MIAMI – Mike Zimmer adorned the walls of his team meeting room at Winter Park with an armful of purple-and-white signs that boldly state the mantras he wants his new team to embody eventually.
Asked Wednesday what message he was sending to his Vikings players as they prepared for their final road trip of the season, the first-year head coach turned and pointed at the sign hanging over his left shoulder, the one that declared, "Tough teams win in the fourth quarter."
"I don't think that we've done that enough yet," Zimmer said then.
The Vikings made obvious strides under Zimmer in 2014. His reconstructed defense now has a pulse, and the offense is showing signs of life, too, under blossoming rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. If not for a trio of fourth-quarter collapses, the latest and perhaps most frustrating coming in Sunday's 37-35 loss to the Miami Dolphins, the Vikings could be in playoff contention.
But Zimmer's team is just not tough enough yet. They can be formidable physically, sure. But they so far have lacked the mental and emotional toughness needed to close out victories consistently.
"That pretty much sums up the season right there," safety Harrison Smith said. "We've had opportunities to close, and we haven't closed enough times. It's something we've got to fix."
Sunday was the second time the Vikings blew a 14-0 lead on the road in consecutive weeks and the second time that they squandered opportunities to reclaim the lead for good. And like the previous week's loss to the Detroit Lions, this one was ultimately decided on a botched play on special teams.
In a seesaw fourth quarter that featured seven scores and three lead changes, a blocked punt in the final minute resulting in a safety ended up being the difference.
With 41 seconds left, after Bridgewater and the offense went backward while attempt to drive down the field for the go-ahead score, long snapper Cullen Loeffler sent a low snap back to punter Jeff Locke. Locke was able to scoop it up and get the punt off, but the ball was swatted through the back of the end zone by Dolphins defensive end Terrence Fede for a game-winning safety.
"[I] threw a bad snap, a low snap, and it cost us the game," Loeffler said.
It would be fair to fault the special-teams unit for the loss, or the offense for not coming through at the end of the game, but the Vikings were put in that precarious position because their defense could not stop the Dolphins in the second half.
Led by quarterback Ryan Tannehill, who threw for 396 yards and four touchdowns in the game, and running back Lamar Miller, who had 150 yards from scrimmage, the Dolphins scored touchdowns on all four of their second-half drives, except for their final kneel-downs. Three of those drives spanned 80 yards, and the Dolphins went 64 yards on the other. They finished with 493 yards of offense.
"We couldn't cover anybody," Zimmer said. "We didn't rush, and we didn't cover. So that's a pretty hard combination."
The Dolphins got their first lead early in the fourth quarter and expanded it to 28-20 with 6:39 left. But unlike in the loss to the Lions, this time the Vikings battled back to reclaim the lead.
After Bridgewater found wide receiver Jarius Wright for an 8-yard touchdown and running back Matt Asiata tied the score with a two-point conversion, the Vikings got the ball right back when Dolphins rookie Jarvis Landry fumbled the ensuing kickoff at the Miami 5-yard line. Asiata scored his second touchdown on the next play, putting the Vikings back up, 35-28, with 4:35 remaining.
The Dolphins went right back down the field. After cornerback Xavier Rhodes was flagged for pass interference, Tannehill connected with running back Damien Williams for a 3-yard touchdown pass.
With 1:11 seconds left, the Vikings believed that Bridgewater would lead them on another game-winning drive and came out throwing. But after a 2-yard scramble and an incomplete pass, the rookie was sacked by Dolphins defensive end Cameron Wake.
"We wanted to remain aggressive," Bridgewater said. "We had three timeouts. We had enough time to go down and put together a drive and possibly get a field goal or score a touchdown and win the game. But we just didn't execute in that situation."
The Vikings figured that Bridgewater, who was sharp while completing 19 of his 26 attempts for 259 yards and two touchdowns, would get another chance in overtime. But they were stunned by Fede's blocked punt for a safety, which essentially ended the game, save for a failed onside kick by the Vikings and three kneel-downs by Tannehill.
The loss dropped the Vikings to 6-9 and ended their hopes at accomplishing their revised goal of a .500 season.
While shaking their heads over another confounding come-from-ahead loss, some Vikings players couldn't help but think about what might have been this season, if not for that fourth-and-20 conversion in Buffalo and the blown double-digit leads the past two weeks.
But as Zimmer literally pointed out on Wednesday, tough teams win in the fourth quarter. The Vikings appear to be heading in the right direction under Zimmer, but Sunday's loss proved again that this team just isn't tough enough yet.
"It didn't happen," Zimmer said. "That's for sure."
Matt Vensel • matt.vensel@startribune.com