Thielen Zach Gentry Jersey , one of 10 failures to move the chains out of 11 third-down plays for Minnesota, two of the team’s best players engaged in an animated and heated discussion on the sideline as the Vikings frustratingly settled for a field goal right before halftime.A duo that connected on 113 passes for 1,373 yards and nine touchdowns in its first year together was struggling, again, in a late-season game to get in sync.The Vikings never found their rhythm, again, against that daunting Chicago defense. The latest flop by this expensive and decorated offense sealed their fate as a team that didn’t make the playoffs, following a 24-10 defeat by the Bears on Sunday.“I love our group of guys, and we weren’t ready for it to end,” Cousins said, “but unfortunately it’s over for this year.”The Vikings (8-7-1) punted on their first five possessions, finally getting a first down with six minutes remaining in the first half. They finished with a season-low 164 yards and took four sacks. For the third time in five December games, against playoff-bound New England, Seattle and Chicago, the Vikings had just one touchdown.Cousins, who signed an $84 million, three-year, fully guaranteed contract after leaving Washington as a free agent, finished with a career-high 30 touchdown passes and a career-best 70.1 completion percentage. He passed for 4 L.J. Collier Jersey ,298 yards, topping the 4,000-yard mark for a fourth straight season.Considering the situation he entered, though, after the Vikings reached the NFC championship game a year ago, the overall assessment of his debut in purple will lean toward disappointment. The only team the Vikings beat this season that made the playoffs was Philadelphia, which ironically leapfrogged them on the last day with a 24-0 win over the Redskins.“I don’t have a menu in front of me of all the tough losses,” Cousins said. “I’ll tell you it’s not the first. It won’t be the last. It’s a part of the journey. You play in this league long enough, you’re going to get kicked in the teeth. It’s going to happen. Tough times don’t last. Tough people do, right? I have a lot of intestinal fortitude.”The Vikings didn’t exhibit much of that until their drive late in the second quarter, after falling behind 13-0.Cousins went deep down the middle for Thielen on third-and-5, when a facemask penalty by Deon Bush on Thielen during the incompletion gave the Vikings the ball at the Chicago 31. Dalvin Cook dropped a short second-down throw, when Cousins and Cook had a miscommunication about the path of the route and the timing of the pass. Then on third-and-6, Cousins threw toward the sideline. The ball hit the turf at the 6, after Thielen had widened his route behind Kyle Fuller in attempt to reach the front corner of the end zone.A few seconds later, the TV cameras captured Thielen yelling at Cousins on the sideline. Cousins shouted back, “Hey, I don’t have 10 seconds!” Then once Thielen was calmer, Cousins was seen acting out how he expected Thielen to adjust his route in order to get open for the ball.“Adam’s my guy. He’s the best http://www.seahawksfootballauthentics.com/marquise-blair-jersey-authentic , and I want to have more of those conversations,” Cousins said. “I actually liked the passion back and forth.”Thielen agreed.“It definitely wasn’t anything with Kirk,” Thielen said, “and it actually turned out to be a really good conversation. We talked a lot about what I could have done better and on what we could have done in the second half to exploit their defense.”Though Thielen and Diggs became just the seventh pair of teammates to each post 100-plus receptions in the same season, the Vikings finished in the bottom half of the league in far too many statistical categories.“That’s something we were trying to find the entire year, what this offense is and how we can be successful,” Thielen said. “There were glimpses of it this entire season, but you have to be consistent in this league. Individually I wasn’t consistent, and this offense wasn’t consistent enough to win.” Zane Gonzalez got kicked straight to the curb.The Browns released the wayward kicker on Monday after his four misses on Sunday in New Orleans cost Cleveland a possible first win since 2016 with a 21-18 loss to the Saints.Gonzalez has been replaced by rookie free agent Greg Joseph, one of several kickers to work out for the Browns following Sunday’s kicking calamity. Joseph won’t have much time to become acquainted with his new teammates as Cleveland hosts the New York Jets on Thursday night.“Obviously, we have to find someone that can put the ball through the uprights,” coach Hue Jackson said after Joseph signed. “We have had this situation happen now for a couple of weeks. We have to keep searching and keep looking.”Joseph was with the Miami Dolphins during training camp and preseason, but he was beaten out for the starting job by Jason Sanders. The 24-year-old Joseph, who kicked for four seasons at Florida Atlantic, made 3 of 3 field-goal attempts in four exhibitions with Miami.Gonzalez’s meltdown in the Superdome was the latest malfunction for the Browns, who have played well enough to be 2-0 but remain winless since Dec. 24, 2016.Gonzalez, who had a potential game-winning field goal blocked in OT in the season opener, misfired on two extra points and two field-goal attempts D.K. Metcalf Jersey , including a 52-yarder in the final seconds — with owner Jimmy Haslam standing under the crossbar — that would have forced overtime on Sunday.Jackson confirmed a report that Gonzalez was dealing with a groin injury, but said he didn’t know the player was hurt.“That was not reported to me that Zane was hurt,” Jackson said. “I did not know and nobody had ever reported to me from our medical department that Zane was hurt.”Gonzalez did not appear on the team’s injury report in the season’s first two weeks.After his last kick sailed off course, Gonzalez sat alone hanging his head while sitting on the Browns’ bench before being consoled by Saints kicker Wil Lutz.“It’s on me 100 percent. Can’t blame it on nobody else,” Gonzalez, a seventh-round pick in 2017, said afterward. “Sucks that we were so close to that win and it’s been so long and just let everybody down.”The Browns were out of timeouts when Gonzalez lined up for his ill-fated final kick with 8 seconds remaining. Jackson felt it was too risky to run another pass play to try and get him closer.“We felt that it normally takes 10-12 seconds to pull that off to where we felt we would have a chance,” he said. They (the Saints defense) moved out guarding the sideline as it was and then all kinds of things go through your mind. He has a job. The kicker’s job is to make extra points and to make field goals.“I think we played it as well as we could, but obviously, always a day after, you will think through a lot of different scenarios, but I thought we played it the best we could in real time yesterday.”It was another painful loss for Jackson, now 1-32-1 in two-plus seasons in Cleveland. There are no consolation prizes for coming close, and Jackson said losing when one element breaks down hurts as much if the Browns had been blown out.“They all sting,” he said. “There is not one that stings more than the other to be honest with you. These things are tough, but we are getting through it. It is a loss. It still counts as a loss, and we have got to get that righted.“There was a time where we were not close so we are close. I feel good about the next hurdle for us — just go do it. That is what we have to do.”___