eating_crow

One of Vikings Gab most faithful readers, Big Johnny, seemed to think I might have set myself up to eat a ton of crow when I previewed the Lions game with such confidence that the Vikings would win.  Despite two lost fumbles, a failed fourth down attempt, our “number one” wide out playing possibly the worst game of his career, a rash of penalties, a gutless call on third and goal, and a mere 27% third down conversion rate the Vikings still managed to win by 17 points (covering the 16.5 point spread) never putting me in any real danger of having to thaw out that crow and, as FragileFreds says, put it on the barbie.

The live blog was fun, as it is always nice to share one’s misery as to how sloppy the game was with fine company as was present on Sunday.  This is a feature that I want to keep as regular as possible at Vikings Gab so make sure to stop by on game days and let us know what is on your mind.  A huge thanks to those who showed up this Sunday.

Now, down to business.  This game against the Lions was such a mixed bag that I wasn’t sure how to organize my thoughts.  So, I’m going to give some negative thoughts about the Vikings game, followed by the positives, followed by a conclusion of some sort.  Yeah, that sounds good.  Nice and structured.

NEGATIVES

-          PLAY CALLS:  Overall, the game wasn’t called too badly, but there were more than one very frustrating instances.  Adrian’s first fumble came on a double reverse where the exchange between Adrian and Percy was sloppy.  Against a much lesser team, wouldn’t just a regular, standard offense suffice?  One would hope.  Plus, why tip your hand that these plays are in the play book against the Lions?  Save it for the Bears or Cardinals.

-          TRYING NOT TO SCORE:  On third and goal from the eight, the Vikings opted to call a draw play which went know where, essentially settling for three points instead of taking a serious shot at six points.  Later, well within field goal range, the Vikings went for it on 4th and one.  Dugan ran and the attempt failed.  Which is it Chili?  Are field goals good enough or not?  Make up your mind!

-          FUMBLES:  Look, I don’t think these fumbles are as big of a deal as they will be made out to be over the next couple of weeks.  One was a trick play gone wrong.  The other was Phillip Buchanon making a heck of a defensive play (and probably a horse collar) and Adrian was trying his damndest to score.  The big question here is how/why Adrian got caught from behind.

-          PENALTIES:  The Vikings had a ridiculous day of having yellow flags thrown at them.  They were penalized 13 times for 91 yards.  Some of these calls were questionable (Edwards helmet-to-helmet) but the fact remains that the discipline was replaced by dunderheadedness in this game.  Perhaps the most glaring penalty was when Robison got called for lining up offsides on a 4th down play, which gave the Lions new life to their drive.

-          DISAPPEARING WIDE OUT:  Bernard Berrian had as many drops as catches on Sunday.  He also had a dunderheaded penalty.  This was probably the worst game I have ever seen him play, and I am praying it’s a result of him still feeling the hammy injury.  Too many performances like this out of Berrian, and he’ll be cut or traded.  He really needs to get his act together in the second half of this season, or else he may be supplanted on the depth chart by Jaymar Johnson, Greg Lewis, or Darius Reynaud.  You might laugh at that, but a team with Super Bowl aspirations needs to put 45 players on the field that can do what they’re paid to do.

-          LUCKY MEGATRON WAS LOW ON POWER:  When I say that the Vikings secondary held Calvin Johnson to 8 catches for 84 yards, you would think it would be listed in the “POSITIVES” section.  Nope.  The Vikings got lucky that Calvin Johnson apparently practiced with Bernard Berrian this week because he had numerous balls (including possible touchdowns) bounce right of his hands.  Combine that with Bryant Johnson’s bad end zone drop, and this secondary was just plain lucky that they were not exploited worse.  After seeing what the Cardinals have done to secondaries in the last two games, the Vikings better get their act together before we play them in a few weeks.

-          TIGHT ENDS CONTINUE TO ANNOY:  The Vikings have been plagued all year on third downs and in the red zone when it comes to shutting down tight ends.  They did a nice job holding Brandon Pettigrew to only 2 catches 23 yards.  However, backup tight end, Will Heller ended up being a thorn in our side.  His 4 catches for 33 yards and a score all came at inopportune times and were quite embarrassing (except for the time Griffin leveled him).  Next week we play against the Seahawks’ standout John Carlson.  After that we play Greg Olsen and the Bears.  The Vikes need to find a way to contain tight ends if they want to be a true shut down defense.

-          WE LIKE CALF ROPING:  I don’t know about you, but I much prefer Jared Allen’s calf-roping routine to his Invisible Man routine.  I understand that they did a nice job of doubling him which opened up Ray Edwards’ big game, but Jared needs to find a way to be more productive when the odds are against him.  His only registered stat on the day was a single tackle, though he did almost pick off a pass.

