Vikings come all too close to second-biggest blown lead in NFL history

Before their improbable loss to the Lions last Sunday, the 2021 Vikings had established at least a seven-point lead in each game, and had a 5-6 record to show for it. So, it’s not as if Mike Zimmer’s team has been immune to heartbreaking losses.

On Thursday night, Zimmer and his team came all too close to making regular-season NFL history. When Greg Joseph kicked a 25-yard field goal with 6:15 left in the third quarter, Minnesota had a 29-0 lead against a Steelers offense that couldn’t get anything going, and a Steelers defense that allowed Dalvin Cook to run through it with absolute impunity.

And then, as has happened all season, things changed all too quickly for the Vikings.

Pittsburgh scored four touchdowns in less than a quarter of football, Kirk Cousins threw two interceptions to cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon, and Minnesota managed just one more touchdown — a 62-yard touchdown pass from Cousins to receiver K.J. Osborn.

It was that play that saved the Vikings from the wrong side of the biggest regular-season comeback in NFL history.

It put the Vikings up, 36-20, and gave them enough room to withstand Ben Roethlisberger’s 15-yard touchdown pass to tight end Pat Freiermuth with 4:14 left in the game.

The Vikings were unable to get past their own 45-yard line on their next drive, but when Jordan Berry executed an outstanding punt to pin the Steelers at their own three-yard line, you would think that even the Vikings were safe.

Not so fast, as they say. Roethlisberger carved Minnesota’s defense right up on the Steelers’ last drive, and with three seconds left in the game, he threw an absolute time to Freiermuth that the rookie just couldn’t hold onto. Vikings safety Harrison Smith saved what would have been a tie with a two-point conversion.

If the Steelers had scored the touchdown and two-point conversion at the end of regulation, and won in overtime, it would have marked the biggest comeback in any regular-season game in NFL history, topping the 1980…