quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricky J

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ORIGINAL: Viking Rich

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brad H

If this game was all about backups, I'd say our backups aren't very good.

Granted, they played nothing but backups.

But Denver's philosophy was to throw the ball downfield.

Zimmer was stuck on running, and running, and running, and running... [&o]

Dude, it was a scrimmage!

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ORIGINAL: Viking Rich

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricky J

quote:

ORIGINAL: Viking Rich

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brad H

If this game was all about backups, I'd say our backups aren't very good.

Granted, they played nothing but backups.

But Denver's philosophy was to throw the ball downfield.

Zimmer was stuck on running, and running, and running, and running... [&o]

Dude, it was a scrimmage!

So a scrimmage doesn't include passing?

Help me out here...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ricky J

quote:

ORIGINAL: Pauldiercks1

Unconventional yes, but Cousins should play three qtr this week. Hopefully his gets sacked three or more times as well. The last few years it’s seems like he plays like crap for a few games, until he gets banged around and berated a bit. Let’s just get that out of the way earlier this year. He seems to need a little wake up call to pull on his big boy pants and get going.

He's been kicked around pretty good so far this season by just about everyone - maybe that'll be enough ...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tom Sykes

From the strib's '5 things to watch' today:

After Christian Darrisaw had his second surgery of the year on a lingering groin injury on Thursday, left tackle Rashod Hill left the Vikings' practice with an injury on Thursday afternoon, forcing Blake Brandel to play left tackle on the first-team offense. The Vikings' health status on the left side makes the offensive line even more a subject of intrigue; the team is still trying to determine whether Oli Udoh should start ahead of Dakota Dozier at right guard, whether third-round pick Wyatt Davis can contribute as a rookie and what depth it has behind Garrett Bradbury at center.

I thought they were just playing Brandel because of Darrisaw ... I didn't realize Hill got dinged.

Has Cleveland ever gotten significant practice time at OT? I honestly don't remember ...

Last year we traded for Ngakoue 08/30, the year before it was Mark Fields 08/31 (and traded away G Isidora 08/31- I don't even want to know if he's doing well) ...

Waiver claims and loose scraps won't do it, can't we please bump it up a couple weeks and take on a bubble OL veteran that gets some competitive preseason time for once?

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ORIGINAL: kgdabom

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ORIGINAL: DavidAOlson

NFL says every team is more than 75% vaccinated. So that means a few more Vikings have gotten vaccinated recently.

Reportedly 28 teams over 85%, and I'd guess the Vikes are not one of them, yet. And 15 teams are over 95%.

https://twitter.com/JFowlerESPN/status/1426512651182612481

What probably doesn't get enough emphasis: because this year's Delta strain is so much easier to transmit, players should both be vaccinated and continue as many precautions as reasonably possible (meet in well-ventilated areas, N95 masking, etc.).

I predicted we'd be living under this crap for the rest of our lives and looks like we will.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DavidAOlson

quote:

ORIGINAL: kgdabom

quote:

ORIGINAL: DavidAOlson

NFL says every team is more than 75% vaccinated. So that means a few more Vikings have gotten vaccinated recently.

Reportedly 28 teams over 85%, and I'd guess the Vikes are not one of them, yet. And 15 teams are over 95%.

https://twitter.com/JFowlerESPN/status/1426512651182612481

What probably doesn't get enough emphasis: because this year's Delta strain is so much easier to transmit, players should both be vaccinated and continue as many precautions as reasonably possible (meet in well-ventilated areas, N95 masking, etc.).

I predicted we'd be living under this crap for the rest of our lives and looks like we will.

Likely we'll have annual boosters for active strains, perhaps rolled into the better annual flu shots that are coming soon.

Maybe it'll be partly controlled by infrastructure improvements to HVAC systems, like water-borne illnesses were controlled by better water & sewage systems. This pandemic blew apart some misunderstandings of droplet/aerosol transmission, and we'll likely get better HVAC systems as a result: more fresh air, better filtering, UV lighting to deactivate viruses, etc. That would cut cases of flu and COVID, perhaps RSV and other nasty stuff.

