Quotulatiousness

September 16, 2019

Vikings at Green Bay – a terrible first quarter dooms the Vikings, 21-16

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The Minnesota Vikings visited Green Bay for the first “Border Battle” of the 2019 season. Both teams had won their opening games, so the winner of this match would have the early lead in the NFC North division.

Among the inactives for the game were Vikings cornerbacks Mackensie Alexander and Mike Hughes along with starting left guard Pat Elflein and starting linebacker Ben Gedeon. I didn’t recognize any of the names on the Packers’ inactive list, so I assumed they returned all their starters from week one.

The game could hardly have started better for the hometown Packers, as they scored touchdowns on their first three possessions and looked unstoppable. Minnesota’s defence appeared to have been replaced by tackling dummies, as they could neither cover Pack receivers or stop Pack running backs. Dalvin Cook finally got the Vikings on the scoreboard with a 75-yard touchdown run to pull the Vikings back into the game. The Vikings defence finally got their act together after that, and kept the Packers out of the end zone for the rest of the game.

As several people pointed out on Twitter, it always seems as though the Vikings manage to be the first team to get screwed by new rule changes, as the decision to make pass interference a reviewable call turned into a touchdown taken off the scoreboard as review officials in New York decreed that OPI had taken place on the play and overturned the ruling on the field. Instead of seven points, the Vikings had to settle for a field goal from Dan Bailey. The next official ruling that took points away indirectly was an unsportsmanlike conduct call against Stefon Diggs for removing his helmet after scoring a touchdown. The fifteen yard penalty pushed the extra point attempt back and Green Bay was able to deflect the kick.

The Vikings’ last chance to win the game ended on a Kirk Cousins interception in the end zone. The Vikings defence held the Packers to a three-and-out, but Cousins and the Vikings offence did the same, and the Vikings only got the ball back after that with bare seconds left on the game clock, too far out for even a Hail Mary attempt.

Matthew Coller correctly says the Vikings wasted every comeback chance they had (and they had several):

Through sixteen minutes of football at Lambeau Field on Sunday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers looked like a juggernaut. Over the final 44 minutes, the Packers played only slightly better than one of the teams hoping to draft No. 1 overall. And — to paraphrase Denny Green — the Minnesota Vikings let them off the hook.

Aaron Rodgers and the Packers received the opening kickoff immediately hit Davante Adams for a 39-yard pass. Seconds later they were in the end zone, going 75 yards for a touchdown in just 2:10. Following a Vikings missed field goal, they did it again, driving 63 yards for another TD pass by Rodgers, this time picking on the Vikings’ depth at defensive back, tossing the ball easily over recently-elevated safety Nate Meadors.

Quarterback Kirk Cousins then fumbled twice on the same drive, setting up Rodgers and the Packers at the Minnesota 33-yard line. That drive ended as quickly as the first and with the same result.

Before Packers fans were even inside the building from their morning tailgating efforts, it was a three-score game.

[…]

The Vikings’ loss in Green Bay had a little bit of everything — bad calls, missed kicks, turnovers, big plays and inexplicable decisions. Ultimately Cousins and the offense were given every chance to overcome the bad start and pull off a remarkable comeback. Instead another big game in the Cousins era ends with regret and missed opportunities.

September 9, 2019

Minnesota Vikings defeat Atlanta 28-12 in home opener

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The home opener for the 2019 NFL season saw the Minnesota Vikings welcome the Atlanta Falcons to US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. The Las Vegas oddsmakers had the Vikings as four-point favourites to win this game, but Atlanta had trouble from the get-go and didn’t manage to score until the fourth quarter, then were unable to get the two-point conversion. The final score of the game came with just over a minute left to go, but Atlanta was once again unable to convert the two-point attempt. Despite the final score, Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins set a career low for pass attempts, tallying 8 of 10 for 98 yards and one passing touchdown (but he did score another on a quarterback sneak). The running game, however more than compensated as Dalvin Cook ran 21 times for 111 yards and two scores and rookie Alexander Mattison added nine carries for 49 yards.

Defensively, the star of the game was safety Anthony Harris who had two interceptions (one in the end zone) and also recovered a fumble forced by cornerback Trae Waynes. The Vikings defence tallied four sacks of Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, one each for Anthony Barr, Everson Griffen, Linval Joseph, and Danielle Hunter (a second sack by Griffen was negated by a penalty).

A view of the Minnesota Vikings’ home stadium by “www78”
“Viking Stadium” by www78 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Chris Tomasson reported on the game for the Pioneer Press:

The Vikings vowed to run the ball more this season, and did they ever on Sunday.

They rolled up 174 yards rushing, including 111 by Dalvin Cook, in drubbing the Atlanta Falcons 28-12 in the season opener at U.S. Bank Stadium.

Cook had touchdown runs of 19 yards in the first quarter and seven yards in the third quarter. It was the third career 100-yard game by Cook, who is one of the keys to Vikings’ hopes of bouncing back after missing the playoffs last season.

The game was never in doubt as Minnesota took leads of 14-0 after the first quarter, 21-0 at halftime and 28-0 after the third quarter. The Vikings were dominant on offense, defense and special teams.

On defense, safety Anthony Harris intercepted two Matt Ryan passes and recovered a fumble. The Vikings sacked Ryan four times.

On the first possession of the game, linebacker Eric Wilson broke through to block a punt by Matt Bosher and the Vikings recovered at the Atlanta 21. It was Minnesota’s first blocked punt since Jasper Brinkley had one Nov. 30, 2014 against Carolina.

At the Daily Norseman, Eric Thompson fills in for Ted Glover on the post-game Stock Market Report:

Buy: Establishing the run is something this team can do going forward. The Vikings’ run blocking was very sound for the most part on Sunday, and it appears that should be replicable. The offensive scheme seems to fit the personnel when it comes to the ground attack.

Sell: Leaning THAT much on the run going forward. The Vikings aren’t going to jump out to a 14-0 lead every week. There will be plenty of times where they have to move the ball through the air throughout the season. Even with the extremely small sample size, the pass blocking was pretty suspect at times. It’s an area of the offense worth paying attention to going forward.

