical last year. And that's one thing that stands out this year."
In my mind being more physical equates directly to running the ball more. I get that Peterson wasn't running effectively on Monday night, but the Vikings didn't ever give him a chance to get into rhythm. Peterson ran the ball on consecutive plays exactly one time Monday night. That makes zero sense.
And the running back doesn't want to pin anything on the offensive line but did note they're "just kind of in a funk" at the moment.
"It's a struggle and I've seen these guys before and I know they can do it," Peterson said. "They're just kind of in a funk. They make good plays as well, but there are plays where we just don't execute like position-wise. We just can't focus on the offensive line. There are a lot of things we can do as an offensive unit as well."
One of those things is feeding freaking Adrian Peterson. With Freeman struggling badly on Monday night but the Giants unable to really put any distance between them, it opened up the Vikings to let Peterson run wild and try to establish a ground game against a bad defense.
They didn't do that. Hopefully if they keep failing in that respect, Peterson will be even more forthright about his displeasure.
