Vikings at Bears

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chicagopurple
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Re: Vikings at Bears

Post by chicagopurple »

LOL- I am laying here on post op pain meds and clearly had a senior moment there

I never had any faith in Ponder......

But Darnold...as is the perpetual problem in the VIkes, a porous OL is just a fact of life. Someday we will have ownership that invests in a OL that is a giant wall of monsters and I will rejoice.....for now, I am happy to see a QB able to deal with the deficiencies we have.
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Cliff
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Re: Vikings at Bears

Post by Cliff »

Chicago one bone headed play away from taking Detroit to OT after Detroit blew a lead. Looked familiar :lol:
CharVike
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Re: Vikings at Bears

Post by CharVike »

Cliff wrote: Thu Nov 28, 2024 4:40 pm Chicago one bone headed play away from taking Detroit to OT after Detroit blew a lead. Looked familiar :lol:
It looked like the Bears had no idea how much time was left or even what quarter it was. The HC will get the blame and more than likely fired after the season. Maybe he'll get another OC. The Packers looked very good which isn't fun to see. The way the North is you need to have a goal of 16 wins to have a chance at the title. We could go 14-3 and be in 3rd place. No bye and maybe a home playoff game against some below .500 wildcard team. If they allow that just make it a 14 game season again and every team but 2 makes the playoffs. Make it a round robin deal. 6 playoff games for each. That will guarantee sell outs. No garbage games.
I was wrong.. The HC was fired today.
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VikingsVictorious
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Re: Vikings at Bears

Post by VikingsVictorious »

Cliff wrote: Mon Nov 25, 2024 10:05 am
VikingLord wrote: Sun Nov 24, 2024 8:51 pmSome questionable decisions by KOC in that game starting with the decision to go for it on 4th-and-1 at the Bears 31 (?) yard line in the 2nd half. I thought if he was going to go for it the sneak would be the best playcall. But the best call would have been to take the 3 points on the road. I know he was trying to stay aggressive and maybe catch the Bears off guard, but that single decision (and resulting failure to convert) nearly cost his team the game. I hope he learns from that.
With the way things went obviously you're right, but I didn't have any problem with it at the time. I'm not sure I agree with him needing to learn a lesson from it, the Vikings have gone for it on 4th down only 7 times this season which is tied for 2nd least. So it's not like he's doing it all the time or anything. Taking a gamble every now and again to try to put the game away is ok by me.
Likewise, the decision to kick it short late in the 4th also proved foolish. Again, KOC is trying to be strategic and run clock, which I get, but there is a risk of a big return that nearly went for a TD. Not sure what is more significant - burning a few extra seconds of clock versus a dagger on the return, but man, he ended up setting the Bears up for success late. IMHO, risk with little reward late is a recipe for disaster.
If it was on purpose I agree. Though it's hard to know if the short punt was on purpose. Sometimes kickers just mess up. The theory is sound at least, the ball having high hangtime should result in the kicking team getting down the field by the time the ball lands and stopping the return. I also am not a fan of the "run the clock out" mentality towards the end of games in general. At least not to the extent that KOC does it. Even if it has actually mostly worked :lol:
This is another game where I really wondered what Darnold was doing for most of the game. He has time on most dropbacks, but he just won't release the ball and it costs the offense. Later in the game and into OT he started to be more decisive and had better timing and it made all the difference. Just do not understand if he's being coached to be uber conservative or he's not trusting what he's seeing but he made the Bears defense look much better than it actually is IMHO.
I think the team just runs a lot of plays that take a while to develop. I do agree that he does that sometimes. He takes a while to decide if he's going to check down or not specifically but I like the way he at least looks for the longer throw first. He's kind of like Kirk Cousins with balls. Kirk is very quick to check down and I don't want that either.
Refs continue to amaze me with what they call against us versus what they miss against us. Two missed calls stood out today - the hit out of bounds on Powell's return and the no-call on pass interference against Addison on the deep ball he still managed to catch in the deep middle that put them at the Bear 2 yard line. Both clear fouls and no call on either play. Addison managed to catch the ball in his case but that was just a great play on his part despite the clear foul. Do not understand why the refs keep missing this stuff.
Yes! The guy was literally riding Addison's back before the ball got there. The holds the Bears got away with were crazy too. Guys literally holding onto defender's arms. I did feel like they missed some calls in the Vikings favor too though, so it kind of balanced out.
Last comment is about the announcers. I understand they are impressed with the Bears and that the Bears have some cause for optimism, but my God, it seems like all they could do was wax the Bears all day. Barely credited the Vikings for anything if they even talked about them. I get it if we're listening to home announcers, but this was Daryl Johnston and another national announcer. Yuck. Almost hit mute except I liked hearing the crowd react to good Vikings plays. Lots of Vikings fans there.
My god yes. They were all over the Bears' junk. I watch on Sunday Ticket and it'd be nice to be able to choose which announcers you listen to.
Vikings continue to squeak out games against subpar competition. They are wins and for the most part I feel like the Vikings have been the better team in these wins, but they are still not putting complete games together. They are 9-2 and in great position, but are clearly going to have to play better if they want to finish the season strong.
I think we get caught up in what the Lions are doing to some teams and it skews perspective. Or at least I've fallen into that category a time or two. But the Vikings are 4th in point differential and it's not like they've blown out any teams 50-0 to skew that stat. They're 6th in points per game and 5th in opponents points per game. They're not really squeaking by in the context of the entire league over the course of the season.

Some of the games have definitely been closer than they should have been, but there's also been some fluky plays that have caused that. The only onside kick to be recovered all season. Aaron Jones fumbling at the goal line; Jones has fumbled the same amount that the Bears have had FG's blocked. So many of the turnovers happening in the red zone has to be a record. Even Darnold throwing 3 INTs in one game, that's not something that happens all the time or anything.

At any rate, they came off a 3 game stretch on the road where most expected them to drop at least one game. Just like at the beginning of the year where they were supposed to start 0-5 or 1-4. They keep exceeding expectations and the wins somehow still aren't good enough. Not that you're saying they're not, just in general it seems to be the consensus. They aren't stomping teams into the ground so they're "pretenders".
There's a thing called analytics. They tell you when you should or shouldn't go for it. I think coaches should robotically follow them 90% of the time. I'll allow for a 10% deviation based on vibes and hunches.