Quotulatiousness

September 12, 2016

Vikings beat Titans 25-16 with defensive take-aways, but no running game to speak of

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

Sunday’s game was cover-your-eyes awful in the first half (for Vikings fans — check my Twitter feed for examples), but the second half more than made up for the flaws in the opening 30 minutes. With the quarterback decision un-announced until game time, everyone including the Titans’ defensive co-ordinator was expecting the Vikings to be nothing but the Adrian Peterson show, starring Adrian Peterson. And that what the Vikings tried to do during the first half, with distressingly poor results (19 carries for only 31 yards). Whether it was issues with the run blocking or Peterson’s sudden hesitancy to attack the hole (or both), the Titans kept him firmly under control.

Tennessee opened the scoring with a first quarter field goal and made the vaunted Vikings defensive line look … ordinary.

At best.

Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota was barely ruffled by the pass rush and seemed to have plenty of time when he chose to throw the ball or to keep it and run, while the Titans’ two new running backs were moving the ball very well on the ground. When the Vikings weren’t giving up chunks of yards, they still managed to find opportunities to commit infractions to give away more yards in penalties. While the endzone was still elusive, the Titans were able to move the ball pretty much at will all through the first half.

The Fox game announcers seemed to have Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway (no. 52) on the brain because they credited him with tackles on a couple of occasions that were clearly Harrison Smith (no. 22) … if only because Chad can’t move that fast any more. (I love and respect Chad Greenway, but he’s not the player he was and I hope for his sake this is his final season in pads. If he wants to go into coaching, I’d love to see him continue as part of the Vikings organization.)

Vikings kicker Blair Walsh had an awful-then-mediocre day. The awful started with a missed field goal from 37 yards, then followed up with another terrible miss from 56 yards and a missed extra point later in the game. <sarc>Other than that, though, he did okay.</sarc> This is how bad the first half looked:

Coach Zimmer seems to have gotten through to the team, because the second half was a very different story indeed, starting from the kickoff where Cordarrelle Patterson took the ball 61 yards to set up the first successful kick for Blair Walsh, finally getting the Vikings onto the scoreboard. After a second Walsh field goal, middle linebacker Eric Kendriks picked off Mariota’s pass and ran it in for the Vikings’ first touchdown of the game (but Walsh didn’t convert). Walsh made his next attempt, moving the score to 15-10, and then a fumble was scooped up by defensive end Danielle Hunter and run in for the score. Walsh made his final field goal attempt and the game was almost out of reach for the Titans at 25-10.

Harrison Smith picked off Mariotta to seal the game, but Everson Griffin was penalized for roughing the passer (well after the ball was out), and instead the Titans were deep in Vikings territory with a first down. DeMarco Murray caught the touchdown pass, but the two-point try failed, and the Vikings covered the onside kick to snuff out the Titans’ last chance to tie the game.

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August 31, 2016

Teddy Bridgewater’s 2016 season is already over

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:58

The team confirmed that Teddy Bridgewater’s injury is a full ACL tear and a dislocated left knee, so he has no chance to return to the football field this season. Fortunately, there was no nerve or arterial damage so Teddy is expected to make a full recovery. The estimated recovery time for injuries like this ranges from nine months to a year, so the Vikings have to expect that he won’t be able to play until perhaps early in the 2017 season, so the team will have to ensure that they have enough quarterback depth on the roster to cover a month or more next year.

Tom Pelissero wrote this for USA Today:

As the Minnesota Vikings awaited test results to confirm what they already knew, that a gruesome knee injury had ended quarterback Teddy Bridgewater’s third season before it began, coach Mike Zimmer promised that his team wouldn’t spend long mourning.

“We’re not going to stick our heads in the sand,” Zimmer told reporters shortly after Bridgewater crumpled to the ground in Tuesday’s practice, untouched, leaving teammates to curse and pray before an ambulance took him away. “We’re going to figure out a way. Everyone can count us out if they want, but I think that’d be the wrong thing to do.”

Are the Vikings good enough as a team to carry out their Super Bowl hopes with 36-year-old journeyman Shaun Hill in Bridgewater’s place?

[…]

There may be opportunities to add an experienced quarterback as final cuts approach Saturday, though probably not an immediate starter. The Vikings have another young QB they like, a first-year pro from Old Dominion named Taylor Heinicke, on the active/non-football injury list, and he could get a look down the line if Hill stumbles. But that’s in the distance for now.

Zimmer made clear his chief focus now is preventing players from believing their season just went down with their quarterback.

“Hey, my wife passed away seven years ago, right? It was a tough day,” Zimmer said. “The sun came up the next day. The world kept spinning. People kept going to work. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

Sports writers have been imagining scenarios for the Vikings to follow, including outright fantasies like the Chicago Bears trading their backup quarterback within the division for a price the Vikings would be willing to pay. Quarterbacks currently unemployed or about to be (the next round of roster cuts are due on Saturday) are proffered as the solution, but the problem is really that the supply of quality starting quarterbacks is much less than the demand. There are 32 starting quarterback jobs and 32 backup jobs, but there are not enough qualified players to fill the starting roles, much less the backups. Minnesota knows this all too well, having had mediocre quarterbacks galore on the roster over the last few decades. Aside from Brett Favre’s last great season, Randall Cunningham’s last great season, and the too-few glory years of Daunte Culpepper, the Vikings have not had even an above-average quarterback in a quarter century. Teddy Bridgewater was the answer to the team’s prayers. Until yesterday. And he still might be … in 2017 and beyond. But for this year, it’s Shaun Hill’s job to lose (at least until Taylor Heinicke gets off the NFI list or Fran Tarkenton gets a full-body rejuvenation).

