The Minnesota Vikings edged the New York Giants 16-13 on December 21 at MetLife Stadium, but the victory came with setbacks. Key players J.J. McCarthy, Ryan Kelly, and Jordan Mason all suffered injuries and were unable to return for the second half.
Several other Minnesota players are also dealing with injuries, including Vikings running back Aaron Jones Sr., who hurt his ankle and occasionally limped during the game. Despite Mason being sidelined with an injury, Jones stayed on the field and continued playing.
Despite facing a depleted Vikings team, the Giants did little to secure the win, recording just 13 net yards through the air. With their awful performance against the Minnesota defense, former Giants star Tiki Barber sounded off on the team.
“We need to apologize to Giants fans for having to watch this disaster of a team,” Barber said during a December 21 appearance on WFAN. “This was bad in so many different ways. Other than a defense doing a couple of good things, there are just players you see that don’t belong on this team…
“In previous seasons or previous years, we talked about how bad the talent was. This isn’t a team that has bad talent, even though there are some bad players on the squad. But it’s a team that doesn’t know how to win. And today, it looked like they didn’t want to win.”
Giants Should’ve Beaten the Vikings
Moreover, Barber is adamant that New York should’ve defeated the Vikings, who played a second half with backup Max Brosmer.
“You’re not making tackles when it matters in critical third-down situations,” Barber added. “In the last drive of the game, you basically concede 10 yards to Aaron Jones. This is a poorly coached team.
“This is a poorly motivated team, and it showed up in one of the ugliest games that I have watched from a Giants standpoint in the last three or four years. They should have been able to beat this Minnesota Vikings team without their starting quarterback, who hadn’t even played well for a lot of this game and threw an interception earlier in this game.”
Max Brosmer Stepped Up for the Vikings
Brosmer went 7 of 9 for 52 yards and, crucially, avoided any turnovers. After one of his strongest showings in recent weeks with six catches for 85 yards, Justin Jefferson spoke to the media and commended Brosmer’s performance.
“[Brosmer] being in that type of position, him being in that spot, having to come in and replace J.J. and to lead us to victory, that’s something big,” Jefferson told reporters postgame.
“That’s something that’s very hard to do in this league. So for him to come in not knowing that he’s going to do it, not knowing that he’s going to be in a valuable role [in] this game, that was the biggest thing from it.”
With a short week and the Vikings playing on Christmas Day against the Detroit Lions, it will be interesting to see whether McCarthy is good to go against their NFC North rival or if Brosmer gets his second career start.
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