Buy: This was a great defensive performance against a very good offense. Atlanta, a team that had the sixth ranked offense in the league a year ago, didn’t score a single point for the first 50 minutes of the game. Of their 345 total offensive yards, 129 of them came on their final two drives when the game was all but decided. Julio Jones had 31 yards a day after signing a contract extension worth $64 million guaranteed. The Vikings defense kept a very dangerous Falcons offense in check until garbage time.

Sell: This was a clean defensive performance against a very good offense. The defensive performance could have been even better if they hadn’t jumped offside FOUR times on Sunday. I’m sure that drove Mike Zimmer as crazy at it drove us. The Vikings need to cut down on the mental mistakes going forward. The opposing quarterback next week has a reputation for making defenses pay on free plays.

Buy: It’s tough to start the season much better than the Vikings did on Sunday. Punt block. Touchdown. Interception. Touchdown. Exchange punts. Force a fumble. Touchdown. If Sunday’s game was being played out on Madden 20, there’s a 100% chance the guy controlling the Falcons rage quits by halftime. The Vikings didn’t just hit the ground running; they hit the ground driving a Bugatti.

Sell: It’ll be that easy going forward. While the Vikings forced the Falcons into most of their mistakes, Atlanta did some of it to themselves with drive-extending penalties and uncharacteristically bad decisions from Ryan. The Vikings have historically done very well hanging onto an early lead under Mike Zimmer; we’ll see just how good this team is when they don’t get off to such a hot start.

Buy: Special teams were outstanding. As we touched on with Maalouf, the special teams phase was virtually flawless on Sunday. Anxiety levels have been significantly lowered for the time being.

Sell: We’re completely out of the woods there. There weren’t any field goal attempts by Bailey, and there were was some space for Kenjon Barner to make a few decent returns. We should know better than to completely let our guard down when it comes to the Vikings kicking game.

August 31, 2019

Buffalo 27, Minnesota 23 – The magic is gone … Kyle Sloter finally threw an interception

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The fourth and final preseason game is usually a pretty harum-scarum event … few of the starters will even dress for the game, meaning that it’s the very last chance for a lot of players to impress the coaches before the final cutdown deadline (which is 4pm Eastern time). With that “do or die” mentality, the chance for injuries goes up, because the difference between an amazing play that impresses the coaches and a bone-headed stunt that amazes the paramedics can be microscopic. Fortunately, neither the Buffalo Bills nor the Minnesota Vikings appeared to suffer any serious injuries at Ralph Wilson stadium on Thursday night.

Minnesota’s preseason MVP, quarterback Kyle Sloter, got the start and did … okay. Unlike his other appearances for the Vikings, he didn’t seem to electrify the team, although he only made one serious error that hurt the Vikings (his first-ever NFL interception). He finished the night with a stat line that wasn’t bad, but failed to achieve the gaudy levels he’s put up in the past: 16 of 24 for 163 yards and a touchdown. His passer rating was 82.5.

Vikings quarterback Kyle Sloter prepares to receive the snap from centre Brett Jones during the first half of the last 2019 preseason game in Buffalo. The Bills won the game 27-23.
Screencapture from a YouTube video on the Minnesota Vikings official channel.

At Vikings Territory, Joe Johnson sums up the action on the field:

The Vikings dominated time of possession, something that has to make Zimmer happy despite the fact the Vikings lost the game, thanks to the strong run game across the board. De’Angelo Henderson led the running back group with 59-yards on 16 carries and a touchdown, while Ameer “I’m Still Here” Abdullah had 21-yards rushing on five carries and a 15-yard touchdown completion. Mike Boone had 19 yards rushing on six carries and Khari Blasingame had 19-yards as well, though on one more carry than Boone. That helped the Vikings control the clock for over 36 minutes and outpaced the Bills in terms of first-downs (with 25 to their 15).

Despite that control, Browning and the Vikings were unable to convert late-game possessions to extend drives and keep the game out of reach for the Bills. That allowed the Bills to score three touchdowns in the final four minutes of the game to stun the Vikings third-stringers, scoring the go-ahead touchdown with under ten seconds left.

New Vikings kicker Kaare Vedvik missed a 37-yard field goal early in the game after starting the game with a made extra point. That was the third miss in a row to start his Vikings career for the new kicker (that the Vikings gave a 2020 5th-round pick for last weekend), and while he made his next kick, it was a gimme (outside of the 2015 Wildcard Round) of only 27-yards. Veteran kicker Dan Bailey most likely solidified his role as the-2019 kicker (with Chad Beebe most likely holding for him), which makes you wonder what the Vikings will do with Vedvik and punter Matt Wile.

August 25, 2019

Vikings beat Cardinals 20-9 in sloppy “all-important 3rd preseason game™”

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The third NFL preseason game is traditionally the last chance for teams’ starters to get together in a game environment and show that they’re ready for the regular season to begin. This certainly wasn’t true for Saturday’s match at US Bank Stadium between the Minnesota Vikings and the Arizona Cardinals. Neither team’s starters looked fully awake, never mind ready to play in games that matter. Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins in particular looked to be struggling with accuracy issues, as he registered a lot of incomplete passes in his first-half appearances (3 of 13 for 35 yards and a 39.6 passer rating), while Arizona’s rookie quarterback Kyler Murray kept the Vikings’ starting defence on its heels with his unpredictable mobility (although they did manage to keep Arizona out of the end zone).

With the notable exception of Dalvin Cook’s 85-yard touchdown run, Cousins and the starting offence seemed to be going backwards nearly as often as they went forward. The second team, under Sean Mannion didn’t do much better, and it took the third team to inject some energy in the fading minutes of the second half with All-Preseason Quarterback Kyle Sloter working his traditional magic to put the game out of reach. Sloter ended up with a gaudy stats line against Arizona’s third team: 6 of 7 passing for 102 yards with a touchdown, yielding a 158.3 passer rating. All he does is win games…

An exterior view of US Bank Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings’ home field by “www78”
“Viking Stadium” by www78 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Christopher Gates sums up the action for Daily Norseman readers:

It wasn’t pretty, but it was a victory

On Saturday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings played host to the Arizona Cardinals in the third preseason game, which is generally viewed as a “dress rehearsal” for the regular season. The starters on both sides of the ball played most of the first half, and for the Vikings … at least on offense … it wasn’t good.

