Post-Game Thread Vikings 25, Titans 16

We blitzed on 42% of the pass plays and never got to the QB one time. Of course by selling out to stop AP, we leave the secondary shorthanded, and I don't believe they expected Hill to be able to throw so well. We should call Nissan Stadium the beauty shop - we make anyone look good.

 

We had a hilarious 80's hair metal cover band in front of us. They rocked out to every song that came on and were having a genuinely good time, even when they were down.

The only issue is they wanted to stand the whole game and some around us were none too happy with that. Once we started losing our fans started showing their asses a bit, yelling at them to sit down and a few people threw a napkin or two at them. I was pretty disappointed in several of our fans on that one.

Security eventually came to escort the Vikes fans out, but a couple sitting right behind them spoke up for them and told security they'd done nothing wrong and had been genuinely good the whole game. Security let them come back after the game was out of hand, so was glad to see that.

 

Next day thoughts:

Rookies played great. Particularly good game from Byard who was cleaning up everywhere around the field. Its an awesome sign that the coaches want to get him involved. Theres just a feeling that I get from mularkey/dlb/byard himself that hes going to be special. Awesome pick that I was not a fan of at the time. Henry had a nice little play for 20 when he reversed back on the field. Conklin played good too from what I remember and Sharpe doesn't even register as a rookie for me and I totally forgot how well he played against a talented corner. Another draft like this and that is how you set up dynastys... Will be harder without so many picks next year of course (unless we go 2-14 again lol).

Offensive gameplan was alright. I wish we saw more i-form stuff and more Fowler but whatever. Once we got behind (three turnovers) you can't really go back to that. Sucks cause we did so good in the first half. Not sure why we tried to run so many stretches outside instead of counters or smash's in the middle. Some of the exotic **** will drive me up a wall when it doesn't work though. Don't like the read option so much... That is not murray's strong suit.

Mariota... He was fine. Just a horrible horrible mistake with the pick6. It was ugly but he had a free rusher in his face and misread the D. The Vikings D has some elite talent and it showed. Not sure who to blame the fumble on but it was bad as well. Passing he was good. Wish we got to unleash him a bit and throw deeper routes then just the hooks but our WRs are miserable. Johnson dropped a good TD throw that would have been a ~15 yarder. Might just be limited to shorter routes or it might be the miserable WRs.

Defense played great. Limited arguably the best RB in NFL to 30 yards on 19 carries... You'd take that every time. We still need a dynamic pass rusher... Cause every pressure feels like its because of DLB's scheme, never an individual play. Rashad in particular kinda stood out, he was tackling around the field. Tackling was much improved over last year for the entire team... These guys deserve an apology from Mariota + Murray. Casey balled out and might be better then I thought he already was... which is saying something. He could be a top 5 Dlinemen where before I thought he was only top 10 lol.

 

Nope. And yet... there was still a SMALL glimmer of hope.

 

Pff grades: MIN-TEN grades: Diggs, defense fuel Vikings' win | PFF

They liked Lewan and Conk. I remember Lewan giving up a penalty and maybe a pressure but I could be misremembering. Sharpe got a high grade as well.

 

Great post

 

Tell you what is bothering me. After the mistake Mariota made, you would hope he gathers the troops and says OK, my bad, let's get it back, and leads them down the field to make up for it. He went the opposite way. He looked like he didn't even want to be out there. 1st down we run for little, 2nd down he has a crossing pattern over the middle....a little play to get him calmed down and back into the game and he throws it low and behind. 3rd down, and he sails one over Sharpe's head. Not the response I am looking for.

 

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Or we can just root for the Rams to be terrible and trade that top 3 pick away

How much did that suck when we were trying to run a wildcat and the ref stopped play and basically pointed it out? Ugh....

But yeah, definitely want to see more smash and less exotic. Fortunately our schedule coming up should lend itself much more favorably to that. The Vikes front 7 is top 5 in the league easy.

 

Vikes have a good defense not elite. We're 17th against the run last year.

Mukarkey is going to have a headache trying to get everyone there fair crack at things in the backfield this year I think.

Robiskie was trying to be too cute calling plays. Way too many options. Just run it up the gut and drop straight back and let Marcus do his thing.

 

Need 90% of people calling in to radio shows talking about TE defense over the years. It's a GLARING problem.