Uptight Vikings Back In

Once again, the Minnesota Vikings collapsed under the weight of late-season pressure.

How, then, will they be able to handle postseason pressure?

They’ll get a chance to find out. The Vikings qualified for the playoffs Sunday despite a .500 record and a second consecutive December swoon. With a chance to secure a berth on their own, they played uptight in a 21-18 loss to the Washington Redskins and clinched their spot only because New Orleans beat Carolina.

“This team’s going to drive me crazy,” said Coach Mike Tice, in the playoffs for the first time since taking over from Dennis Green during the 2001 season.

“You spend the whole week trying to make sure they understand that you don’t want to get yourself too worked up or too uptight, and you don’t want to go out and play like you can’t make a mistake. When you play like that, you go out and make mistakes.”

And mistakes there were, enough to make any coach cringe. Randy Moss killed a first-half drive with a false-start penalty on third and goal at the one-yard line. Nate Burleson dropped a sure touchdown pass deep over the middle in the fourth quarter. A juggling long touchdown catch by Moss in the second half was negated by a holding penalty on right tackle Adam Goldberg.

The Vikings finished 8-8, losing seven of their last 10 after a 5-1 start. Last year, they fell from 6-0 to 9-7 and were eliminated by a touchdown pass on the last play of the season in an 18-17 loss to Arizona. Tice jokingly referred to himself as “Coach Collapse” last week in an effort to lighten the mood. Now he has to come up with a new ploy for next weekend’s playoff game at Green Bay.

“Most people say we backed into the playoffs. Yeah, that’s true,” Tice said. “Fortunately, we start off the same with 0-0. Unfortunately, we certainly don’t come into this thing with any tremendous rhythm.”

The Redskins (6-10) rallied to give a spirited finishing performance to Joe Gibbs’ disappointing comeback season, his worst in 13 years with the Redskins. The Hall of Fame coach plans to keep working nonstop to restore his legacy.

“I’m anxious to get started. The off-season will be a big time for us. I think it will be one of the most important six months of my coaching career, trying to help ourselves every way we can,” Gibbs said.

Patrick Ramsey completed 17 of 26 passes for 216 yards with two touchdowns and one interception, and Ladell Betts ran 26 times for a career-high 118 yards.