The final score showed that the Vikings defeated the Cardinals by a final score of 20-9, but the first team for the purple on both sides of the ball was less than impressive.

The offense for the Vikings in the first half provided just one highlight … but it was a really, really cool one. Dalvin Cook, seeing his first action of the preseason, saw just two carries. The first one went for three yards. The second one went for a lot more.

Cook took a handoff from Kirk Cousins and blasted for an 85-yard touchdown, giving him the longest run from scrimmage in Vikings’ preseason history.

The passing offense was, to put it mildly, awful. Between inaccuracy from Cousins and a handful of drops, with Stefon Diggs and Chad Beebe being the primary culprits, Cousins completed just 3-of-13 passes in the first half for 35 yards. A good chunk of those yards … 29 of them, to be exact … came on one pass to Diggs in the two-minute drill at the end of the half. Adam Thielen did not play in this one for the Vikings, but the pass offense was still bowling shoe ugly for the entire first half of play.

At SKOR North, Judd Zulgad discussed Kirk Cousins’ performance after the post-game interviews:

Murray’s performance provided hope. Cousins’ performance? Even the veteran knew it wasn’t close to acceptable.

“I’ll just start by saying, it’s a disappointing performance,” Cousins said. “Put it on me, it wasn’t good enough. If we play that way during the season it’s going to be a very tough year so we have to be much better than we were today. I really should say, I have to be much better than I was today and it’s about as simple as that. … I’m going to have a lot to look back at and learn from and correct.”

Cousins wasn’t exaggerating. The highlights with him in the game were few.

After the Vikings went three-and-out on their opening drive, running back Dalvin Cook, seeing his first preseason action, took a handoff on the first play of the second drive and went 85 yards on first-and-20 for a touchdown. Late in the second quarter, Cousins completed a 29-yard pass to Stefon Diggs on second-and-10 from the Vikings’ 46.

Got all that?

Otherwise, Kubiak and offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski had to be disappointed and at least a little (to a lot) concerned. Vikings coach Mike Zimmer was far more succinct in summing up his quarterback’s play. “I think he can play a lot better than that,” Zimmer said.

The Vikings’ opening drive ended with Cousins overthrowing Diggs on a deep pass over the middle. After Cook’s feel-good moment, Cousins’ poorly thrown screen pass for fullback C.J. Ham was nearly picked by Cardinals linebacker Terrell Suggs on the Vikings’ third drive. Cousins had been sacked for an 8-yard loss on the previous play to set up a third-and-13 from the Minnesota 37. Cousins’ struggles to throw screen passes remain a mystery but the problem is very real.

It didn’t get better in the second quarter. After an incompletion for Diggs and a 1-yard run by rookie Alexander Mattison, Cousins was sacked again for a 3-yard loss on third-and-9 from the Minnesota 26. That sack was on tight end Kyle Rudolph.

“I think at the end of the day, I can get rid of the football,” Cousins said, taking responsibility for being sacked. “You can always as a quarterback, throw out of bounds, find an eligible (receiver) to throw it over his head so it’s in the direction of him or even try to skate out and start a new play.”

The Vikings did get a first down on their next possession — it came on a 7-yard Cousins completion to Brandon Zylstra — but that drive opened with a poorly thrown pass to wide receiver Chad Beebe and ended with a third-down pass that Beebe dropped.

Cousins’ struggles partially masked the Vikings’ ongoing kicker issues: recently acquired punter/kicker Kaare Vedvik missed both of his field goal attempts (43 yards wide left and 54 yards wide right). That won’t endear him to his head coach: Mike Zimmer has been noted as not being fond of kickers at the best of times.

August 20, 2019

Vikings beat Seattle 25-19 in second preseason game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The Vikings’ preseason home opener went well enough, although neither team’s starters were able to score a touchdown during their respective series before the backups and long-shot hopefuls took the field. Vikings presumptive backup quarterback Sean Mannion had one of his passes picked off and run back for a defensive score, but other than that the Vikings quarterbacks did well. Recently acquired punter/kicker Kaare Vedvik did well in both punting (averaging 46 yards) and kicking (one made extra point and kickoffs). Embattled cornerback Holton Hill — who already faces an eight-game suspension — may have flushed his chances of sticking with the team after a couple of penalties culminating in an ejection from the game after a nasty helmet-to-helmet tackle of Seattle backup quarterback Paxton Lynch.

A view of the Minnesota Vikings’ new home stadium by “www78”
“Viking Stadium” by www78 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

As usual, Ted Glover posted his impressions of the game at the Daily Norseman fan site:

Buy: Duke Thomas strip. Thomas has had a rough camp and first preseason game, and he really needed to make a play. He did, forcing a fumble after a completed pass.

Sell: Duke Thomas premature celebration after the strip. But he celebrated a bit too early, and the Seahawks ended up recovering the football. Granted, he wasn’t really in position to jump on the ball, as momentum from the strip kind of moved him away from where the ball was bouncing. Still not a good look, though.

Buy: First team offensive line pass protection, kind of. There were a couple breakdowns, most notably when Kirk Cousins had to bail out of the pocket and throw the ball away just so he wasn’t murdered. But overall, Cousins had time to set up and make throws, and made some nice plays.

Sell: First team offensive line run blocking, kind of. Like last week, the first team offensive line had trouble opening holes for Mattison. I thought he had a little more room to run, but it wasn’t consistent, and the best run Mattison had with the first team unit was only five yards.

Buy: Sean Mannion-led TD drive at the end of the first half. After a pick six that gave Seattle the lead midway through the second quarter, the Vikings got the ball back with just under two minutes, down 10-3. Mannion led the offense 63 yards on seven plays, and it was capped by his three yard pass to Irv Smith for the game-tying score. I know it’s only preseason, but last year the Vikings just seemed to pack it in when a play went against them last year. I know the two aren’t related, but it was still nice to see.

