Vikings coach Mike Zimmer wouldn’t blame the clock issues for Minnesota’s loss at Chicago on Sunday, but the Vikings coach did speak to the league about the situation on Monday.
The end zone clocks at Soldier Field were on the fritz during much of the game, and the smaller clocks at the 50-yard line also were not displaying the correct time of the game. The play clocks were working properly, however.
Zimmer acknowledged that the clock problems made things tougher during the two-minute drill at the end of the game.
“The Bears beat us, it wasn’t the clocks,” Zimmer said during a press conference on Monday. “At the end of the game, during the two-minute drill, the clock became an issue because of not knowing how much time was left.”
The Vikings were trailing 21-13 at the time. FOX Sports Net notes that Teddy Bridgewater had led the offense on three game-winning drives already this season, and had the Vikings moving again at the Chicago 37.
Bridgewater then took his shot, lofting the ball down the sideline, but was intercepted by Chicago’s Ryan Mundy in the end zone with 42 seconds to play.
“Teddy thought at that point when he threw the interception that the clock was down and he tried to make a play in the end zone,” said Zimmer.
Zimmer was much more relaxed about the situation Monday after he used an expletive to describe the clock during his postgame press conference on Sunday.
“I am not going to put it all on that, but we had a young quarterback running the two-minute drill and [he] can’t find anywhere in the place how much time is left, so that is a little bit disconcerting,” Zimmer added.
Vikings tight end Chase Ford said he doesn’t believe Bridgewater would have thrown the interception if he had known he had more time left.
“You definitely need the clock,” Ford told the Star Tribune. “I’m sure if it was the other way, if the shoe was on the other foot, that clock would’ve been fixed. They would’ve found a way to fix the clock.”
Ford echoed Zimmer’s feeling though about the loss.
“Either way, we came up short with the loss,” Ford said. “It shouldn’t have come down to that. We could’ve played better on the offensive side of the ball.”
The Vikings had just 254 yards of offense on 47 snaps, against a Bears team that had given up 50 points in back-to-back weeks coming into the game.
