As the Vikings did their final preparations for their season opener against the San Francisco 49ers, coach Mike Zimmer took stock of his players during the Monday morning walk-through at the team hotel and felt certain they were ready to roll after a strong preseason and a sharp week of practices leading to kickoff.
“I was confident going into the ballgame,” Zimmer said. “I said, ‘Man, these guys are ready to go.’ So much for that.”
The Vikings most certainly were not ready, squandering a pair of early offensive opportunities and getting manhandled on both sides of the ball as the game went on. At night’s end, they boarded a red-eye flight back to Minneapolis with a disappointing 20-3 loss and even more concerns than they had before heading to the West Coast.
In the immediate aftermath of the loss, Zimmer was disgusted, at one point saying he hopes to field a Vikings team like the one that just bullied them on national television. And after reviewing the tape on that long, quiet plane ride home, Zimmer didn’t see much to change his opinion.
“It was a poor performance. Disappointing. We did not play together as a team in most all phases, and we’ve got a lot of soul-searching to get done,” Zimmer said.
More at the link.
I imagine this is a somewhat daunting week for the coaches, who have to analyze what went wrong on Monday and somehow whip the team in place and put together a game plan that will help the Vikes play far better at home on Sunday. They have a short week to do it and this game is against an NFC North rival so winning is critical.
It is good to hear some positives about Mike Harris and Mike Wallace. I agree though, after reading that article, especially the Zimmer quotes, it makes the loss even more appalling.
Winning is not a sometime thing it is an all of the time thing - Vince Lombardi
dead_poet wrote:
The more I read the more frustrated I am with our offensive line in both phases.
They had a pretty bad game. Hopefully, Berger will quickly become more comfortable making the calls and they will all start to gel as unit. I don't think things are going to get any easier against the Lions.
Mothman wrote:
They had a pretty bad game. Hopefully, Berger will quickly become more comfortable making the calls and they will all start to gel as unit. I don't think things are going to get any easier against the Lions.
As I posted in another thread, I think this OL has to make a huge leap in order to gel in any possible way within one season.
Given the injuries and the overall lack of talent, just how good can we expect the OL to be? I hope I'm wrong but they might be a liability all season.
The Vikings have blazing fast WRs. Maybe more quick hits, slants, and plays that are catch and run will have to be used. That includes utilizing some (gasp!) gadget plays. It's going to call for imagination and smarts from Turner.
As for the running game, it will help if Adrian Peterson becomes Adrian Peterson again. Let's hope that happens. Even so, he'll need blocking.
losperros wrote:Given the injuries and the overall lack of talent, just how good can we expect the OL to be? I hope I'm wrong but they might be a liability all season.
Well, I doubt they'll become a strength so I see your point.
The Vikings have blazing fast WRs. Maybe more quick hits, slants, and plays that are catch and run will have to be used. That includes utilizing some (gasp!) gadget plays. It's going to call for imagination and smarts from Turner.
Uh oh...
As for the running game, it will help if Adrian Peterson becomes Adrian Peterson again. Let's hope that happens. Even so, he'll need blocking.
Yes, and a commitment to getting the ball into his hands more than 13 times per game.
Yeah, I know. Dangerous territory. I'm treading softly here, Jim.
Mothman wrote:
Yes, and a commitment to getting the ball into his hands more than 13 times per game.
Oh, absolutely. No one can score a TD on every play. Sometimes it takes a while in the game for AD to start cutting loose. And once he does, the scoreboard changes in a good way for the Vikings.