POSITIVES

-          PROTECTION BECOMING A STRENGTH:  Brett Favre has to be very pleased with how his offensive line has been playing these last few games.  He was only sacked once this game, which is huge improvement to what we saw throughout 2008.  The offensive line has been protecting the quarterback better than I have seen in a long time, but much of the credit also belongs to Favre.  His ability to use his feet to avoid the rush was very important to his solid performance.  Favre ended up being 20 of 29 for 344 yards and one touchdown.

-          CHURNING THE YARDS:  Adrian Peterson had a big day, despite his two credited fumbles.  He rumbled for 133 yards and two touchdowns.  He also registered two catches for 10 yards.  On most of his 18 carries (that number still needs to go up by about 2 to 7) Peterson was able to simply treat the Lions defense like high school kids.  His cutback worked nearly every time.  Again, the offensive line deserves a lot of credit here.

-          SPECIAL Of THE DAY – SIZZLING RICE:  Sidney Rice is dominating the NFL right now, no questions asked.  He registered seven catches for 201 yards.  Rice has pretty much established himself as the #1 wide out on the Vikings depth chart.  His height, jumping ability, sure fire hands, and great ability to position himself to make a play is setting Rice up to be one of the best.  Right now, he ranks in the league as 22nd in catches (44) and 4th in yards (786) behind only the likes of Randy Moss, Reggie Wayne, and Andre Johnson.  He has the second highest yards per catch average (17.9) among receivers with at least 30 catches, trailing only DeSean Jackson.  Rice doesn’t have the speed or running power to be a Moss or Wayne type of guy, but if he can find his own way of finishing off these catches by getting into the end zone then he will find himself as one of the best receivers to ever play football.

-          MY OH MY, PERCY:  Just watch the highlight reel.  His 40-yard catch will speak for itself.

-          SHUTTING DOWN A WEAPON:  The Vikings allowed Kevin Smith to average 4.6 yards per carry.  This isn’t good.  What is good is that he only carried the ball 12 times, and caught it only two more times for only 10 more yards.  Smith is one of the Lions biggest weapons and the Vikings did a nice job of taking him out of the game for the most part.  The Lions were forced to abandon the run and resort to making their quarterback throw 51 passes.  That is a very good accomplishment.

 

-          MAUL OF AMERICA:  That was my favorite nickname for the Vikings front four that was offered up during Sunday’s broadcast.  Despite a relative absence of Jared Allen, the Vikings front four dominated the game.  Constantly applying pressure to Stafford was very important to the Lions having a somewhat mediocre day through the air.  The crew was led by Ray Edwards who had five tackles, two sacks, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery.  His day would have been even more spectacular if the a flag hadn’t been thrown on his ridiculous hop over the running back and level Matt Stafford play, which would have counted as another sack and another forced fumble.  Kevin Williams also provided a sack.

 

-          IMPROVED TACKLING:  It wasn’t perfect, but the Vikings looked like much better tacklers this game.  A big part of why the Lions had trouble moving the ball on offense was very aggressive and sound tackling from Cedric Griffin, Tyrell Johnson, E.J. Henderson, Madieu Williams, Benny Sapp, Asher Allen, and Chad Greenway.  Hats off to those guys for fixing that part of our defense… at least for one game… against the Lions.

 

-          LONGWELL DID WELL:  This game was perhaps my favorite Ryan Longwell game in recent memory.  He was two for two on field goals, neither of which were very long.  However, he was getting some extra power on kickoffs, consistently putting the ball in the end zone, which gave the Lions poor starting position through much of the game.  I hope that continues through the rest of our stretch of home games.

 

-          MOST IMPORTANT:  The Vikings managed, by all appearances, to escape this game with both a win and no major injuries.  The coaches pulled the starters when the game was out of hand, and nobody went down.  In games like this, there is a huge probability of injury (just ask the seemingly endless number of Lions that left the field) but the Vikings managed to avoid it.  This not only is a victory against the Lions, but greatly increases our chances for victory throughout the rest of the schedule.

 

CONCLUSION

Moving to 8-1 is huge.  Moving to 4-0 in the division is also huge.  Sweeping two of our division opponents is huge, and fun to shove in their faces after the fact.  This was a big win for the Vikings, despite playing a lesser team. 

There were, however, too many mental errors in this game both from players and coaches.  These things need to be addressed as the season moves forwards.  This team has yet to play their best football, which was to scare the crap out of our upcoming opponents. 

The Vikings are third in the league standings, and if they can fix just a few things, they have the potential to make this year truly one to remember.  The Lions game will be soon forgotten, whether the Vikings sink or swim, but those who study the film will be able to find all sorts of ways to attack these Vikings and use their weaknesses to their advantage.  That is exactly why the issues we saw on Sunday need to be fixed, because a better team exploiting the same mistakes would not have let the Vikings escape with a victory.