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While not as flashy as his backfield buddy, Chester Taylor is nearly as important to the Vikings’ success.
Taylor led the team in receiving on Sunday with four catches for 84 yards, including a 47-yard touchdown in Minnesota’s 28-27 victory over Green Bay.
“He makes great plays for us,” offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said. “He has a role on this team. He’s a great player. He does what he does very well.”
Taylor also rushed for 29 yards on 10 carries, a performance that was again overshadowed by Peterson’s 192 yards and his game-winning 29-yard touchdown run with a little more than 2 minutes to play.
But his contributions proved just as crucial. On third-and-5 from the Green Bay 47, Gus Frerotte threw a pass out to Taylor near the sideline. The nimble back side-stepped backup linebacker Desmond Bishop and raced to the end zone.
“To make that guy miss and take it the distance, that was a great play on his part,” Bevell said.
Taylor just beat a Green Bay defender to the corner, but as soon as he dodged Bishop in the flat, he knew it was a touchdown.
“He wasn’t going to get me,” Taylor said. “I was going to hear that for days if he would have caught me.”
It was a typically reliable performance from the super-consistent Taylor — Minnesota’s “All Night” to Peterson’s “All Day.”
“I knew he was going to take it to the end zone,” Peterson said. “I’ve seen him make that jab step so many times.“
UGLY GUS: The brilliance of Peterson, Taylor and the Vikings defense masked an awful day from quarterback Gus Frerotte.
Frerotte was 15-for-28 for 151 yards and two touchdowns. But he threw three interceptions, one that was brought back for a touchdown by Nick Collins as the Packers charged back into the game in the third quarter.
“Thank goodness we had (Peterson),” Frerotte said. “It was a tough day to throw three interceptions and put our team behind the eight ball like I did. I just know we are a better team and it could have been a lot better game for us.”
Were it not for Frerotte’s three interceptions, and several other passes that were woefully off the mark, the Vikings may have won this one going away.
They outgained Green Bay 361-184, including a 220-74 advantage in yards rushing, held the ball for 12 more minutes than the Packers did and gave Frerotte plenty of time to find open receivers.
For whatever reason, Frerotte just came up short.
“Taking myself out of it, everybody else did their jobs,” Frerotte said. “They did what they were supposed to do and they had a great day. ... I do my part and the score is a lot different.”
Nonetheless, Frerotte improved to 5-2 since taking over for Tarvaris Jackson as the starter.
“I know Gus wishes he had a few of those back,” coach Brad Childress said of the interceptions. “That’s rare for him to do some of those things that he did against some of the matchups that we had. But he’ll make the corrections and be that much better the next time we go out.“
BERRIAN SHUT OUT: A direct consequence of Frerotte’s struggles was a quiet day from Bernard Berrian.
The receiver had topped 100 yards in three of his last four games, but Green Bay cornerbacks Al Harris and Charles Woodson blanketed him on Sunday.
Frerotte didn’t throw his direction very often, and was intercepted on one of those tries.
“They are going to put guys man-to-man on receivers and they are going to take some of the things away,” Frerotte said. “We were trying to work other people against them and it ended up being that our running game was the best part of the offense today.”
That the Vikings still managed to win without any contribution from their No. 1 receiver came as a surprise even to Childress.
“If you would have told me that he was going to go into this game and not have a catch and we would be coming out on the front end of it, I would have probably said, ’Not so,“’ Childress said.
NOT-SO SPECIAL TEAMS: The Vikings’ difficulties covering kicks and punts resurfaced on Sunday against the Packers.
Will Blackmon returned a punt 65 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter and also had a 31-yard kick return late in the fourth quarter that put the Packers in much better position as they tried to drive for a potential game-winning field goal.
“I had no reason to believe any of those were going to come back up the field,” Childress said. “I thought that we were in a pretty good coverage mode throughout the day, going down and tackling that thing.
“I’m not sure exactly what happened.“
