Darnold and Vikings will look for answers instead of getting a playoff bye

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Darnold and Vikings will look for answers instead of getting a playoff bye

2025-01-06 13:47 Last Updated At：14:02

DETROIT (AP) — The Minnesota Vikings will have a lot of time to think when they fly to Los Angeles later this week.

They can try to figure out how they let Sunday night's game against the Detroit Lions slip away, along with their chances at the NFC North title and the top seed in the NFC playoffs.

Despite the lopsided 31-9 score, the Vikings outplayed the Lions for much of the night. They just couldn't finish drives.

“We just didn't do the things we consistently did all season,” coach Kevin O'Connell said. “It came down to being able to finish in the red zone.”

Minnesota (14-3) got into the red zone four times and came away with six points. The team ran 11 plays inside the Lions 10 and didn't score a touchdown.

“You can't go out there and kick field goals in the red zone against a team like (the Lions),” quarterback Sam Darnold said. “Our defense played great and kept us in the game, but we didn't finish when we had the chance.”

Cam Akers ran the ball twice inside the 10, but Darnold was the bigger problem. He completed 1 of 9 passes for 3 yards — a completion to Aaron Jones to move the ball from the 5 to the 2. He missed Justin Jefferson four times in the end zone.

“I've got to watch the tape and see what I was doing wrong,” Darnold said. “I think maybe I could have been a little more settled on some of those throws. I might have been backpedaling or moving laterally when I needed to plant.”

Things were better when the Vikings were outside Detroit's 10, but not by a lot. Overall, Darnold only completed three of his nine passes to Jefferson, two of eight to Hockenson and one of six to Addison.

“It looked like Sam missed some throws high, and we'll look at it this week,” O'Connell said. “Sam has made those throws all season and I'm always going to expect him to make the next one.”

Darnold was only sacked twice, but Detroit's patchwork pass rush overwhelmed the Minnesota offensive line. The Lions hit him 10 times and forced him to rush several more passes.

Meanwhile, Minnesota's defense did a good job of holding Detroit's high-powered offense in check into the third quarter. The Vikings were only behind 10-9 after their field goal with 9:55 left in the quarter, and had forced Jared Goff into two interceptions.

“At that point in the game, we're thinking we can get a stop and another nice drive,” O'Connell said. “If we do that, we've got the lead in the second half and we could see how that went.”

Instead the defense ran out of gas. Jahmyr Gibbs scored touchdowns on Detroit's next three possessions, giving him four on the night.

“He's as explosive as anyone in the National Football League,” O'Connell said. “I thought we did a pretty good job against him for the most part, but all it takes for a player like that is a little space.”

The next time Minnesota stopped the Lions came with 27 seconds to play. Darnold took a knee, ending the game and sending the Vikings to face old rival Matthew Stafford on Monday night. They are the NFL's first 14-win wild-card team.

“Losing sucks, but it is what it is,” Darnold said. “We did a lot of great things this season and now we have an opportunity to go to the playoffs and play another really good team in Los Angeles.

“That's the story now.”

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

The polar vortex brings its bitter cold to the Southern US

2025-01-08 01:58 Last Updated At：02:00

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The plunging polar vortex brought subfreezing temperatures Tuesday to some of the southernmost points of the U.S., threatening to dump snow on parts of Texas and Oklahoma in the coming days and contributing to a power outage in Virginia's capital that made the water unsafe to drink.

The arctic blast that descended on much of the U.S. east of the Rockies over the weekend has caused hundreds of car accidents, thousands of flight cancellations and delays, and led communities to set up warming shelters, including one at a roller rink.

As the cold front moved southward Tuesday, it prompted a cold weather advisory for the Gulf Coast and pushed the low temperature in El Paso, along Texas' border with Mexico, to 31 degrees (minus 0.5 Celsius), with an expected wind chill factor ranging from 0 to 15 degrees (minus 18 to minus 9 Celsius) early Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Road crews in the Kansas City area, which has received about 11 inches (28 centimeters) of snow in recent days, have struggled to keep up with clearing the area's streets and highways.

