If the Vikings had lost to the Houston Texans on Sunday, you can easily imagine some of the things being written about the Texans being written about the Vikings. Both teams started the season 0-3 and both had been expecting better going into Sunday's game.
So the Texans dropping to 0-4 brought out some discouraging words about Sunday's 31-23 loss to the Vikings, as well as being winless with one quarter of the 2020 NFL schedule having been completed.
The Texans Daily blog on si.com got right to the point in breaking down the game: "Hardly a matchup for the ages, 0-3 Houston hosted the 0-3 Minnesota Vikings on Sunday in what was supposed to be the awakening of this Texans offense. This couldn't have been further from reality, as yet again this deep receiving corps struggled to come to life. ... among other issues that cause us to dump the concept of the 'good' and simply review Sunday's 'The Bad, The Bad and The Ugly' from a 31-23 home loss."
In another Texans Daily blog post, Mike Fisher played the Titanic angle:
"Outside of personnel and philosophy, what else is there to change for a franchise surely aware of the fact that of the last 227 NFL teams to start a season 0–4, just one made the playoffs. ... But right now, the only noise that's audible is the eerie groan of the coming iceberg and the irritating scratching of deck chairs being shuffled."
The receivers coach at a Texas high school went the toddler-as-a-prop route in throwing shade at the home team:
That tweet and others were featured in a Houston TV station's postgame report. Here's one more:
The Battle Red Blog piled on with the gloom-and-doom, making you wonder if Vikings counterparts would be taking down Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer if his team had dropped to 0-4.
The opening of the blog's game thread, posted after the loss by an unhappy blogger calling himself Uprooted Texan, starts this way: "Look, I'm going to level with you. I had a lot to say about the game on Sunday. A lot. But as the day wound down, I just didn't feel like I had the energy to make the same complaints about the same problems that we've seen the last three weeks (last six years, really). It's tiresome, for both y'all and for me. There's not much new I can add to how badly Bill O'Brien needs to be fire."
The game thread and more from a very unhappy batch of bloggers and fans is here.
How annoyed is Houston star J.J. Watt? Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle posted this after the game:
Meanwhile, on the Vikings side, ESPN.com's Courtney Cronin noted that while the defense showed some improvement, it came against a team that isn't of nearly the same caliber as what's coming next.
"The Texans' sluggish, sloppy offense was exactly what this young, oft-injured defense for Minnesota needed in order to gain some confidence, but the same issues were evident. The Vikings lead the NFL with nine plays of 30-plus yards allowed, and gave up a 43-yard reception from Deshaun Watson to Will Fuller V. ...
"Yes, the Vikings defense looked better, but how are they going to fare when they face an electric offense such as Seattle [on Sunday night]? That's the question they'll have to answer, and that will determine whether this week's improvement was big enough to carry over against good teams."