Hill was brought in to be a mentor to Teddy, and perhaps play a game or two in injury relief. At his age, neither he nor the team was expecting him to play a full season as the starter and it’s unreasonable to expect he’ll be able to do that (unless the improvements to the offensive line really have been nothing short of miraculous). Heinicke won’t be cleared to return to practice for at least a few more weeks, and while he showed great things in the 2015 preseason, he’s never thrown a pass in a regular season NFL game and will need several weeks to get back into shape. Andrew Krammer reported that Heinicke is a few weeks ahead of schedule on his recovery and could be back as soon as three weeks from now.

Joel Stave is the only other quarterback still on the roster and was probably not going to make the 53-man roster. Now he’ll be the number two until Heinicke is healthy and ready to play. Brad Sorenson was briefly on the roster until he was released yesterday, and some sources indicate he’s on his way back to Minnesota to re-sign with the team once he clears waivers. But Sorenson is also inexperienced and can’t be the answer to the Vikings’ quarterbacking woes.

As for all the other available quarterbacks right now, Arif Hasan puts it best in his response to Adam Caplan’s suggestions:

August 29, 2016

Vikings beat San Diego Chargers 23-10 in third preseason game

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

Sunday’s grand opening of the new U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis was carried on Fox, so I was able to watch the game between the Chargers and the Vikings from the comfort of my rec room, rather than just following my Twitter feed for live updates. As with all preseason games, there were good and bad aspects, but the third preseason game tends to be the one that teams take quite seriously and usually play their starters for most of the first half. The first round of roster cuts come up very soon — teams have to get down to only 75 players on Tuesday — so this is professional do-or-die time for a lot of players at the bottom of the roster sheets.

For the Vikings, a few starters were held out for the game, including current NFL rushing champ Adrian Peterson (who hasn’t had a meaningful preseason snap in several years), left tackle Matt Kalil, defensive end Everson Griffen, middle linebacker Eric Kendricks, and cornerback Xavier Rhodes. In a bit of a surprise, the starting centre was Joe Berger instead of the veteran John Sullivan (Berger is also a veteran player, but played all of last season at centre after Sullivan was injured).

The first drive of the game was quite encouraging for Vikings fans as the team drove efficiently down the field before the drive stalled in the red zone and they had to settle for a Blair Walsh field goal. Teddy Bridgewater showed that he has some athletic moves on a 22-yard scramble and Jerick McKinnon got a 35-yard gain on the same drive.

The second Vikings drive came quite soon as Harrison Smith intercepted a Philip Rivers pass off a deflection by Trae Waynes, but the team still couldn’t capitalize and came away with only a second field goal.

On San Diego’s next possession, the Vikings dialed up a big blitz but missed running back Melvin Gordon who ran 39 yards for the Chargers’ first score. Backup middle linebacker Audie Cole hit Rivers just as Gordon got the ball and safety Michael Griffin whiffed on Gordon in the open field. After the game, head coach Mike Zimmer said the blame was on him for a bad defensive call.

The Vikings’ next drive ended prematurely as tight end Kyle Rudolph had the ball stripped after a nice throw from Bridgewater and the Chargers were able to recover. San Diego briefly increased the lead on a field goal with about 2:28 left to play in the first half, and then Teddy Bridgewater put on a passing clinic with consecutive passes of 19, 22, and 27 yards and a touchdown to Kyle Rudolph. The two-point attempt after that failed, so the Vikings took a 12-10 lead into the halftime break. Bridgewater finished the half with a stat line of 12-of-16 for 161 yards and a passer rating of 127.3 (down from his 158.3 rating from the first preseason game).

The next points scored were a bit of a mess as tight end MyCole Pruitt took a Shaun Hill pass close to the goal line and then fumbled the ball. The ball was advanced into the end zone by a Chargers player and wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson recovered the fumble for a Vikings touchdown. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. First round pick wide receiver Laquon Treadwell caught a pass from Hill for the two-point conversion, moving the score to 20-10. Later in the fourth quarter, Blair Walsh scored another field goal to make the final score 23-10.

In defensive action, former Clemson teammates Mackensie Alexander and Jayron Kearse each secured an interception:

For the second time this preseason, college teammates Mackensie Alexander and Jayron Kearse each grabbed interceptions. Kearse was in the right spot at the right time to take in an overthrown Mike Bercovici pass. Alexander, after dropping an INT opportunity two plays prior, made an impressive interception in the end zone on a pass from Bercovici to Rasheed Bailey. Alexander and Kearse both played for Clemson and both were selected in last May’s draft – Alexander a second-round pick and Kearse a seventh-rounder. Another young defensive back impressed, as well, with Waynes registering a pass breakup and also finishing in good position on other passes thrown his way.

Of course, after doing something really good on the field, Mac Alexander then went over to taunt the San Diego bench, drawing a well-deserved unsportsmanlike conduct penalty:

A dictionary example of a “rookie mistake”.

The Vikings will host the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday in their fourth and final preseason game, after which all teams have to cut down to their 53-man rosters (practice squad players can be signed 24 hours after the “final” rosters are announced). Even more than the second half of the third preseason game, expect pretty much the entire fourth game to be filled with players desperate to attract the attention of coaches in hopes of latching on with a team (their own or some other team … getting into the NFL on a roster is what matters). Translated, this means don’t expect to see any star players take the field for more than token efforts this coming week: no rational coach is willing to risk star players getting injured in utterly meaningless snaps this late in the preseason (and should be strongly criticized if they do).

Update: Tom Pelissero is reporting that the Vikings are looking to trade John Sullivan, and it now makes sense that he didn’t get into the Chargers game.

August 19, 2016

Vikings beat Seahawks 18-11 in second preseason game, without Teddy Bridgewater

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:41

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?”

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