Vikings Message Board.Com

84BreaksAnkles wrote:Best case scenario coming out of our bye week is 1-3 with a possible win vs DET..

Detroit will absolutely blow up this OL. I predict 3 sacks for Ziggy. Next week will be ugly.

Pondering Her Percy wrote: I don't by the 70% comp rate because you know just as well as I do, a lot of that came in garbage time. You say he was hounded all night which at times he was, but how many time did he sit back there for a solid 8 seconds and not get the ball out? I can remember about 4-5 times. That's good blocking by the OL and him not getting the ball out quick enough. Maybe guys weren't open but I find it hard to believe that on 5 plays, not 1 guy was ever open.

Also, you say McKinnon was hitting holes? McKinnon hit 1 hole. His other 2 carries totaled 5 yards. So he hit 1 hole 1 time. That still doesn't tell me anything about McKinnon. Peterson hit a couple holes as well. 2 that went for about 7-9 yards

And if you pick any randomly 3 AP carries from the night there is a decent chances 66% of them will be TFL.

It was a god awful game but its not Norv's fault he doesnt worship at the almighty feet of "feed the Beast"

A player on his team was having an extremely sub par night. He changed his personnel groupings.

My thoughts are these: There are way to many "decent" kickers out there to keep Locke or Walsh BYE BYE to both of them. Time for Greenway to take a seat and same goes for Robison!! I am not sure if anyone mentioned it but Kalil seemed to turn in a very solid night.
I have not given up the season because of this first game but playing at home, against the Lions next week, will speak volumes to me. We all can see what kind of fabric that this team is made of by how they "bounce back" from this embarrassing loss. We will see what the coaches do and what the players do and I suspect that we will be pleasantly surprised .

As bad as it looked last night, I don't think it was as bad as you are all making it out to be. San Fran obviously did not take a step back in their defense losing the players they did. They also tossed in some D formations that took the Vikings by surprise. That's being out coached. As for AP. When he only gets 10 carries he is not going to do anything. He needs 20 minimum. As to Bridgewater. He made a few bad throws but in my eyes was not as bad as most of you think. The o-line. They need to step up and protect him better.

The only thing you can blame AP on last night, is his lack of vision hitting the holes. He ran up the backs of his lineman too many times and was impatient.
The real crux of the matter is the offense couldn't stay on the field on 3rd down and sustain drives. I was totally surprised that AP didn't see the ball until the second series. His balloon was burst before he had his first carry. Was Norv out thinking himself? I don't know but I did not care for the play calling.
Then there is Theodore. Pffft! Kid had the whole year to prepare for this start and he whiffed. Held on to the ball too long, looping the ball like a friendly volley in tennis almost getting his receivers killed on every catch. He is terrible, I don't know what you all see in him. For me, the honeymoon is over and asking for a divorce. Ponder 2.0 so far for me.
And Hodges should be replaced immediately. I would rather see Kendricks in there and making mistakes than to put up with another game with him and Greenway back there. Can I get a defensive lineman that can get close enough to the QB to sniff a sack?
Look at these discrepancies before you get to AP in the blame game.

DK Sweets wrote:R-E-L-A-X

You're right, those were some weak areas, and it was disappointing. Answer me this, though: on a scale of 1-10, how close do you think this team got to reaching its potential?

I'd say abut a 4. I don't think their potential ceiling is really high this season but I believe they can (and will) play much better than they did yesterday. I'm not hitting the panic button. I'm just very frustrated with the Vikings coaching and performance in last night's game. I actually expect them to look much better next week against the Lions.

I just can't get over how much this reminded me of the Patriots/Chiefs game last year. I sat there thinking "Wow. Tom Brady looks like Christian Ponder when he doesn't have time. This defense is being shredded. Nobody seems to be on the same page."

Somehow, the Patriots pulled it together. They put together a functional O-line and adjusted the play calling. They made adjustments on defense and played to their strengths. They turned negatives into positives and we know how that season ended (with deflated footballs! They cheated!!

...sorry, I couldn't help myself...)

