The Minnesota Vikings came out on the winning end of one of the most spectacular finishes in playoff history. Quarterback Case Keenum's miraculous heave to wide receiver Stefon Diggs was perhaps the sole reason the Vikings live to see another day.
That said, head coach Mike Zimmer does not want to rely on any more last-second heroics to keep advancing. He acknowledged during his press conference that the Vikings had made plenty of mistakes that could have led to a loss to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Divisional Round:
Article Continues Below“We can’t make these mistakes in playoff games or we’ll be going home,” Zimmer said. “There’s always good and always bad in some of the games. We made some critical errors in that game that coulda got us beat.”
Minnesota had dominated right out of the gate by capitalizing on the stellar play of their defense to take a 17-0 lead at halftime. However, the Saints mounted quite a comeback and ultimately wound up in position to seal the game in the final second before “The Play” happened.
Interestingly enough, it had been safety Marcus Williams who picked off Keenum late in the third quarter to set the Saints up for their second touchdown of the day. However, his costly mistake in the end ultimately proved to be the deciding factor.
As a result, Zimmer is hoping to fine-tune things on both sides of the ball in preparation for their NFC Conference Championship showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles. The likelihood of back-to-back miracles would be highly improbable.