Minnesota still harbors playo≠ hopes

VIKINGS 25, JAGUARS 16

jacksonville, fla.» Just about everything that could have gone wrong for Minnesota did.

The Vikings lost the turnover battle, failed to score twice inside the 1-yard line and allowed a fourth-down conversion on a fake punt. Those kinds of mistakes normally would doom a team. Not against the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars.

Matt Asiata scored on a short touchdown run, Kai Forbath kicked four field goals and the Vikings beat the Jaguars 25-16 on Sunday, winning for just the second time in nine weeks.

“This was huge to win today,” tight end Kyle Rudolph said. “The situation we put ourselves in, we feel we have to win out. You can’t win out until you win the first one.”

Asiata had a chance to score three times, but he was stopped on a fourth-and-goal run in the second quarter and fumbled at the goal line in the fourth. Those turned out to be mere speed bumps against Jacksonville (2-11), which dropped its record-tying eighth consecutive game and fell to 0-6 at EverBank Field this season.

Minnesota (7-6) hadn’t won on the road since Sept. 25 at Carolina and needed to win to keep pace in the NFC playoff picture.

“We know what lies ahead for us and we felt we needed to win this one to get us going,” running back Jerick McKinnon said.

Sam Bradford completed 24-of-34 passes for 292 yards and a touchdown. He wasn’t sacked and scrambled four times for 17 yards. His 3-yard TD toss to Rudolph with 2:13 remaining sealed the victory.

“It was big for us just to get back on a winning track in general,” Rudolph said. “We know we’re going to have to win our last four games, so we needed this one to get us started.”