{"id":16528,"date":"2012-08-18T08:56:40","date_gmt":"2012-08-18T13:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=16528"},"modified":"2014-05-09T14:24:31","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T19:24:31","slug":"vikings-win-convincingly-over-buffalo-in-second-preseason-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/08\/18\/vikings-win-convincingly-over-buffalo-in-second-preseason-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Vikings win convincingly over Buffalo in second preseason game"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Unlike last week’s game at San Francisco, where you had to look carefully at the right angle and squint just a bit to see anything positive, the second preseason game had all kinds of positive signs. Here’s Dan Wiederer<\/a> at the Star Tribune<\/em>:<\/p>\n

For all those Vikings optimists out there, Friday might well have been the perfect night just 23 days before the start of the regular season.<\/p>\n

All those empty seats inside Mall of America Field? Hey, at least the stadium was half-full, right?<\/p>\n

And for those who did turn out for a hype-free preseason game against the Buffalo Bills, it’s fair to say most left with a feeling this team’s glass may be half-full, too.<\/p>\n

The Vikings not only built a 10-0 lead at the end of the first quarter of what turned out to be a 36-14 victory, but they did so with style, so many young players flashing the signs of promise that the coaching staff has been advertising since training camp began.<\/p>\n

Where do we even start? That is, before rookie linebacker Audie Cole became an instant hero with two interception return touchdowns in the final minutes.<\/p>\n

Do we begin with receiver Jerome Simpson, who on the game’s fourth play beat rookie Bills cornerback Stephon Gilmore on a short slant, then decided to show off his Olympic-style hurdling skills, leaping over safety Jairus Byrd on his way to a 33-yard pick-up?<\/p>\n

Or do you start with Toby Gerhart’s continued power and the 30 yards he rushed for on six attempts?<\/p>\n

Or is it easiest to circle back to the obvious command shown by second-year quarterback Christian Ponder, who orchestrated an impressive 80-yard touchdown drive to open the game, then tacked on a 50-yard march on the next possession to set up a Blair Walsh field goal?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike last week’s game at San Francisco, where you had to look carefully at the right angle and squint just a bit to see anything positive, the second preseason game had all kinds of positive signs. Here’s Dan Wiederer at the Star Tribune: For all those Vikings optimists out there, Friday might well have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[152,126,179],"class_list":["post-16528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-buffalobills","tag-minnesotavikings","tag-nfl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4iA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16528"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25580,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16528\/revisions\/25580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}