VikingLord wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 3:47 pm
I'm a little late to this thread but I wanted to throw in my observations of last night's game.
- Bears front 7 gave the Vikings OL all it could handle. Cook tried inside, outside, and sometimes both and the running lanes closed down quickly for the most part. Still, I wasn't looking for the Vikings OL to push the Bears DL around as much as I was looking to see if they could give as much as they got, and for the most part I did see that. Even in pass protection I thought the OL did a solid job. Cousins had some time and as a result was able to find his receivers to keep drives going. Vikings had some costly holding calls, although I disagreed with at least 2 of them. The only one I agreed with was the one on Dozier where Cousins took off for what was a 1st down. The other two were borderline, but the Bears got the calls.
- Cousins continues to show that if he has the threat of a running game and can work off the play action, plus he gets decent pass protection, he can make the reads and the plays necessary to win games. He made some nice throws. That first TD pass to Thielen was money. I don't blame him for the INT. He made a nice read and the throw was on, but it popped out of Thielen's hands for some reason.
- Cook is one tough runner. He didn't get much room to roam, but he consistently banged defenders around and got a lot of tough yards after contact. It was interesting to see the Bears jawing at him late in the game. Instead of jawing back, he should have just pointed at the scoreboard. I was worried when the family jewels got roughed up on that one run, but thankfully not a serious injury.
- Lastly, but not leastly, Justin Jefferson. Yes, Thielen pulled in the two TDs, but Jefferson was punishing. The scary thing about Jefferson is he's going to get even better. The guy has an excellent work ethic and wants to be one of the best. I could see him eclipsing Moss's rookie Vikings record of 4 100 yard games by a few games yet this year.
- Defense was solid, but it's hard to evaluate them given how bad the Bear offense is. The Bears don't have a legit RB. Patterson is decent, but he's just not really a RB. Still, I thought the Vikings played solid football in the front 7 all night. They played in the Bear backfield a lot and controlled the flow up front, plus got consistent pressure both from their down lineman as well as from various blitzers coming from a variety of angles. They didn't allow Foles to get comfortable.
- I thought the secondary played pretty well. Smith should have had 2 INTs. I'm still waiting to see the DBs anticipate a little better and get their hands on more passes, but the tackling was good and the effort was superb. Still, with all of that if Foles threw a slightly better ball late we'd all probably be wondering how the Vikings lost another game late by a single point. The secondary still has a ways to go before anybody can take this team as a serious playoff contender.
- As shaky as the secondary can still be at times, it's not the Achilles Heel of the 2020 Vikings. No, that designation goes to the special teams. Kickoff returned for TD against? Check. Muffed extra point try? Check. Allowing big punt return near end of a close game? Check. On the bright side, the offense looked horrific to start the year and has turned it around. The defense looked horrific to start the year and they're in the process of turning it around. So there is hope that the special teams can yet turn it around and at the very least not be horrific.
In sum, the Bears are a really bad offensive team with a solid, if unspectacular, defense. It was a Monday night road game, though, at a place where the Vikings normally struggle and they got the win. They look like a team that has grown considerably throughout the year and is on the right track, however, so I'm far more optimistic about their future than I was at the bye.
I'm not going to predict playoffs or winning streaks just yet, however, because I'm still not sold on them. I want to see that they don't put in another Atlanta-like performance now that they've got some wind in their sails and might be tempted to sit back and relax a bit on the back of their recent success. I no longer think they are a 5-win team. I now think they have a good chance to be an 8 or even 9 win team, but if they keep improving and keep turning in consistent performances, I'll up that further.