Sell: Mannion pick-six. But Mannion’s interception was brutal. It looked like there was a miscommunication between him and Chad Beebe, so it could have been a wrong route that was run, but the ball should have never been thrown. Just a bad sequence all the way around,

Buy: Mike Boone is RB3. Mike Boone and Ameer Abdullah were locked in a pretty pitched battle for RB3, but it feels that after two preseason games, Boone has taken the lead. Abdullah didn’t play against Seattle, and Boone made the most of the opportunity. He had over 20 carries, and one reception for 45 yards. He’s looked very good so far this year, and is earning the RB3 spot.

Sell: Kyle Sloter is QB3. Sloter needs a serious look at QB2. He just plays football very well when the lights come on, and if nothing else, has earned a look with the rest of the second team.

Buy: Brandon Zylstra and Laquon Treadwell both flashed. Both Zylstra and Treadwell had good games. Zylstra had five catches, and Treadwell took over in the fourth quarter. Zylstra finished with five catches, 37 yards, and a touchdown. Treadwell had four catches for 47 yards, and led the team in receiving yards. And based on that alone, you would think there was a pitched battle for WR4 right now.

Sell: The Laquon Treadwell bandwagon. But if you thought Treadwell was making a final push to secure roster spot, you would be wrong, gentle reader. NAY! So, what was going on? Per Mike Zimmer, the team was showcasing Treadwell for other teams. I don’t know how you need any more clarity on that situation; Laquon Treadwell is as good as gone.

August 13, 2019

Vikings trade for P/K Kaare Vedvik, release LS Kevin McDermott

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It had been an uncharacteristically quiet training camp for the Minnesota Vikings so far this year, with very little in the way of drama or even news. Until Sunday, when the team sent their 2020 5th-round draft pick to Baltimore to acquire punter/kicker Kaare Vedvik and then released their veteran long snapper Kevin McDermott.

I’ll be honest, I rarely glance at news for those 31 other, less-important NFL teams, so Vedvik was a total unknown to me, but apparently he’s already been annointed as the saviour for the Chicago Bears, according to his Wikipedia entry:

It’s not clear whether Vedvik will be competing for the role of kicker (against Dan Bailey) or punter (against Matt Wile) or even both. The moves make sense financially for the Vikings, as they’re one of the worst-off teams against the salary cap this season: they gain $119,742 in cap space for releasing Kevin McDermott (with $200,000 “dead” money). Rookie Austin Cutting will earn $513,644 for the season.

And while I’m looking at Vikings coverage, I’ll include Ted Glover’s Buy/Sell ratings from his belated Stock Market Report on the New Orleans game:

Buy: Sean Mannion has the inside track for the backup QB job. Mannion had a nice night, and didn’t play himself out of the backup job, like a lot of us felt Trevor Siemian did last year. His TD to Johnson was a bit underthrown, but he stood tall in the pocket and delivered the ball right as he was getting hit. He did make at least one throw that should or could have been picked, but overall it was a respectable night for Mannion.

Sell: Kyle Sloter has lost the backup QB battle. His first drive in the second half was impressive. He made two great throws to Conklin and Khari Blasingame for over 40 yards, and hit Blasingame for a two yard TD pass to cap the drive. Sloter just looks like a guy that could be the backup, and if nothing else, I’d like to at least see him get some work with the second team.

Buy: There was some encouraging play from the rookie class. I gotta say, there’s a lot to like from this draft class so far, at least in the somewhat limited action. Garrett Bradbury looked very much like the real deal in his only drive, and we’ve already talked about Mattison, Smith, Blasingame, and Johnson.

Sell: It was all unicorns and rainbows for the rookie class. Still, it was and up and down night for these guys. Smith had the untimely penalty, Mattison never really got it going on the ground, and other than the two catches Johnson had in the second quarter, he didn’t do anything else. Fourth round pick Dru Samia had a holding penalty called on him and graded out very poorly per PFF, but I don’t recall any horrible missed blocks or assignments, though.

Buy: Nate Meadors pick six. Heck of an effort by Meadors to pick the bobbled ball out of mid air and take it to the house. It was a tough adjustment on the bobble, and a really nice play.

Sell: Nate Meadors made the roster with that play. I still don’t know that was enough to get him ahead of a guy like Kris Boyd or Holton Hill and his doghouse on the back end of the roster, though. I mean let’s face it, if the Saints tight end holds on to the ball, it’s a seven or 8 yard gain, more than likely, and a very routine play.

Buy: Preseason games are inherently sloppy. Young players are trying to learn the game at the NFL level, veterans haven’t played in seven months, and with all the substitutions constantly going in and out it and at times, it almost looks like a hockey game when lines are shifting. Both teams were bumbling and stumbling, and the referees are throwing more flags as they are wanting to highlight what the league is emphasizing in terms of fouls this year.

Sell: The amount of penalties can be excused because it was preseason. Eric Wilson had a nice TFL erased, Ifeadi Odenigbo had a sack that was almost a strip sack nullified, the first team defense had a penalty on a third and goal that gave the Saints a fresh set of downs … and that was all in the first half. The Vikings had 13 penalties for 176 yards, which is unacceptable for any game, preseason or otherwise. That has GOT to be cleaned up, as no team in the NFL can overcome that many mistakes and win consistently.

August 11, 2019

Vikings ruin Saints’ preseason home opener, 34-25

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

It’s only the preseason, so there’s no real “need” to win, aside from the natural urge to beat your opponent that comes with any competitive activity, but it’s always nice to win at someone else’s home field. The Minnesota Vikings visited the New Orleans Saints on Friday night, coming away with a comfortable victory.

As is typical in the first preseason game, the presumptive starters only play for a limited time in order to both limit injury possibilities and to provide more snaps for players further down the depth chart. Chris Tomasson reported on the game for the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Kirk Cousins was close to perfect to start the preseason last year. On Friday night, he was perfect.

At least according to the NFL’s passer rating.

In a 34-25 win over New Orleans at the Superdome, the Vikings quarterback completed 4 of 4 passes for 65 yards and a touchdown for a perfect passer rating of 158.3.

In last year’s preseason opener at Denver, Cousins completed 4 of 4 passes for 42 yards and a touchdown with a passer rating of 150.0.

And once again the Vikings won an exhibition opener. Head coach Mike Zimmer is now 6-0 in such games since taking over in 2014.