“I don’t know what super powers some think snow removal teams have but 2 days of straight snow & ice isn’t going to disappear overnight,” the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, wrote Monday in a Facebook post.

In frigid northern Virginia, Carol Grayson wished she had a metal shovel — not her plastic one — as she tried to carve a path for her beagle, Rudy, sheltie, Emma, on Monday.

The great grandmother, who declined to give her age, said shoveling through nearly frozen snow that went up to her knees was “like climbing Mount Everest.” Her neighborhood in Alexandria was once populated with teenagers who’d offer to help. But they’ve all grown up and moved away.

“We’re not used to it here, and we’re just not prepared,” Grayson said.

As points in the Midwest, north and east dug their way out of snow and ice on Tuesday, communities in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas were preparing for their own helping. A low-pressure system was expected to form as soon as Wednesday near South Texas, which could bring several inches of snow to the Dallas area and the lower Mississippi Valley, the weather service said.

In Texas, crews treated the roads in the Dallas area in anticipation of a storm that was expected to bring up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) of snow on Thursday. As much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) was expected farther north, near the Oklahoma border, said weather service meteorologist Sarah Barnes.

The storm is expected to make for slick roads Friday as 75,000 fans head to AT&T Stadium in Arlington to watch Texas play Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Arlington officials said Tuesday that crews had started treating bridges and overpasses, and would have salt, sand and equipment on standby near the stadium.

The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the North Pole, but it sometimes plunges south into the U.S., Europe and Asia. Some experts say such cold air outbreaks are happening more frequently, paradoxically, because of a warming world.

The eastern two-thirds of the U.S. were dealt another day of colder-than-usual temperatures. And the snow and ice in the central Plains through the Ohio Valley into the Atlantic is likely to linger for a few days, which will mean opportunities for constant refreezing and black ice. That could create treacherous road conditions.

A Kentucky truck stop was jammed Monday with big rigs forced off an icy and snow-covered Interstate 75 just outside Cincinnati. Michael Taylor, a long-haul driver from Los Angeles carrying a load of rugs to Georgia, said he saw numerous cars and trucks stuck in ditches and was dealing with icy windshield wipers before he pulled off the interstate.

“It was too dangerous. I didn’t want to kill myself or anyone else,” he said.

Hundreds of car accidents were reported in Virginia, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky, where a state trooper was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after his patrol car was hit.

Virginia State Police responded to 650 crashes, some of which were likely storm related, between Sunday afternoon and Monday night, including one that was fatal. Police said other weather-related fatal accidents occurred Sunday near Charleston, West Virginia, and Monday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Kansas had two deadly crashes over the weekend.

More than 1,000 flights into or out of the U.S. were already delayed Tuesday morning, according to tracking platform FlightAware. More than 2,300 flights were canceled Monday and at least 9,100 more were delayed nationwide.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport reported that about 58% of arrivals and 70% of departures had been canceled. The airport announced early Tuesday that it had reopened all runways after closing them Monday evening so airport crews could focus on snow removal and prevent refreezing on the airfield.

Many were in the dark as temperatures plunged. About 200,000 customers were without power Tuesday across Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Illinois and Missouri, according to electric utility tracking website PowerOutage.us.

In Virginia’s capital city, Richmond, a weather-related power outage caused a temporary malfunction in the water system, officials said Monday. The city issued a boil-water advisory to its more than 200,000 residents and promised to get the system back online as quickly as possible. The advisory could be lifted as soon as Wednesday, Mayor Danny Avula said at a news conference.

The malfunction forced Virginia’s Capitol and General Assembly buildings to close Tuesday, a day before the start of the legislative session.

G. Paul Nardo, clerk for the House of Delegates, told lawmakers and staff in a Tuesday email to vacate the buildings or find somewhere else to go if they were headed to the capital.

“The water pressure has gone kaput,” he wrote.

Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press reporters Bruce Schreiner in Shelbyville, Kentucky; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, Julie Walker in New York; Joshua A. Bickel in Cincinnati; Jamie Stengle in Dallas; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

Read more of the AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment