J. Kapp 11 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 8:33 pm
At the game, with my usual All-11 view from the end zone, 40th row. LOVE those seats.
Guys, don’t kid yourselves. Detroit is better than they’ve been in a long time. They’re VERY physical, especially in the defensive backfield. Honestly, the refs could’ve called them for holding, illegal contact or DPI on virtually every play. I was watching JJ a lot … he was being pressed, and he couldn’t break free. Thielen was held on almost every route he ran. It was frustrating, but credit to Dan Campbell. It’s almost as if his strategy was “we’re going to knock them around and count on the officials ‘letting them play.’”
I know a lot of you were ticked with Cousins. From where I sat, again from a perfect all-22 position, he had very few open receivers. The O-line did a decent job keeping him clean, but again the Lions were very physical in the secondary. Cousins did overthrow KJ Osborn on a sure TD I believe in the second quarter, but for the most part, he didn’t have many guys running free.
A lot of credit needs to go to KOC. He adjusted his game plan, not only from the Philly game, but also as this game rolled along. He could see they were running JJ off his routes, so he got Thielen some targets, the tight ends some targets, and Osborn late. He also got the running game back on track. Ben Leber interviewed KOC for the radio after the game and found that KOC and Wes Phillips were actually redesigning plays on the fly and even drawing up new ones. We never had that with the Kubiaks, Stefanski, Flip or Norv.
Mostly I’m happy that the Vikings overcame adversity. They got their butts kicked at Philly, and it didn’t look good early in this game. But they stayed with it and pulled out a tough division game. Need to improve some things before the Saints game. We had a heck of a time getting pressure on Goff … need to get pressure on Winston, who is very turnover prone when flushed.
Finally, a tip of the cap in thanks to Dan Campbell. The decision to try the long field goal was monumentally stupid, and the timeout he called after the 29-yard completion to KJ was a real head scratcher. Why let the Vikings regroup after a completion with the clock running? We likely would have clocked it there anyway. It looks to me that Campbell operates a lot on emotion. I’ll take it.
Bottom line: We’re 2-1 and in first place in a division that might not be as weak as the prognosticators thought. Now let’s beat the hated Saints.