It initially looked Friday as if Cousins had hit Adam Thielen for a 35-yard touchdown pass after the receiver made a diving catch. However, a replay showed Thielen was down just shy of the goal line, and Cousins connected on the next play with rookie running back Alexander Mattison on a 1-yard touchdown pass for a 7-0 lead.

For the Saints, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater also impressive, and he played a lot longer. With starter Drew Brees held out, the former Vikings quarterback went the distance in the first half, and completed 14 of 19 passes for 134 yards and a touchdown.

Bridgewater, who played for the Vikings from 2013-17, suffered a severe knee injury in August 2016. He said on Wednesday he is fully recovered, and it certainly looked that way against his former teammates.

Cousins had expressed hope earlier in the week that the Vikings would score a touchdown on his only possession, and they delivered. Cousins also helped out with his legs, running for 10 yards on third-and-9 at the Minnesota 25 for the initial first down of the game.

At the Daily Norseman, Christopher Gates mentions some players who might have been buried in the depth chart before the game, but who materially changed their chances for making the final 53-man roster with their work on Friday night:

Bisi Johnson, WR – With the competition for the Vikings’ #3 wide receiver spot still pretty wide open, the seventh-round pick from Colorado State may have just jumped himself up to the top spot. He had two very nice catches on Friday night, including an 18-yard touchdown catch on a throw by Sean Mannion into very good coverage. He also got an opportunity as a kick returner in this one.

Nate Meadors, CB – I’m not sure what his odds of actually making the roster at this point are, but there’s no scenario where a pick-six is going to go down as a negative, so he pretty clearly helped himself. As we’ve said all offseason, with Mike Hughes’ status up in the air and Holton Hill’s status very well-known, there could be some room at the bottom of the cornerback depth chart in Minnesota, and Meadors is making his case.

Tyler Conklin, TE – Fellow tight end Cole Hikutini has been one of the hot names at Training Camp so far this year, but if the Vikings are going to keep four tight ends, it looked tonight like Conklin is comfortably in the lead for that spot at this point. He led the Vikings in receiving yardage on Friday, despite having just two catches. He averaged 28 yards/reception, and showed some nifty skills after the catch on a screen pass in the second quarter.

The Vikings’ young defensive linemen – With both the Vikings’ starting defensive tackles out of this one, some of the younger players up front got some chances to shine, and both Hercules Mata’afa and Jalyn Holmes did just that. Ifeadi Odenigbo also made the most of his opportunities on Friday night. There are going to be some very, very difficult decisions that have to be made among the defensive linemen on cutdown day, as has been the case the past few years.

July 13, 2019

How to decode NFL training camp clichés

Filed under: Football, Humour — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Ted Glover posted this earlier in the week, but — it being the deadest of dead spots in the NFL year — I didn’t see it until just now. While this is oriented to the upcoming Minnesota Vikings training camp (now in Eagan instead of the decades-long tradition of Mankata, MN), it almost certainly applies to your favourite NFL team’s training camp too:

In just under three weeks, the Minnesota Vikings will begin their second training camp in Eagan, MN. Although where they conduct training camp is still new, what they do at training camp is no different than when they spent over 50 years in Mankato. They will practice, assemble the 53 best players possible, and then compete to try and win the Super Bowl in February break our hearts in December or January.

During training camp, though, we want to know how our beloved Purple and Gold are doing, and whether or not they’re improving. Along with the offensive, defensive, and special teams drills and practice updates, the Vikings players and coaches will tell you how things are coming along using tried and true clichés. Some clichés have very specific meanings, while others can mean a wide variety of things, or apply to many players.

Obviously, players can’t say what they REALLY mean, especially if someone’s performance is substandard, or their coach is an idiot. So these tried and true clichés help us get to the real meaning of what is being said.

[…]

I/He am/is in the best shape of my/his career: This is used by a player that is clearly on the downside of their career, and is in serious danger of getting cut. This is usually used by either the player or his agent, or maybe a close friend on the team, to help aging player find a different team once the Turk comes calling.

He added 15 pounds of muscle: This describes an aging free agent desperately trying to make the roster for one last ride. Normally used in conjunction with “he’s in the best shape of his career.”

Example: “Player X has added 15 pounds of muscle in the off season and is in the best shape of his career.”

Player X is really turning heads: This is used to describe a late round draft pick or undrafted player that virtually no one knew about three months ago. This player has made a minimum of three good plays in four days of practice, and the punditry is now doing feature stories on him. There is no guarantee of a roster spot, but he is now the clubhouse leader for Mr. Mankato. Anyone on Draft Twitter who even mentioned his name is now madly tweeting “LOOK AT MY BOIIIIIII I TOLD YOU SO!!”

Every team is 0-0/tied for first place: This is used by the players and staff of the Arizona Cardinals, Miami Dolphins, Detroit Lions, and Buffalo Bills to convince their fans that they can somehow sneak in to the playoffs as a wildcard with a 9-7 record. This will not happen, as these teams will be a combined 6- 14 in October. They are terrible.

He’s just a blue collar guy: This is used to describe the player that has little to no physical ability compared to other guys at his position, but outworks everyone. This player will generally be beloved, as he is the “scrappy underdog” story that captivates training camp. If he is a “player that’s turning heads” guy, he is on the fast track to the Hall of Fame after week one of camp. After this player has been on the team two years, every training camp hot take will begin with “this year finally being the year player X gets cut.” Player X will not get cut.

Who is this year’s Jim Kleinsasser? This is asked every year by Viking punditry to desperately find a guy to love as much as we loved Jim Kleinsasser, the ultimate blue collar player. This player does not exist, as there is only one People’s Champion.

June 16, 2019

The “NBA” unveiled

Filed under: Cancon, Humour, Sports — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Just before his mysterious disappearance (police are baffled, no clues have been found, etc., etc.), Colby Cosh filed a bizzare rant with his newspaper that they somehow forgot to spike:

Kawhi Leonard of the Toronto Raptors about to attempt a free throw during game 2 of the 2019 NBA Finals.
Photo by Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.

