One of the enduring mysteries to me in the modern NFL is the number of teams who either have no useful or capable backup quarterback (think Indianapolis Colts in the Peyton Manning era), and/or who have a backup quarterback who has not taken a single snap in the regular season.
In the case of the Minnesota Vikings, the latter problem came back and bit them in the behind today, as they were forced to play Joe Webb, who has not taken a single snap in the regular season, against the Green Bay Packers, after Christian Ponder was declared inactive with an arm injury.
We were therefore treated to the sight of a team attempting to win in the NFL playoffs by running the football or via quarterback play-action, with the occasional (mostly failed) pass attempt to keep the defense honest.
The Vikings, lacking any semblance of a passing game, were mostly handing the ball off to Peterson and hoping for him to be able to break through. Great player though he has been this season, not even Adrian Peterson can win a game single-handedly against a tough team like the Packers.
By midway through the third quarter, it was a men-against-boys contest, as the Green Bay Packers shut down the Vikings' attempts at play action from Webb, and held Adrian Peterson to a low enough total of rushing yards, with no big gains or touchdowns from him. Meanwhile the Packers scored enough times on their possessions to slowly, inexorably dig the Vikings into a hole.
The normal reaction of a team that is behind in the second half of a game is to abandon the run game and start throwing the ball. In this game, the Vikings really had no passing game to turn to, so they continued to try to run the ball.
The low-point came at the end of the third quarter, when the Vikings, having stopped the Packers in field goal range, proceeded to commit a bone-head foul as the Packers attempted the field goal, thus handing the Packers a new set of downs. This gift was gleefully accepted by the Packers, who promptly scored a TD to go up 24-3. The sole Vikings TD in the fourth quarter came long after most people had written "game over" in their notebooks, via what seemed to be a blown coverage by the Packers.
To be fair to Joe Webb, the Vikings do not have a great group of receivers, a roster problem that has to be fixed for next season. He also probably had two practices to re-establish any sort of rapport with the recievers.
However, the fundamental lack of game time for Webb all season remains an underlying contributor to this defeat. I fail to understand the reluctance of NFL coaches to give their backups any significant playing time in the regular season. If quarterback is really the single most important position on the roster, then it should have proper backup depth also.