Kicking issues continue to haunt the Minnesota Vikings as of late. On Sunday, four missed kicks from Dan Bailey were the catalyst of a 26-14 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, dropping Minnesota's chances of making the playoffs to 22%, according to ESPN's FPI.

Bailey was wide left on his extra-point attempt after the Vikings' first-quarter touchdown and went wide right on three consecutive field goals from 36, 54 and 46 yards out.

The Vikings kicker joins unfortunate company with his historically bad outing. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the last player with at least three missed field goals and a missed extra point without a make of either was John Aveni for Washington in 1961.

In total, the Vikings left 10 points on the board on Bailey's misses.

Even after repeated blunders with the kicking unit in Minnesota's past two games, Bailey entered Week 14 as the sixth-most accurate kicker in NFL history. Last week in an overtime win against Jacksonville, Bailey missed two extra points and a field goal attempt at the end of regulation that would have won Minnesota the game. In overtime, the Vikings opted to run the ball eight straight times with Dalvin Cook to get as close as they could to the end zone, with Bailey eventually kicking a winning 23-yard field goal.

Last week, special-teams coordinator Marwan Maalouf suggested that the kicker was kicking the ball higher than usual in a rough outing against the Jaguars. On Friday, Bailey was asked whether he could pinpoint what's gone wrong with the kicking operation and said he was "embarrassed" by the recent misses but couldn't put his finger on any one specific issue.

"It was disappointing in the moment, obviously, and just overall," Bailey said. "Because more than anything, obviously, it has a real effect on the game -- clearly. But it's frustrating in the sense that you put in all this work, I feel like I've been hitting the ball well -- not only in practice but during the season -- so to go out there and perform that way was a little frustrating, obviously. For myself and everybody else, too, I'm sure. But you have to just put it behind you. You have to find a way to reset as quick as you can. That's all you can do. You can't dwell on it."

Coach Mike Zimmer said he wasn't worried about his trio of specialists, having recently swapped long-snapper Austin Cutting for veteran Andrew DePaola, and he has publicly backed his kicker amid recent misses.

"Yeah, I'm fine with it," Zimmer said Friday. "Dan's had a great year, been good in practice this week. Talked to him a little bit the other day. He's very confident. He'll be fine."

Bailey has missed three of his past four point-after attempts and was 83-of-86 between 30 and 39 yards entering Sunday.

The last time a Vikings kicker missed three field goals in a game happened back in a Week 2 tie at Green Bay after then-rookie Daniel Carlson went 0-for-3. He was cut the next day, and the Vikings quickly signed Bailey, a free agent who last played with Dallas, as his replacement.

Minnesota has two losses this season in games in which it has possessed the ball for at least 39 minutes. No other team in the NFL has registered the same sort of defeat.

With Arizona beating the New York Giants, Minnesota could still get into the playoffs with wins in two of its last three games if Arizona loses out (8-8 vs 7-9).