By the time you read this, I may be dead. The newspaper industry’s taboo against openly discussing the scriptwriters who create the elaborate soap operas we call “professional sports” is a strong one, and viciously enforced. The money we make from pretending that sports aren’t fake is too important to our bottom line. Good people who have tried to write articles like this have found their careers and lives cut short.

No doubt it will be so with me, but I feel that the geniuses behind the “National Basketball Association” — rumoured to be a tight-knit group of a half-dozen or so fiction veterans recruited from Hollywood, the manga industry, and, in at least one case, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. — deserve credit. Decades of planning went into this ambitious, implausible Toronto Raptors story line. The conquest of Canada now seems complete.

For decades no one thought that basketball, as a theatrical production, could make headway in Canada against the National Hockey League. The NHL’s scriptwriters were thought to be too naturally, intuitively in touch with Canada’s Victorian and Protestant values. And Canada, owing to its geography, had a natural market corner on “athletic” performers who could skate. The league could always come up with a backstory and an affable personality for a “Wayne Gretzky” (actually a figure skater from Swift Current named Kevin Feinberg) or “Alexander Ovechkin” (born Dennis Brian York in Nepean, Ont.)

Unfortunately, the NHL, its creative staff increasingly laden with third- and fourth-generation mediocrities, started to spin its wheels as any monopolistic institution does in the end. It became the CBC of sports. Head showrunner Gary Bettman adopted an ambitious strategy of colonizing new American markets, but failed to bring new blood into the writing room. He was left with increasingly cheap, desperate moves like inventing the “Vegas Golden Knights” and injecting them directly into the Stanley Cup final.

Accounts of when and how the so-called “National Basketball Association” decided to exploit this weakness remain cloudy. They say one of the writers was thumbing through the sport’s “bible,” the binder every television program keeps on hand to guarantee continuity, and noticed that basketball’s creation myth actually involves a Canadian inventor-hero, “James A. Naismith.” (This has always invited suspicion among the punters. How many Naismiths do you run across?)

June 15, 2019

13-0

Filed under: Soccer, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The US Women’s national soccer team eviscerated Thailand by an unheard-of 13-0 score in the group stage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. It was not a great day for sportsmanship, as the American women celebrated every goal as if they’d just broken a 0-0 tie in injury time of the final:

A screen capture from the highlight video at YouTube. Amusingly, if you try to watch this clip on the official FIFA Women’s World Cup site, you get an error saying “This video contains content from FIFA, who has blocked it from display on this website”

At American Thinker, Jonathan Keiler recounts the reaction to the game and the counter-reaction that followed:

On Tuesday the U.S. Women’s National (soccer) Team (WNT) obliterated a hapless Thailand squad in a 13-0 rout. That’s about 91-0 in football terms, but in a sense even worse, given soccer’s relative dearth of scoring. It would not be worth noting, except that many present and former WNT players recently sued the U.S. Soccer Federation claiming disparate treatment and pay, and to the general championing of all things female in a supposed age of “toxic masculinity.”

The game and the result might cause a reasonable observer to question popular progressive views on these issues, not because the U.S. women won, but how they did it.

[…]

This lack of competitive edge to the women’s game affects it at all levels, from youth leagues to international soccer. It’s not the individual players’ fault, but it’s a fact. I coached soccer for years (boys and girls.) On the women/girls side, routs like what happened on Tuesday are relatively commonplace in many leagues, up to and including high school — and obviously even after. And while this happens on the boys/men’s side too, it is less common and exaggerated.

So even leaving aside the issue of whether the men’s game is better in terms of speed/skill/aggression, the fact is generally the men’s game is more interesting and competitive more often. That puts additional fannies in seats, people watching on TV, and generates greater income, which is reflected in pay. Non-soccer aficionados may pooh-pooh the game’s rhythms and low scoring generally, but the fact is, first round games in the Men’s World Cup are far more interesting and exciting than the female version. So the WNT did themselves no favor in their legal case by making a major shortcoming of the women’s game painfully obvious.

They also did themselves no favors winning over international fans (and a lot of on-the-fence Americans) by their graceless destruction of the Thailand ladies. It’s not just that the WNT ran up the score, it’s that as they did so they acted as if they were heroes doing the impossible, rather than seasoned pros essentially carving up an amateur squad. They screamed, danced, ran around crazily, slid on the ground and the like, after every one of those thirteen goals. They didn’t act like children — they acted worse than children.

May 25, 2019

Zuby breaks the women’s deadlift record while (briefly) identifying as a woman

Filed under: Media, Politics, Sports — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Spiked talks to Zuby about his (her?) world-beating achievement:

Men’s and women’s sporting competitions have historically, with a few exceptions, been separate. But in recent years, it has become more common for trans women (biological males) to compete in women’s events. Trans women have competed against biological women in the top flights of several sports, including athletics, cycling, handball, volleyball and weightlifting. Most famously, Rachel McKinnon, born male, won gold in female track cycling at the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championships.

Many argue that male biology confers certain unavoidable advantages and so women could lose out if women’s categories are opened up to biological males. Zuby, a rapper, podcaster and fitness coach, set out to prove this. He has produced several viral videos in which he breaks British women’s weightlifting records while ‘identifying’ as a woman. spiked caught up with him for a chat.

spiked: Why did you decide to identify as a woman to break the women’s deadlift record?

Zuby: I already have a lot of footage of myself working out, including the video of me ‘breaking’ the women’s record. Around the time I posted the video, there were multiple news stories popping up about transgender athletes – technically biological men – competing against biological women. They were winning races and competitions in all kinds of sports. I’d seen this kind of thing springing up over the years, but in a very short period of time it seemed like there were lots of cases

Out of curiosity, I googled what the British women’s powerlifting records actually were and I saw that I could beat all of them. So that video I posted, that wasn’t me lifting my maximum – the women’s record is 215kg and my maximum is 275kg. It’s similar for the bench press. And the women’s squat record was roughly the same as my own personal best. So I tweeted the video:

I think that adding ‘PS I identified as a woman… Don’t be a bigot’ is what made it go viral. I just tweeted it out there. At the time I had about 19,000 followers. I knew it would resonate with my audience. I thought they would find it funny and that would be that. But within 10 minutes the video had over 10,000 views – by the time I went to bed, it had over 300,000.

