In a dismal 24-13 loss to former division rival, the Tampa Bay Bucaneers, our Minnesota Vikings show how to really mess up, getting whooped by a typically much lesser team.

We arrived a little early to the Metrodome; in part because the wife wanted some serious game food, and because we expected longer entry times because of the new NFL pat-down to get into the stadium. The pat-down turned out to be little more than it was before, so we were in pretty fast.

We share our season tickets with another couple we're friends with. The girls were happy to be so inside quickly, so they sent their men to the seats and set off to find the grub.

The two of us made our way to the seats, where we again reveled in being dead on the 50-yard line. Granted, we're 26 rows up on the second deck, but the view is still great. We bandied about some of the players, and I sadly admitted that I came to the games for the action on the field and the interaction with our pals. I used to be something of a baseball fan, but I've lost all time to be able to track these things. I keep up with the names, mostly, and like the game excerpts shown on ESPN.

The girls arrived just before some of the pre-game festivities, and we set to munching on brats, Chicago-style dogs, fries, and whatnot to sate our game-food desires.

A pleasant surprise arrived when the seat next to me was occupied by the girl child's volleyball team's head coach. We like her. We knew she'd been in or near our seats last year (we could see her from our other seats), but feared that she'd moved somewhere else, freeing her seats for us to have this year. Nope, she sits right next to me, and asked that we please keep our tickets for the big rivalry game against the Green Bay Packers. Of course we will. Duh!

Since it's September 11, there was a lot of patriotic rallying, including a rendition of Proud to be an American by a member of the local Army National Guard band, backed by the University of Minnesota Marching Band. There was the now ubiquitous unfurling of the 50-yard long American flag by a couple dozen service members. We, and I believe all of the stadiums, joined in watching Mrs and Mr Jessica Simpson sing America the Beautiful.

The field cleared for the introductions of the team. The unnecessary "boo" for the visitors (hey, if they weren't here to play, we wouldn't be here to watch), with a bigger "boo" for former Viking Chris Hovan. This I also don't understand; he was released by the team, and found another with which to continue playing. I'm not so sure of the specifics, but either he was released and found the gig on his own, or he was traded, whether he liked it or not. No need to "boo." He was well liked as a Viking; surely he earned some respect as a player.

The Vikings came onto the field with a miserable introduction. In the middle of the season last year someone came up with the idea to shout the first name of the starting line (either offense or defense) and some special players (the quarterback Daunte Culpepper is introduced at every game), and hope the crowd shouts the last name in a roar. The problem is that so many of the people can't hear the crappy PA system, either because it's still resonating from the previous bits of speech, or because it's being drowned out by the concussion of the "Viking drums" being played during the introduction, or because all of that is being drowned out by the cheers, clapping, and shouting of the crowd. Add to that the poor timing of the Jumbotron prompts, still showing the photo of the previously introduced player, or incorrectly displaying the last name of the next player to be introduced, the poor sap being introduced is only introduced by half... From the booming loud speaker, imagine a syncopated drum beat and clapping, over which is a resonating "at num-at-num ber-ele-num-ber ele-ven-ber ven-ber ber-dau dau-nte nte..." after which the crowd cheers and claps louder, instead of shouting a chorus of "Culpepper." I hope they stop trying, or get a better PA setup.

The introductions settle, the bands retake the field, and both play a soothing rendition of the National Anthem while the University of Minnesota chorus sings it. We were, of course, invited to sing along, but the tempo is off, and they didn't invite us to practice. Oh well. The bands rush off the field, and the players come out for the toss.

The Vikings loose the coin toss, and the Bucaneers choose to receive. During the toss, the Viking who's supposed to choose which side from which we'd like to start answers a sullen "it doesn't matter," that barely makes it over the loudspeakers, thankfully. They sort it out, and decide to go from my right to left.

The Vikings have had a kicker problem for the few years since the most revered Gary Anderson retired. Gary Anderson, who once had a perfect season until the final play of a playoff game keeping the Vikings out of the Super Bowl, still has the love and affection of current Vikings fans, even lukewarm ones like myself. Since he's retired, and we traded Mitch Berger (lovingly known as the Snicker-kicker after the cam caught him snacking between plays), we've had some horrible kicking. This game was remarkably strong in all aspects of kicking. The opening kick-off was deep, and the Vikings stopped them deep in their territory.

