Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

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J. Kapp 11
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Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by J. Kapp 11 »

First, the exceptional
Just got back from the game, my first at U.S. Bank. WOW. The stadium is absolutely spectacular. I wish I could go to every game. First time in my life that the in-stadium experience was as good or better, in every way -- including technologically -- than the TV-watching experience. The video operator was amazing. We had replays probably as fast as Fox had them. The Thielen TD -- it was so obvious it was a TD, and SO SOON AFTER THE PLAY, that I felt completely confident in going to get a hamburger while the ref was under the hood. The video boards really add to the experience. And the atmosphere -- just amazing!

As for the game ...

The Good
Jeff Locke
The guy flat-out kicked his butt off. Had a 47-yard NET today. The 72-yarder was not only a great outcome, it was one of the best kicks I've ever seen. Very high, very far, and over toward the sideline. It completely turned the field and in many ways won us the game. Super clutch kick.

Xavier Rhodes
Easy to love the two picks, especially the pick-six. But this guy simply shut down whoever he was covering. He made tackles in space, he covered like a blanket, and just had himself the game of his career. If he's not the NFC Defensive Player of the Week, there ought to be an investigation. For the record, X-man's pick-six was the second-most exciting play I've ever seen in person at a Vikings game (sorry, but Favre-to-Lewis in 2009 was simply unbelievable). Great play by Rhodes, great call by Zimmer, and talk about a momentum-turner.

Vikings first-half offense
They did a nice job mixing it up, getting a little going in the running game, protecting Bradford, and scoring in the red zone. Unfortunately, it didn't stay that way (see below).

Vikings second-half defense
The Cardinals gained 27 total yards after halftime. Twenty-seven! The defense was back to its early-season form in the second half. Simply ferocious. Unfortunately, they didn't start that way (see below).

Cordarrelle Patterson
This kid is coming to play every game, and today was his best of the season. Talk about a guy playing with a purpose. I absolutely PRAY we can re-sign him.

The Bad
The running game
I don't even know how to describe this ... it's even worse in person than it looks on TV. Other than Asiata's effort on the TD and a couple of runs in the first half, the running game was abysmal. Yet ...

Second-half play calling
... they kept trying to run the ball in the second half, especially after going up by 14. All of a sudden the imagination and creativity of the first two scoring drives went out the window. The tempo slowed, and they fell in love with the Wildcat. Ugh.

Kickoffs
Kai Forbath may be a decent field-goal kicker, but the dude CANNOT kick off. This is truly a problem. His kicks were low AND short. The funniest thing ... the incredible cheer when he made his first extra-point attempt. Never seen a crowd that on-edge over a dang extra point.

First-half defense
What on earth was THAT? Arizona ran the ball down our throats. It must have been embarrassing -- and must have drawn Zimmer's ire -- because they were a totally different defense in the second half.

All in all, a win. Ugly? Yes. Beautiful because it was a win? Definitely.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by S197 »

Glad you had a good time, the stadium is definitely something to see!
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by Texas Vike »

Nice report, I enjoyed reading it.

I can't wait to get to a game in person.

BTW, we could hear the cheers for Kai's first PAT on TV. We were laughing about it in the game day thread.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by PacificNorseWest »

The live report is definitely appreciated. I wouldn't expect to see Locke on something like this, but it's assuring to know that what we see on the telly is what is really going on in the stadium.

Could not agree more with Xavier and CP...Huge standouts today and I'm sure it was much more apparent at the stadium.

Thank you!
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by RFIP »

J. Kapp 11 wrote:First, the exceptional
Just got back from the game, my first at U.S. Bank. WOW. The stadium is absolutely spectacular. I wish I could go to every game. First time in my life that the in-stadium experience was as good or better, in every way -- including technologically -- than the TV-watching experience. The video operator was amazing. We had replays probably as fast as Fox had them. The Thielen TD -- it was so obvious it was a TD, and SO SOON AFTER THE PLAY, that I felt completely confident in going to get a hamburger while the ref was under the hood. The video boards really add to the experience. And the atmosphere -- just amazing!

As for the game ...

The Good
Jeff Locke
The guy flat-out kicked his butt off. Had a 47-yard NET today. The 72-yarder was not only a great outcome, it was one of the best kicks I've ever seen. Very high, very far, and over toward the sideline. It completely turned the field and in many ways won us the game. Super clutch kick.

Xavier Rhodes
Easy to love the two picks, especially the pick-six. But this guy simply shut down whoever he was covering. He made tackles in space, he covered like a blanket, and just had himself the game of his career. If he's not the NFC Defensive Player of the Week, there ought to be an investigation. For the record, X-man's pick-six was the second-most exciting play I've ever seen in person at a Vikings game (sorry, but Favre-to-Lewis in 2009 was simply unbelievable). Great play by Rhodes, great call by Zimmer, and talk about a momentum-turner.

Vikings first-half offense
They did a nice job mixing it up, getting a little going in the running game, protecting Bradford, and scoring in the red zone. Unfortunately, it didn't stay that way (see below).

Vikings second-half defense
The Cardinals gained 27 total yards after halftime. Twenty-seven! The defense was back to its early-season form in the second half. Simply ferocious. Unfortunately, they didn't start that way (see below).

Cordarrelle Patterson
This kid is coming to play every game, and today was his best of the season. Talk about a guy playing with a purpose. I absolutely PRAY we can re-sign him.