Everything just blew up and I started getting contacted by news organisations across the globe. It was weird on all levels. I tripled my social-media following.

Most people understood the point and found it funny. A very small percentage got upset and angry at me – but none could articulate why. I stoked the fire a bit by then breaking the bench-press record and doing multiple reps.

April 30, 2019

An NFL coach admits he has a problem

Filed under: Football, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The NFL is a high-pressure environment, with big money and big temptations ready to befall even the steadiest of people. Sometimes, they can’t handle the situation themselves and have to look for help … and people in the NFL are not used to looking for help. It can be quite a trial, but sometimes, as Ted Glover recounts, help can be found:

The coach has a problem, but he’s trying to get better

Scene: A dingy basement of what looks to be a Missouri Synod Lutheran church or maybe a VFW hall. In the room are about twenty or so people, sitting on metal folding chairs, sipping on bad coffee. A tall, lanky guy with a scruffy beard and nondescript clothing stands at a podium at the front of the gathering.

‘Thanks for making it today. I’m glad to see each and every one of you, and you are all welcome here. Would anyone like to come up and share their story?’

The gathered people shift uncomfortably in their seats, avoiding eye contact, some with their arms folded. After what seems like an eternity, a lone figure hesitantly stands, in jeans and a short sleeved purple golf shirt.

‘Hi, and thank you, come right up,’ says the man at the podium, as he slips off to the side, motioning the man forward. The man in the crowd shuffles to the front.

He looks fairly unremarkable, mid-60’s probably, with a weather beaten face. Of course, everyone who’s here is beaten, in some way. Everyone is broken, trying to heal. The man now at the podium is no different.

‘Hello,’ he says haltingly, almost afraid to continue.

‘It’s okay, we’re all friends here. There’s no judgement, and what we say here stays here,’ says a kind, matronly looking woman in the crowd, encouraging him to share his story.

The man smiles, ever so slightly. It’s his first smile in what…weeks, months? Years, maybe? He finds a little more courage.

‘Hello,’ he says again, a little stronger. ‘My name is Mike, and I’m cornerbackaholic.’

‘HI MIKE’ the crowd replies in unison, their greeting echoing off the peeling paint on the cinder block walls.

‘’Uh…so…it’s been one draft since I haven’t taken a cornerback in the first two rounds. And I gotta tell ya, it’s been the hardest draft of my life. But I’m moving forward, and I feel good.’

‘Mmmmm-hmmmmm’ says someone in the crowd.

‘It’s weird,’ Mike continues, ‘I never saw myself here, in this spot. Corners were just kind of a hobby for most of my life. I got introduced to them in high school, like I imagine a lot of you did. I was a quarterback, and I mostly avoided them, you know? But then I got to college, and I switched over to defense. I played linebacker, and just sort of got introduced to them more gradually. I guess that’s when I started my downward spiral, but I didn’t recognize it then.’

April 28, 2019

Minnesota Vikings 2019 draft — third day

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

A quick recap of the first two days of the draft: in the first round, the Vikings addressed the single biggest need by drafting North Carolina State centre Garrett Bradbury with the eighteenth pick. In the second round, the team selected Alabama tight end Irv Smith, Jr. The third round was where things went quickly into horse-trading nirvana for Vikings general manager “Trader Rick” Spielman, with four consecutive trades executed to amass nine draft picks for the remaining rounds. At the end of that flurry of trades, the team selected Boise State running back Alexander Mattison.

The Vikings held the following picks going into the final day of the draft on Saturday:

  • Fourth-round (18th/120th overall)
  • Fifth-round (21st/159th overall, from Seattle)
  • Sixth-round (17th/190th overall)
  • Sixth-round (18th/191st overall, from Baltimore)
  • Sixth-round (20th/193rd overall, from Baltimore)
  • Sixth-round (31st/204th overall, from Detroit)
  • Seventh-round (3rd/217th overall, from New York Jets)
  • Seventh-round (33rd/247th overall, compensatory for “loss” of Tramaine Brock)
  • Seventh-round (36th/250th overall, compensatory for loss of Shamar Stephen)

Given that the team has only a microscopic budget for rookie salaries (pending any contract re-negotiations or trades of veterans), it seems unlikely that the Vikings will actually select nine players with those picks, but it does give Spielman lots of ammunition for packaging multiple picks in order to move up in the draft to get particular players.

(more…)

April 27, 2019

Minnesota Vikings 2019 draft — second day

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

After addressing the most urgent need in the first round, drafting North Carolina State centre Garrett Bradbury with the eighteenth pick, the Minnesota Vikings entered day two of the 2019 draft with the following seven picks in hand:

  • Second-round pick (18th/50th overall)
  • Third-round pick (17th/81st overall)
  • Fourth-round pick (18th/120th overall)
  • Sixth-round pick (17th/190th overall)
  • Sixth-round pick (36th/209th overall, compensatory for the loss of Teddy Bridgewater)
  • Seventh-round pick (33rd/247th overall, compensatory for the “loss” of Tramaine Brock)
  • Seventh-round pick (36th/250th overall, compensatory for the loss of Shamar Stephen, but who ironically rejoined the team this off-season)

Again, just to unsettle long-time Spielman watchers, the Vikings actually used their second round pick instead of trading down for more picks later in the draft. At the number 50 slot, they selected Alabama tight end Irv Smith, Jr., and suddenly Kyle Rudolph’s name is being discussed freely as potential trade-bait.

247 Sports said this about Smith:

Smith may never be an elite tight end at the next level, but he is a safe bet to be a consistent and reliable one. He is athletic enough to be a good chess piece in an offense and is rock solid as both a blocker and a pass catcher. He does not have a ton of playing experience, but remember that he is coming from a pro prospect factory at Alabama. His ceiling is not quite as high as the T.J. Hockenson or Noah Fant type players of this draft, but there is next to little risk in grabbing him to add to a football team. It was a bit of a shock when he was still on the board after the first five to ten picks of the second round and easily could have gone much higher, but the Vikings now have their No. 2 athletic tight end to Kyle Rudolph and probable successor to him at the position.