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ORIGINAL: Tom Sykes

I will say this ... Brandel played as much and well as anybody, to my eye. Davis and Cole I thought held their own.

Or is it just Dozier making everybody else look not horrible?

Anyway ... it means very very little but at least they didn't stumble out of the gate ... so there's that.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nate

Well, that was a pretty terrible first game, but with all our starters sitting and seeing Denver played at least some first stringers, I guess I wasn't surprised at losing. I was a little surprised that they looked so lost and out of position all day. Hopefully next game is a better showing.

The good:
- Mond, when not getting his helmet knocked off, looked better than I thought he would given he had 3 days of practice and probably knows about 20 plays
- Davis looked pretty solid with the little practice he's had. He drove his guy back a couple of times and didn't wilt on the pass rush.
- our FG kicker made both kicks and split the uprights, letting us at least dream of having a competent FG kicker for a week
- Rose looked good. I'm not sure if he'll make the team but at least he was playing hard and made some tough runs.

The bad:
- the team came out like it was the first day of OTAs. Guess it really was a glorified scrimmage with 30+ players sitting out but that was a pretty abysmal effort.
- the both the oline and dline were getting pushed around quite a bit. I'm glad we went beefy with the defensive FAs and oline draft picks, I'm tired of losing so completely at the LOS on both sides.
- the punting was as terrible as ever. Can we get a guy who can kick it more than 40 yards consistently? 31 teams seem to have one, WTF?
- lots of lost defensive backs running around not covering. I don't know what we changed but it looked like the first week of marching band practice out there

The ugly:
- several times on the dline, we had lineman following the offensive lineman, even when not blocked, and were completely clueless where the ball was. On a couple occasions the RB ran right past while they were pushing the olineman down to the ground. Reading your keys is one thing, but FFS look for the damn ball!!
- most of the rookie QBs around the league got to air out the ball in some way. Ours was handing off all afternoon, despite being down 33-6. That's pathetic. Let him throw the F'ing ball!
- going into half with a timeout and not using all 4 downs at the goal line is about as newbie as it gets. How the heck can Zim be this bad at clock management after all these years?
- the penalties were horrible, either giving up a first down after a 3rd down stop or giving up a safety for holding in the endzone. Bad preparation mentally.
- Dantzler played pretty badly and also seemed somewhat aloof. Is he pissed that we brought in a bunch of competition or was he really that lost? The safeties sucked but he was torched on the 80 yard bomb.

With only 3 preseason games now, I'm hoping the starters get some time next week and some decent work in game 3. I don't want us to be 0-2 before we realize that the season has started.

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ORIGINAL: Bill Jandro

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ORIGINAL: Ricky J

quote:

ORIGINAL: Pauldiercks1

Unconventional yes, but Cousins should play three qtr this week. Hopefully his gets sacked three or more times as well. The last few years it’s seems like he plays like crap for a few games, until he gets banged around and berated a bit. Let’s just get that out of the way earlier this year. He seems to need a little wake up call to pull on his big boy pants and get going.

He's been kicked around pretty good so far this season by just about everyone - maybe that'll be enough ...

Maybe I need to drive up there and intercept his mini van and kick the shit out of him so he's ready for week one

quote:

ORIGINAL: David F.

We have the right guys for O-line on our roster. We just have to play THE BEST ONES. I'm at the point where I'm starting to thing the Vikings' coaching staff is playing the worst ones as a sick inside joke. Davis looks good. So do a number of the others. I'll sit back and wait patiently to see if the depth chart changes over the next couple of weeks - and NOT just because the bad ones get hurt.

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ORIGINAL: Tom Sykes

… the worst part is

you just know Spiels is furiosly scanning the waiver wire, doing his ‘due diligence’, looking for street OL to ‘beef up’ our competition. These are dudes rejected from competing on other teams … we will scrape up somebody by end of week, guaranteed.

pre-season anxiety and over-reaction? Sure, but Spielman’s approach to OL building is no more evolved than buying lotto tickets.

end of whine (for now).