Patrick Reusse: Vikings both quit and come back

DENVER - Sunday's game made no sense, and it served as the final act in a season that made no sense.

The Vikings came out with a physical superiority that had the Denver Broncos in retreat throughout the first period. The Vikings followed with two quarters of play so miserable and indifferent that it was going to renew questions about coach Brad Childress' ability to inspire a locker room full of pro athletes.

And then, a moment before sportswriters started reaching for a Roget's to find nastier words than "pathetic" -- to describe both the Vikings' effort and Tarvaris Jackson's performance -- there was an astounding comeback created almost exclusively by Jackson's dynamic play.

Jackson led two touchdown drives, capped by his runs for two-point conversions, in the final 8:04 that brought the Vikings from a 19-3 disadvantage to overtime.

By the time the comeback started, Washington was closing in on a blowout victory over Dallas, meaning there was no playoff berth to be gained by the Purple getting so fired up for these final eight minutes.

Did you know what was happening in Washington?

"Yeah, I looked up and saw the score flash by a couple times," center Matt Birk said. "As I always tell my wife, 'Don't worry about what you can't control.'

Once back, Jackson was overrun on the second play of overtime by a Denver blitz and he fumbled. The relentless Broncos lineman, second-year man Elvis Dumervil, recovered, and Jason Elam immediately arrived to kick a game-winning field goal.

So, the final was 22-19, giving Denver its only victory in four games against NFC North teams, and putting the Vikings at 8-8 in Childress' second season.

That's a two-victory improvement, but it was difficult to give him much credit for that for most of this Sunday afternoon.

Chester Taylor fumbled reaching for the goal line at the end of the Vikings' first drive. Later, Troy Williamson did more damage to the reputation of Nike's vision program for athletes with the worst drop of a pass in the history of North American football (Canada included).

Once that happened, Childress' team quit on him -- didn't run, didn't block and didn't do much tackling. The Vikings fell into the 19-3 hole and you started looking around for the Vikings who will be gone long before the first minicamp.

The 72-yard touchdown pass that he gave away midway in the second quarter will serve as the signature drop for both Williamson and the franchise. To show his versatility, he also dropped a first-down pass, forcing a Vikings punt on the first possession of the second half.

Three years. Thousands of balls caught in this offseason. Dozens of hours spent with those Nike eye exercises. And Troy remains a player with either no talent for catching a football or no confidence for doing so when it matters.

He was not alone in his futility. Another player who did everything imaginable to play his way out of Minnesota was Dwight Smith, the veteran free safety.

Smitty was a notorious fun lover and pain in a coach's neck when he came here for the 2006 season. He quickly proved the accuracy of that scouting report, while also being an effective and enthused player.

That changed Sunday. As Denver was taking its big lead, Smith tackled as if he was the Porcelain Man. It wasn't until the misses of Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler turned embarrassing that he hit someone and meant it.

Childress was giving far too much credit to Williamson, Smith and another dozen players -- perhaps even rookie phenom Adrian Peterson -- when he said that.

This was a bad Denver team, and the Vikings were beaten by it, just as they lost to bad teams in Kansas City and in Detroit. And they won at Chicago when that was unexpected, and they whipped good teams in San Diego and the New York Giants.

Those were strange results in a season that ended Sunday with the strangest concoction of all -- a game in which Childress' team both quit and offered a stirring comeback.