I didn’t see the game live, but I caught about three quarters of it on NFL Network’s replay this morning. As anyone could have predicted, it was a sloppy game for both teams. Both Titans scores came off turnovers, while the Vikings quarterbacks and receivers still haven’t quite gelled (miscues and missed catches were far too common).
Here’s Judd Zulgad‘s summary after the game:
The Vikings unveiled what could be best described as a soft launch of their new offense Saturday night in their preseason opener against Tennessee.
It was far from a success.
Quarterback Donovan McNabb, making his Vikings debut, played two series in a 14-3 loss at LP Field. The Vikings’ only points came from a 37-yard field goal by Ryan Longwell in the third quarter. But no one in the visitor’s locker room expressed any concern — not with three preseason games and plenty more installation to go before the Sept. 11 regular-season opener at San Diego.
“I thought their effort was good, and the execution was good up to a point,” new offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave said. “We always want points. We’ll have to make bigger strides next time with that first unit.”
I tuned in just as McNabb was finishing his time on the field, and the time of possession seemed to be strongly in Tennessee’s favour, so Joe Webb played into the second half and Christian Ponder finished out the game (Rhett Bomar was supposed to play, but didn’t get a chance).
Several starters were held out or only made the briefest of appearances on the field, and some backups made good use of the extra playing time (Jaymar Johnson for one). Other players, unfortunately, lowered their stock by making mistakes (Chris Cook’s name came up far too often in the wrong context here, for example).
Just watching the players in game mode shows how different things are from seeing footage of them in team drills at camp: some players who were said to have had “great camps” were nowhere near as effective in the real game situations. On the other hand, the offensive line did better than expected given the training camp picture.
If nothing else, the coaches now have a lot of things on film to help evaluate players and fix problems that showed up during the game.