Look, I'm not saying Mike Zimmer is Bill Belichick. I'm not saying Teddy Bridgewater is Tom Brady. I'm just pointing out that this season does not have to be a reflection of last night, and teams are more than capable of making adjustments and fighting through adversity.

I've been expecting the Vikes to have another mediocre (ie: 7-9 to 9-7) season and last night's game didn't change my mind. I hope they'll be better than mediocre and I certainly hope they'll be better than they were yesterday but I see no reason to panic. I have no doubt they'll win some games and we'll see much better performances from the team than what we saw yesterday.

(Definitely hope Zim is pressing the "#### YOU GUYS I'M GONNA KICK YOUR #### WE'RE GONNA FIX THIS #### AND WE'RE GONNA FIX IT NOW" button, though.)

I hope so too. I hope Norv gets an earful from Zimmer as well. I'm getting really frustrated with him.

Pondering Her Percy wrote:
Pretty hard to judge when you get the ball 10 times. I could almost bet money every starting RB in the NFL out-carried him this week.

It wasn't hard to judge that he left a lot of yards on the field. I don't know what he was doing or why he was trying to juke away from CBs into Linebackers

Hard to watch game, takes a lot of "air" out of the season. Really hope we have a bounce back game against the Lions, if not I see a 5-11 or 6-10 season and a team that is years from being a contender.

Offense:
OL Backups were not up the task last night. They were just plain terrible, especially the right side. As much as other parts of the offense where bad, I think the OL was by far the worst part of it all. It seemed like all we saw were swing plays last night and IMO, the reason was because they could not contain the pass rush. It was embarrassing.

This is pure speculation, but I think AP got benched last night. He had one strong run and everything else was lack luster. What really stunk was the dancing around crap. They had him on a swing pass and he decided to dance and got smacked for a 1 yard gain. If he had just taken what was in front of him, he would have gotten 4+ yards. What ended up being 3rd and 7 could have been 3rd and short. After that play we saw the other two guys. He might be a home run hitter, but in a tough game he needs to consistently put team in the best position to succeed and he was not doing that last night.

What was up with all the over throws? I think there is something more to this one, we didn’t see that in pre-season at all. Is it a chemistry issue with his WR? Timing? Does he have some injury? Or was he shaky due to the crap protection? I do not know, but he is lucky he only had one pick.

Defense:
The line was maybe OK, but they went up against a strong OL last night and they didn’t not come out on top. The pass rush was weak, probably because of how bad they were getting hammered in the running game. They seemed to get blown off the ball the whole game.

LB: This unit was dreadful. Hodges cannot seem to shed a block to save his life and Greenway does not have the sideline speed he once possessed. There were many plays to left side where Greenway was free but simply couldn’t catch the runner and he turned the corner for huge yards. I suspect we’ll see Kendricks VERY soon. These guys HAVE to play better, they were exposed last night and played terrible. They are going to see a lot of edge rushing until they prove they can stop it.

Secondary: Smith and Rhodes were solid, as expected. Sandejo wasn’t great, but the glaring issue was Terrence Newman showed his age. He was not making the shoe string tackles against runners or quick outside passes nor is he able to keep up with the better WR. I think we’ll see Waynes soon here as well.
Overall:

We’ve seen the defense play better. I have confidence that they’ll get it together after what I’m guessing will be an overdose of Zimmer’s size 10s this week. On Offense I’m worried. The OL has nobody to replace the current disaster on the right side. My one hope is that we’ve seen them play better and there are a lot of young guys starting this year. I HOPE that the shell shock of full speed NLF wears off and they get it together next Sunday. I do not like that the only option they have right now is hope.

I know guys are bashing Rick and he deserves some of it in the sense that the OL cupboard is fairly bare. However, no one could have predicted that our two best OL last year would be hurt before the season started. This isn’t ALL his fault.

Overall, I think they were not prepared last night. They played sloppy and flat. Some of that is correcatable, but is enough of it correctable? We'll find out.

Thoughts? I can only say, "It's just one game, and it takes 4-6 to know if a team is a real player or a weak sister." Let's hope the spider webs will be brushed off the team in the next few weeks. I was falling asleep in the 4th, but it's probably a good thing. It deadened the pain.