The Vikings defense performed incredibly well, too. This has been a weak point in years past, too. The offense has been well taken care of with tremendous receivers, like the recently traded Randy Moss (nope, I don't miss him) and the usually astounding Daunte Culpepper. When the offense is allowed to play, they usually put some serious points on the board. However, the defense had not been so good at stopping the opposition from also scoring some serious points. It was not uncommon to have a game with ten or more touchdowns between the teams.

Not today. The defense came to play. They stopped the Bucs fast on the first drive. Kept them short, I think even denying them a first-down on their opening drive. Should have been greatly demoralizing. They punted deep, but we brought it back closer to the middle of the field.

The offense started out not quite on. The running game was stuffed from the first play. Sadly, throughout the game, the run was tried on nearly every first-down situation. On every first-down run attempt, the Vikings were held to a few yards or less, often ending up behind the line of scrimage. What was up with that? The Vikings stormed into Bucs territory, and looked good to score, until the interception was thrown instead of the touchdown pass it was supposed to be.

The defense came back and held them off, answering with a phenomenal interception of our own, except ours was run back nearly 80 yards for a touchdown.

This, sadly set the pace for the game. The defense was on the field nearly the whole first half. The offense had a hard time converting anything to a first-down. The running game was stuffed completely.

Where is the weakness? One could argue some of the players were probably not the best choices. We started with a rookie offensive lineman that just got beat up, leading to the collapse of the pocket with every play. The starting running back has two arguably better running backs behind him in the line up; sure for that, he's just in on the first play, and they'll all get to play. Our receivers have been questioned since the departure of Randy Moss, but we've got three or four fine veteran players, all capable of making good receptions. It's hard to really blame the players, even the rookie.

The coaches should carry the heavier burden here. Long have we fans lamented that the worst problem is the inability to adapt. The poor rookie offensive lineman was left in the whole first half, ostensibly leading to the collapse of our first-half offense. The offensive line looked better in the second half, but I think the damage to morale was already done.

The run was stuffed nearly every time. I think the game ended with something dismal like 50 yards of rushing. That's what would normally be the rushing yards for the guy with the least rushing yards above zero. Usually they pound out three-hundred yards of rushing, often Daunte himself has more than 100. Nearly every first-down was a running play, Nearly every one of those was an unsuccessful attempt right up the middle; right up to the last drive of the game. Even I could see that wasn't working in the first drive of the game, and I would have abandoned it until we got some threat going in the air so they'd have to open their defense some.

The receiving plays seemed to be poorly called, too. I understamdand that much of the decision making relies on reads on the field by the center and quarterback, and that the all-too-frequent failure of the pocket rushed the quarterback. Last year, before he was injured, the go-to guy in a crunch was Moss. That bit I'll miss a little. This year, however, there's a lot of good hands, and since the one-man show isn't there to be double- and triple-covered, the defense should have been spread out more. Instead, the calls seemed to still favor a few receivers. More correctly, in certain line-ups, the calls favored obvious receivers.

Even though today the defense shined, there's usually a coaching failure there, too. The too-often poorly chosen prevent or man defense is cause for much of the failure when the defense does fail. Today, the defense didn't fail much. Some fatigue started to show at the end of each half, more in the first than the second, but, thankfully, the Bucaneer offensive line was also starting to show fatigue.

I think every professional athlete should be able to play the entirety of their sport's time; I realize it's brutally hard work. It is what they chose to do, and if it was my profession, conditioning would be first on my list.

I should think the hard part of coaching a football team would be innovation. They're all professional players, at some level near the top of the game. The ability to adjust to the obviously underestimated defense of a potentially underrated team is paramount to a successful game. The same few plays that get the same few results need to be abandoned for different plays.

Kudos to the Tampa Bay Bucaneers for knowing the Vikings can't adapt. I enjoyed the several times that they would line up and then screw with the Vikings by doing huge shifts. Even though they were the bad guys today, you have to give it to them for the extra effort. You know the coaching staff of the Vikings can't cope with that.

Next week we play the not-to-be underestimated, not underrated Cincinati Bengals. Thankfully I can watch this from home and not be subject to drowning my sorrows in $6 beer.