And none of it happened.
One guy did get close--Adrian Peterson. The Minnesota Vikings did their best to win the game and give their back every chance possible to break the single season rushing record. He had to have a monster day to do so, but the Vikings were still in the playoff hunt. Winning the game was more important.
Against the Green Bay Packers that is something that is easier said than done. At times the Pack defense did a pretty good job of bottling AP up, so the team had to go to the passing game and Christian Ponder (uh-oh) in order to have a shot at winning.
Ponder was on. That kept the Vikings in the game, but it held up AP from his goal. When the Pack started to respect the pass a bit more that opened the door again for some running, but late in the game the man needed 45 yards in order to break it.
It wasn't looking good.
On the final drive it would have been tempting to feed AP, but the game is about wining and not records. In an effort to set up their young kicker with a chance to make a tie-breaking field goal they fed AP a couple more times.
+7 then +4 then no gain.
With 24 ticks on the clock and at least a few more yards to give their kicker a good shot they gave it to him one more time.
And he almost broke the record on that very play.
It would have been easy for him to go out of bounds after a modest gain setting up Blair Walsh for a make-able, but long kick. No! Instead he weaved in and out of traffic till he was finally tackled on the 11-yard line.
The 26-yard run made it a chip shot field goal for Walsh, but left AP nine yards short of breaking the record (watch the run below--it's awesome).
Megatron broke Jerry Rice's single season receiving record last week; this week he was looking to hit a new plateau and break the single season record for most 100+ yard games. Those pesky Chicago Bears were not going to have allow it on their watch.
Stafford targeted Johnson 14 times, but he only caught five for 72 yards bringing his season total to 1,964 yards--36 short of the mythical 2,000 yard mark
I blame the Madden Curse.
It would not have bee surprising to see both J.J Watt and Aldon Smith break the single season sack record. Both were playing teams that were not known for protecting their QBs well. The Cardinals had resulted to checking for a pulse to even suit up a quarter back. Houston had five sacks against the Colts--three from Watt--just two weeks ago.
On Sunday--total shut out.
At least the possibility of them made the final day of the regular season a little more interesting. Better luck next year guys.
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