The Bad
The running game
I don't even know how to describe this ... it's even worse in person than it looks on TV. Other than Asiata's effort on the TD and a couple of runs in the first half, the running game was abysmal. Yet ...

Second-half play calling
... they kept trying to run the ball in the second half, especially after going up by 14. All of a sudden the imagination and creativity of the first two scoring drives went out the window. The tempo slowed, and they fell in love with the Wildcat. Ugh.

Kickoffs
Kai Forbath may be a decent field-goal kicker, but the dude CANNOT kick off. This is truly a problem. His kicks were low AND short. The funniest thing ... the incredible cheer when he made his first extra-point attempt. Never seen a crowd that on-edge over a dang extra point.

First-half defense
What on earth was THAT? Arizona ran the ball down our throats. It must have been embarrassing -- and must have drawn Zimmer's ire -- because they were a totally different defense in the second half.

All in all, a win. Ugly? Yes. Beautiful because it was a win? Definitely.
I have to believe the 2nd half play calling was by a directive from Zim to Shurmur. You are correct, it was "turtle in the shell" like for sure.

Zimmer has to understand that ANY negative play that puts the OL behind the chains has a 99% chance of causing a punt on said drive.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by Mothman »

Thanks for the great game report, Kapp! I'm glad you had a good experience.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by autobon7 »

Thanks for sharing Kapp.....glad to hear you enjoyed the experience AND we won. Maybe you should go to ALL the home games moving forward :tongue:

Totally agree that we need to do whatever it takes to keep CP on the roster. Even though this game was fugly at times I think this kind if emotional win is exactly what we needed going in to a short week and such a big game coming up. We all know and share the positives from yesterday so I will focus on the negatives.....

1. Run Defense.....what the hell?
2. Taking the foot off the gas when in the lead.
3. Penalties......and more penalties
4. Can't leave out OL/run game
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by Texas Vike »

autobon7 wrote: 2. Taking the foot off the gas when in the lead.

4. Can't leave out OL/run game

These two go together it seems. When we get ahead, we aren't able to run the ball and keep the clock moving. Shurmur needs to figure out how to creatively eat clock with methodical drives that don't entail running our backs straight into a wall. Either that, or just don't change the approach at all. We moved the ball well with a combination of passing and running early on. By being so excessively conservative on offense, we essentially sat on our lead and asked our D to win it for us.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by autobon7 »

Texas Vike wrote:
These two go together it seems. When we get ahead, we aren't able to run the ball and keep the clock moving. Shurmur needs to figure out how to creatively eat clock with methodical drives that don't entail running our backs straight into a wall. Either that, or just don't change the approach at all. We moved the ball well with a combination of passing and running early on. By being so excessively conservative on offense, we essentially sat on our lead and asked our D to win it for us.
This drives me nuts.....I know they want to play mistake free I get that but always letting teams hang around until the end sucks. Our D has been exposed by both good and bad teams so I just don't wanna rely solely on that tactic....although Zim will anyway. Such is life
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by IrishViking »

I am fine with the foot off the gas I think the biggest issue is that our OC seems to believe that running it up the gut for an all but guaranteed "no gain" in these situations and 30 seconds off the clock is more valuable than a seemingly much more likely completion for a short gain and a the potential to move the chains and eat into the clock.

The failed pass to Patterson was crushing because if means they are going to retreat back into the "run run run punt, yay 2 minutes off the clock if we are lucky" mode.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by chicagopurple »

Zim appears to be a stereotypical Defensive Coordinator who gets a Head Coaching Job...no comprehension of how to handle an offense and a fast reflex to Turtle Up the offense with even the smallest of leads. It's like a caricature. He has got to get over this.....I dont think there really is any fixing the problems at RB this year....we dont have the talent at RB or the OL to mask the problem. Its just going to be this way all season. The only place for improvement is the passing game with some good creativity and using the young talent. We are seeing glimmers of it but even that is hard if the QB gets 1.5 seconds of "protection". Kudos to Bradford for making Lemonade out of stale moldy lemons.
As far as kick offs.....why not just on-sides kick every time? Its nolt like this new kid can kick much further then that anyway.... :twisted:
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by mansquatch »

They can eat clock with the passing game, they just need more discipline, ie, WR getting tackled in bounds. Also, better play clock awareness, when you have the lead, every play should eat 35+ seconds.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by Texas Vike »

mansquatch wrote:They can eat clock with the passing game, they just need more discipline, ie, WR getting tackled in bounds. Also, better play clock awareness, when you have the lead, every play should eat 35+ seconds.
That's what I would dial up. Lots of short, quick passes to our weapons (Diggs, CP84, even Wright---where was he this week?, Thielen) combined with a variety of runs. The main goal is to eat clock; the best way to do it is to get first downs. Our OL isn't good enough to simply impose itself, especially when they know it's coming, so we need to get creative and play smart.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by Mothman »

chicagopurple wrote:Zim appears to be a stereotypical Defensive Coordinator who gets a Head Coaching Job...no comprehension of how to handle an offense and a fast reflex to Turtle Up the offense with even the smallest of leads. It's like a caricature. He has got to get over this....
He really does fit the stereotype.
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Re: Vikes-Cards ... The Good and The Bad

Post by Nunin »

in spite of the run games lack of productivity, the only way for it to improve is to attempt it during the game. so while we can bemoan the playcalling it does stand to reason that with all the in-continuity along the line, they need to keep trying to run the ball and work out their issues.

i'm not advocating run run pass punt....but ya know what i'm saying?
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