Perhaps the oddest thing about watching last night’s Vikings-Seahawks matchup was seeing Shaun Hill take the start instead of Teddy Bridgewater. Teddy wasn’t hurt, but head coach Mike Zimmer “explained” it as being his decision not to play Teddy. No additional information was provided. Quite odd, but it did show what the backup and third string quarterbacks could do in real game situations. At 1500ESPN, Judd Zulgad describes the press conference exchange after the game:
Vikings coach Mike Zimmer surprised everyone on Thursday night by not starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and instead giving the assignment to veteran Shaun Hill.
Asked why Bridgewater did not start in the Vikings’ 18-11 preseason victory in Seattle, Zimmer said, “because I sat him.” Asked why he made the move, Zimmer responded, “because I wanted to.”
While Zimmer would not go into any detail, he did make it clear the move wasn’t for disciplinary reasons. “Teddy Bridgewater’s the nicest kid in the world,” Zimmer said, “there’s no disciplinary action ever with Teddy so it had nothing to do with discipline, it had to do with my decision.”
Zimmer became annoyed with follow up questions during his press conference. “It was my decision,” he said. “How many times are we going to go through this? It was my decision. Good enough?”
And on Hill and Stave, the quarterbacks who did play against Seattle:
Hill played most of the first half against the Seahawks — rookie Joel Stave replaced him late in the second quarter — and led the Vikings on an eight-play, 77-yard touchdown drive. Hill also completed a two-point conversion pass to running back Matt Asiata. Hill finished 10 of 17 for 129 yards and had an 82.7 passer rating.
“It was great for Shaun to play,” Zimmer said. “We had to take a good look at him. Make sure we go into the season with a backup we feel good about. I thought he managed everything that we did, the huddle. I thought he got the right checks in and he had opportunities to get the ball down the field. He didn’t panic in the pocket. I thought we gave him a lot of time to survey the field and so it was good.”
The Vikings pass-rush specialists came to play, as the first-team defence sacked Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson four times in the first half, highlighted by a chase-down-from-behind sack by Everson Griffin that set the tone. Also picking up sacks were the usual suspects Harrison Smith and Anthony Barr sharing a sack, Linval Joseph with a solo tackle, and Andrew Sendejo splitting the credit with Danielle Hunter. The run defence, on the other hand, looked shaky at best. Seattle’s no-name running backs seemed to be getting chunks of yards every time they ran the ball (187 yards on 31 carries), indicating that Mike Zimmer has plenty of work to do with his starting front seven before the regular season gets underway.
On the other side of the ball, Minnesota’s pass blocking looked better than last week’s effort against the Bengals, but the run blocking was cover-your-eyes bad. Jerick McKinnon (starting in place of Adrian Peterson for the preseason) seemed to be meeting Seahawk defenders three yards behind the line of scrimmage every time he got the ball. Over the course of the first two quarters, McKinnon only managed fifteen yards on nine carries and one TD (where a lucky slip disrupted the defenders enough to get him into the end zone).
Place-kicker Blair Walsh had the opportunity to exorcise any demons remaining from his missed field goal attempt in the last meeting between the two teams, making a 27-yard field goal to move the Vikings into an 11-0 lead in the first half. Unfortunately, he missed a later 47-yard attempt wide left late in the game. Seattle’s kicker Stephen Hauschka also made one field goal and missed another during the game.
One of the risks of preseason football is the chance of injuries to players. During the first defensive series, Vikings cornerback Xavier Rhodes suffered a hamstring injury and left the game. He’ll be having an MRI today so we don’t know the severity of the injury yet. Safety Antone Exum Jr. got called for taunting after a long Seahawks gain, and courted a second unsportsmanlike flag (and an ejection, under the new rules) later in the game by flipping the ball out of an opponent’s hands after the play was over. No matter how good Exum can be, idiotic moves like that will grease the skids for him to make an early exit from the roster if he doesn’t (finally) smarten up. Cornerback Marcus Sherels got penalized for pass interference late in the game, but made up for it a few plays later with an interception he was able to run back for the score, which turned out to be the game-winner.