Matthew Coller says the Vikings landed their “mismatch tight end” with this pick:

The Minnesota Vikings have been taking swings at tight ends for years but haven’t invested a high draft pick until Friday night when they grabbed Alabama’s Irv Smith with the 50th overall pick.

While the Vikings have sent Kyle Rudolph to the Pro Bowl twice, they have not had tight end that could challenge opponents down field since Steve Jordan. With the Smith selection, they hope to have found a unique weapon.

“We believe Irv is a perfect fit for our new scheme offensively, what they want to do in terms of a mismatch guy, he’s an F tight end who we can move around,” director of college scouting Jamaal Stephenson said. “We can line him up wide, we can line him up tight, we can use him in the backfield, so he has a lot of versatility.”

With the Crimson Tide last season he caught 44 passes on just 57 targets (16.1 yards per catch) for 707 yards and scored eight touchdowns. According to Pro Football Focus, he rated No. 1 in yards per route run and caught the fifth most passes that traveled over 20 yards in the air of any tight end in the draft class.

Smith’s athletic traits match up with his big play statistics. At the NFL Combine he ran a 4.63 40-yard dash.

However, the draft war room staff could only keep Rick Spielman from trading for so long — maybe he chewed through the restraints, I dunno — the Detroit Lions somehow got through to Spielman to acquire the Vikings’ third round pick at #81 in exchange for the 88th and 204th picks. Then, proving that they couldn’t get him strapped down again in time, he executed another trade with the Seattle Seahawks, swapping that 88th pick for the 92nd pick and the 159th pick. And then a third trade with the New York Jets to move back to the 93rd pick and also add the 217th pick. AND THEN yet another trade to swap the 93rd pick to Baltimore for the 102nd, 191st, and 193rd picks.

After all that frenzied trading, the Vikings finally did make a third-round pick — the last of day two — Boise State running back Alexander Mattison.

As we get deeper into the draft, the readily available information on players will naturally get more brief. Here’s the initial post from Zone Coverage on Mattison:

Mattison, at 5-foot-11, 221 pounds, rushed for 1,000 yards each of the last two seasons, though his career average was just 4.9 yards per carry — a nice average in the pro game but less impressive in college.

He made 55 catches over the past two years and was used sparingly last season as a kick returner. He didn’t drop a pass in 2018, per Pro Football Focus.

The former Broncos ball carrier ran the fourth-slowest 40-yard dash time at the combine, 4.67 seconds. He tied for the sixth-best 20-yard shuttle, however, and was fourth in the broad jump at his position.

With all the flurry of trades, after entering the day with seven, they’ll have nine draft picks on day three (but I really don’t expect them to select nine players … some of this vast hoard will be swapped for other picks … probably):

  • Fourth-round pick (18th/120th overall)
  • Fifth-round pick (21st/159th overall, from Seattle)
  • Sixth-round pick (17th/190th overall)
  • Sixth-round pick (18th/191st overall, from Baltimore)
  • Sixth-round pick (20th/193rd overall, from Baltimore)
  • Sixth-round pick (31st/204th overall, from Detroit)
  • Seventh-round pick (3rd/217th overall, from New York Jets)
  • Seventh-round pick (33rd/247th overall, compensatory for “loss” of Tramaine Brock)
  • Seventh-round pick (36th/250th overall, compensatory for loss of Shamar Stephen)

April 26, 2019

Minnesota Vikings 2019 draft — first day

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Almost everyone assumed, based on the last several years’ most-noted weakness being the offensive line, that the Vikings would take the best centre, guard or tackle available and call it a night. Some contrarians were calling out for one of the two top tight ends to be taken to eventually move into Kyle Rudolph’s role for 2020 and onwards. There were even a few brave souls calling for yet another cornerback to be the Vikings’ first pick … and not all of them were sock puppets for head coach Mike Zimmer.

Given his history since general manager Rick Spielman took the job, a certain amount of horsetrading is to be expected … he’s called “Trader Rick” for good reason. One possibility was that the Vikings would try to trade back from the 18th pick to accumulate more picks in later rounds. At the start of the draft, the Vikings had five of their own draft picks and three late compensatory picks available, and Spielman is known to prefer having as many as ten picks to work with.

After a surprising run in the earlier picks of the first round, where most of the highly touted offensive linemen were dropping, some fans started to assume the worst — that the Vikings would trade down rather than grab a tackle, guard, or centre — if you’re a long-time Vikings fan, this sort of pessimism comes naturally. In the event, however, the Vikings stood pat at 18 and selected North Carolina State centre Garrett Bradbury:

ESPN‘s Courtney Cronin had good things to say about Bradbury the day before the draft:

There are multiple scenarios in which the Vikings can still get the offensive line help they need while addressing a different concern with their first pick.

However, N.C. State center Garrett Bradbury is the perfect fit for Minnesota at No. 18. The elite prospect can be a difference-maker on the interior. He is a match on multiple fronts, from how his athletic traits fit the Vikings’ zone-blocking scheme to the positional flexibility he provides with their current personnel.

Bradbury was in an outside-zone scheme at N.C. State that required him to work into the second level, run laterally and move quickly. At the NFL combine, Bradbury recorded the fastest three-cone time (7.41 seconds), as well as the third-fastest 40-yard dash (4.92), among offensive linemen.

His strength and movement skills strike comparisons to former Vikings guard/center Nick Easton and many of the traits found in last year’s second-round pick, Brian O’Neill. Drafting a player with a skill set this vast is critical to the Vikings’ zone-running scheme and can create a more explosive attack in areas like the play-action game.

At Zone Coverage, Sam Ekstrom had this to say about Bradbury:

Garrett Bradbury might be the best center in the draft. He certainly was in the country in 2018, winning the Rimington Trophy, which went to current Viking Pat Elflein two years ago before he was drafted by the Vikings in the third round. Bradbury also has experience at left and right guard, where he spent several seasons before transitioning to center. His interior flexibility makes him an asset, and as a former tight end in high school, his athleticism would make him effective in a zone scheme.

Bradbury ran the third-best 40 and top 3-cone drill at the combine amongst linemen. He also had the second-best bench press. He has a lot of reps under his belt already as he nears age 24, but he proved durable as a three-year starter for North Carolina State.

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