Stunned Cardinals dig deeper hole with 30-24 loss to Vikings

VIKINGS came up short in 26-20 back-and-forth loss to Redskins for their 4 straight loss after starting 5-0.

“It’s been a long, long, long month, but it’s good to feel this again”, Minnesota coach Mike Zimmer said. It’s easy for guys in his situation to not have that mindset and not work hard.

“Yeah, we were moving it well”, Johnson said of his first-half rushing total. They had to do the same after Thielen initially was ruled out of bounds on a 16-yard TD pass from Bradford that gave them a 7-0 lead in he first quarter.

SANTA CLARA Tom Brady threw for 280 yards and four touchdowns and the New England Patriots beat San Francisco 30-17 on Sunday in Brady’s first road game against the 49ers team he rooted for as a boy.

But the Vikings made it a two-score game when Cordarrelle Patterson returned the opening kickoff of the second half 104 yards for a touchdown and a 27-17 lead. Since then, opposition sides have worked how to handle this, with the result that in the past four games, they rank 24th on the blitz, getting just 6 turnovers. Cardinals coach Bruce Arians said he’ll put Peterson, his big shutdown cover corner, on Diggs, the shifty receiver who became the first player in National Football League history with back-to-back 13-catch games.

Andre Roberts returned a punt 55-yards for a touchdown and Rafael Bush had a 39-yard interception return for another score as Detroit downed Jacksonville at Ford Field. Fitzgerald had six catches for 63 yards and Floyd had two catches for 21 yards.

“He had just had two long drives”, coach Bruce Arians said. “We were setting up games, and all that, so we rushed together, and across the line, somebody is going to mess up, and that’s how you get sacks”.

Rhodes helped swing the momentum in the Vikings’ favor on Sunday in a 30-24 win over the Arizona Cardinals.

Vikings slot defensive back Captain Munnerlyn jammed Cardinals receiver John Brown near the line of scrimmage. “He doesn’t sugarcoat things”, Palmer said. “Smokey (Brown) is trying to run an out route and it looked like he could not get out of the grasp of the defender”.

“Other than that, we played a heck of a ballgame, and still had a chance to win”, Arians said. It was nice to see but not almost enough of it in the second half as the Cardinals tried to claw back into the game. The Cardinals, who like to spread things out on offense, opted to keep fewer players in pass protection than many teams the Vikings have faced recently – “They let us rush”, Zimmer said – and the Vikings had the luxury of playing much of the second half with at least a 10-point lead.

“Yeah I think so”, Thielen said, when asked if the win can snowball for the team.

“I’ve always respected Zim as one of the most sound, aggressive defensive coaches that I’ve ever gone against”. This is not an area of weakness and though Arizona have some strong numbers themselves in attack, it will require something special to break through this team. They looked like they could go undefeated this year just a handful of weeks ago, but haven’t won since October and can’t afford to continue this risky downward spiral. And the extra point was good.

Arizona’s defense put the offense back into position.

They surged back within six points after Chandler Jones sacked Sam Bradford to force a fumble that Deone Bucannon recovered at the Vikings 27.

Williams recorded no tackles Sunday as the Cardinals rotated him in and out, but he has six stops in four games this year.

CLEVELAND Le’Veon Bell scored on a 1-yard touchdown run long after time expired in the first half and Pittsburgh had eight sacks and snapped a four-game losing streak with a win over winless Cleveland.

VIKINGS WR Stefon Diggs had 13-164 receiving on 15 targets in Week 10 loss. He was 16-32 in three years with Arizona.