This isn't the first time I've seen this offense limit the touches an explosive talent gets. I hope it doesn't become habit forming.
it appears to me that the o-line is so bad they can't block or even open up holes for ap; let alone protect bridgewater. i'm shocked at zimmer's casual response after the game. i thought this guy was intense and wasn't afraid to show some emotion and anger. why wouldn't you be angry after this pathetic performance? this is his team. many of the guys playing now are guys he drafted or traded for (certainly not all, but many more than last season). our defense couldn't even do something as simplistic as make a tackle. there was not ONE area we looked good in. i think anyone who believes these things can be corrected in 1 week is beyond naive. kapernick is so one dimensional its pathetic; and we didn't make one adjustment to stop him. anyone notice basically every short pass and many of the runs were to the right side?
please excuse my ignorance as i admit i haven't read through every post since our debacle a couple nights ago. however, i'm surprised by all of the talk about the o-line here, and to a lesser extent AP. do i think the line was good? not at all. but we all know that is going to be a rough stretch this season. this is not to say i'm willing to accept them sucking all year...but certainly after week one, i "get" it.
basically the same goes with AP. as mentioned above and in countless posts, the o-line sucked. the guy is rusty and was trying to run behind maybe the worst line in football. at least in week one.
all that said, i am so disappointed in the play of our defense as a whole but our line especially. they got manhandled all day long. every time the 9'ers ran the ball it went for 10 yards it seemed. and maybe it was just me but i had higher expectations for this group.
simply put, our first game was a mess and many people share many levels of the blame. i guess i'm just surprised at where some people are putting the majority of the blame....
The line’s performance on Monday deserves to be ripped, it allowed 5 sacks and the running game was awful. That might not be entirely their fault, but they share in it. The question I always ask at this point in the season is if this is the best they are capable of. I do not think it is, how much better they can get is probably not the most exciting thing about this team, but it is certainly possible that Monday was a low point for them.
I do agree though, as bad as the offense was, that was not entirely a surprise. We knew the OL would have struggles. Bridgewater’s play was a surprise and so was AP to some extent. However, the biggest let down IMO, was the play of the defense in the running game. We got manhandled and not just in the 2nd half when they were gassed. For me that was the worst part of the game, we’ve seen them play A LOT better than that.
A lot will be forgiven / forgotten if they can get it together against Detroit.
Winning is not a sometime thing it is an all of the time thing - Vince Lombardi
The defensive performance against the run was atrocious, but if our offense puts up 24 points it's just something we take note of and talk about how the defense stopped San Fransisco's offense from scoring. San Fransisco having the luxury of playing ahead all night didn't help things.
The defense and special teams put the offense in favorable position all night and they didn't capitalize at all. The offense is the biggest thing that has to be fixed.
DK Sweets wrote:The defensive performance against the run was atrocious, but if our offense puts up 24 points it's just something we take note of and talk about how the defense stopped San Fransisco's offense from scoring. San Fransisco having the luxury of playing ahead all night didn't help things.
The defense and special teams put the offense in favorable position all night and they didn't capitalize at all. The offense is the biggest thing that has to be fixed.
Good points. An offense that can't score or take advantage of good field position is a liability for their defense.
Of course, a defense that can't stop the run isn't doing the team any favors either.
When will the Vikings have a complete team where the offense, defense and special teams all do their jobs well?
I'm not apologizing for the offense, just pointing out that the performance of the offense this season was an expectation based on a BELIEF that various pieces would improve/return, specifically AP and TB. That didn't pan out. On the other hand the Defensive expectations were based in large part on the past performance last season. To me that performance is more damning.
They should never be getting gashed for 10+ yards on edge plays in the 1st quarter. (or ever) That is just unacceptable. We will win few games if we are allowing rushing offense like that. Our Offense, no matter how great, will never see the field.
Winning is not a sometime thing it is an all of the time thing - Vince Lombardi
mansquatch wrote:I'm not apologizing for the offense, just pointing out that the performance of the offense this season was an expectation based on a BELIEF that various pieces would improve/return, specifically AP and TB. That didn't pan out. On the other hand the Defensive expectations were based in large part on the past performance last season. To me that performance is more damning.
I understand what you're saying but I'm betting the defense's performance last season was a contributing factor to SF's highly effective game plan. The defense struggled against the run last year.
They should never be getting gashed for 10+ yards on edge plays in the 1st quarter. (or ever) That is just unacceptable. We will win few games if we are allowing rushing offense like that. Our Offense, no matter how great, will never see the field.
Agreed. It's a huge problem... so why didn't they do more to address it?
