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Since McKinnon played QB in college and can throw the Ball a bit I wonder what the odds of Norv dialing up a few Halfback passes would be? Could be an interesting Dynamic.

nightowl wrote:Since McKinnon played QB in college and can throw the Ball a bit I wonder what the odds of Norv dialing up a few Halfback passes would be? Could be an interesting Dynamic.

I thought we might see him in the Wildcat at some point in the season (since he was mostly a running QB in college). I'd be surprised if he takes any snaps at QB this Sunday. Game plan was installed on Wednesday with the assumption that AD would be playing. I'm sure Norv will be tweaking it in light of AD's absence but doubt he'll add gadget plays that they didn't practice during the week.

As for McKinnon at RB ... has he proven he can pick up the blitz? The fact that he only got three snaps last week might be an indication that the coaching staff thinks he's got some work to do in transitioning from college QB to NFL RB.

Vikings have brought Banyard up from the practice squad. It'll be interesting to see how the carries get distributed.

More bad news. Asiata gets the start. Hopefully he's at least splitting carries with McKinnon and Banyard:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap300000 ... or-vikings

Toby??

Canuck wrote:Toby??

Not sure if serious or joking?

NDVikeFan wrote: Not sure if serious or joking?

clearly joking

I'm fairly certain that the McKinnon pick was more to shore up after the loss of Gerhart. I don't see Asiata as a premier back, but then we haven't seen much of the man in regular season regardless. Glad they activated Banyard, he has a little more experience.

I still wanna see what McKinnon's got in the tank though.

If anybody remembers from the preseason gameday threads, I'm as high on Banyard as anyone. I think McKinnon is too talented to pass up, but he still needs some work. I expect to see a two headed attack of Asiata and Banyard today.

DKSweets wrote:If anybody remembers from the preseason gameday threads, I'm as high on Banyard as anyone. I think McKinnon is too talented to pass up, but he still needs some work. I expect to see a two headed attack of Asiata and Banyard today.

I'm seeing it the same way. I was happy that Banyard made it to the PS, and that may yield dividends today...

Nope. No Banyard at all, and very little McKinnon.

I would have thought Norv was smart enough to play McKinnon as much as Asiata. Hopefully next week we see McKinnon, Baynard and CP rushing the ball. And mixing things up with screen passes.

I gotta say, it's a bit disappointing that we keep sticking with Asiata so much. I'm not sure what Zim and Norv see in this guy. Sure he usually puts a good lick on tacklers, but what good is that when you're averaging less than 3 ypc? And anytime he tries to bounce outside, he has no moves, no 2nd gear, no burst, and goes down pretty easy. He's ok right up the gut, but you need to be more versatile than that. I hope we see more McKinnon and Banyard going forward, and use Asiata for the short and goal line stuff.

He'll probably see a few more carries, but it's still going to be the Asiata show. From ESPN beat writer chat today:

Yeah, I think we need to pump the brakes a little on the McKinnon angle. He has a ways to go in my opinion before he can be counted on as a do-everything back. He told me today he needs to work on "everything" and Matt Cassel said the same thing. Pass protection, routes, reads, etc.

dead_poet wrote:He'll probably see a few more carries, but it's still going to be the Asiata show. From ESPN beat writer chat today:

Our offense isn't good enough to rely on pass protecting route running read making "solid" players to win. We need instinctive, explosive, play makers to put points on the board.