Addendum: Living down here in Dallas, I know Norv's reputation was built with the early 90s 'boys. He's been riding that for 20 years. I hope he figures it out, or someone whispers something new in his ear.

...wisdom

dead_poet wrote: I refuse to go back and watch this JV "game" but I thought the defensive tackles were getting some good push up front last night. I was more miffed at the lack of gap discipline of the linebackers and how god-awful the Vikings defensive ends were at setting the edge. I love Greenway but I'm officially starting a petition for Kendricks to start at WLB. That's not to say any linebacker played worth a darn but I thought Chad was particularly bad last night.

Those were my thoughts exactly. The problems with stopping the run won't change until things change with the defensive ends and linebackers.

I also believe there needs to be better tackling from many of the defenders. A simple statement, I know, but botching basic fundamentals are always at the core of a poor performance.

When will this Vikings D ever be able to stop the run again?

mansquatch wrote:Offense:
OL Backups were not up the task last night. They were just plain terrible, especially the right side. As much as other parts of the offense where bad, I think the OL was by far the worst part of it all. It seemed like all we saw were swing plays last night and IMO, the reason was because they could not contain the pass rush. It was embarrassing.

This is pure speculation, but I think AP got benched last night. He had one strong run and everything else was lack luster. What really stunk was the dancing around crap. They had him on a swing pass and he decided to dance and got smacked for a 1 yard gain. If he had just taken what was in front of him, he would have gotten 4+ yards. What ended up being 3rd and 7 could have been 3rd and short. After that play we saw the other two guys. He might be a home run hitter, but in a tough game he needs to consistently put team in the best position to succeed and he was not doing that last night.

I think we need to get used to the OL playing poorly. They just don't have the players to do otherwise, especially with Sullivan and Loadholt out. I don't think this unit will get much better throughout the season.

I might be alone in this but I think AD should play during preseason. He needs to get the feel of the game before the regular season starts.

From what I saw last night, either Peterson was tentative and extremely rusty or he's just not himself anymore.

Then again, it was difficult to tell. It's not like Peterson got a lot of touches.

The O-line should be atop everyone's list for most disappointed for the night and it's something we all expected, it needs to be fixed ASAP! Makes me wonder even more why Evan Mathis wasn't looked at, I honestly don't believe any of this line should be the same next year.

Chad Greenway is done.. I hope Zimmer can move on sooner rather than later, Gerald Hodges needs to play outside and Kendricks needs to move inside.

I was one hoping for us to go Danny Shelton 1st Round over Trae Waynes, looking at the run D it makes me even more angry we didn't.

Robert Blanton should start.

Regardless if AD goes off for the rest of the season, this should be his last year with the Vikings. (Draft young, Ezekiel Elliot)

Brian Robison needs replaced.

Jeff Locke continues to disappoint, when I mentioned he needs replaced last year a lot of you disagreed. (Steve Weatherford) anybody?

I thought he cost the team yards on some of the plays. I agree that he isn't at his peak form yet. However, I think because of that we can't yet say he has lost it.

For the same reason I do not think we've seen the peak performance from out OL. SF started 2 new guys on their O-line in this game as well, but they certainly didn't look that way. I doubt we'll reach '98 Vikings level of OL play, but I equally doubt we've seen their best or even above average effort. That fact is what irritated me the most last night. We know our team is better at several positions than what we saw, we've seen it before.

Someone said it earlier, it takes 4-6 games to see where a team is at. The major story of this game was just how far behind the curve the Vikings played. Here is hoping they come out of the gate seeking some major redemption on Sunday.

I think our biggest issue was on oline and our inability to establish any sort of ground game (play calling and execution).


Our front seven need to improve dramatically. I was pretty happy with our deeper coverage but crossing routes are still the worst thing ever for us.


I by no means think that AP is finished but I think now, with him locked in to a slightly less absurd contract situation, would be the time to trade him for an Olineman we can just plug in and not worry about that slot for the next 10 years barring injury. I am sure some will disagree but I just don't see his value being as high in our new system and I dont think you should base your gameplan around any 30 year old player that isnt a QB. Ever.