Vikings Offense Stalls on 3rd Downs Against…

Losing to a team without starting QB Dak Prescott, and in front of a U.S. Bank Stadium crowd, certainly is less than ideal. Especially ahead of back-to-back road games against the Ravens and Chargers.

“This was a tough loss tonight,” Zimmer said. “We had a good crowd; it was loud. Home, prime-time game. And we had plenty of opportunities to win that football game, and we didn’t do it.”

Zimmer’s postgame message to the team, Thielen said, was simple: Put teams away.

“Every game, we just hang around, hang around, hang around. Let the team hang around. Instead of just putting our foot on the gas and goin’,” Thielen said. “We score on that first drive, you’ve gotta put the foot on the gas. I don’t know what we need to do [to do] that, but we can’t just say it. Because we’ve been saying that since Week 1.

“We’ve got to find a way collectively, as an entire team, again, look ourselves all in the mirror and say, ‘What can we do to not do that?’ ” Thielen continued. “Because we know what we need to do, right? But it’s easy to say, and you need to go out and find a way to do that. You’ve got to talk about how you’re going to do that and have a plan for that, and that starts with each one of us individually.”

The Vikings did have one final shot at making something happen inside the last minute of the game. Cousins has helped lead successful 2-minute (or less-than) drives more than once this season, but nothing went right this time around.