jbusse
Posts: 1309
Joined: 9/11/2013
From: Atlanta, GA
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bruce Johnson quote:
ORIGINAL: Pager https://www.skornorth.com/vikings-2/2019/11/kevin-stefanski-had-his-pat-shurmur-moment-in-dallas/ 10 straight runs. Right out of the Shurmur playbook. Zimmer must have been very excited to see it. I just finished catching up with watching the game. I noticed the commitment to the run. The Vikings enjoyed a 153 to 50 yards advantage on the ground. The game was a nail biter. It could have easily gone the wrong way at the end. It was second and about two and the Cowboys decided to run the ball. There were key stops by Weatherly and Odenigbo to bring up the fourth down conversion try by the Cowboys. I thought the Cowboys ran the ball there partly because they didn't want to leave too much clock for the Vikings. It felt like the Vikings were not able to stop the passing of Prescott. The Vikings were rewarded with their defensive line depth at the key moment of the game. The Vikings dodged a bullet when the punt returner fair caught the punt. It looked like he had a chance to return that for a TD. It was a big game for Kirk, but he made some errors. He threw the ball away in the end zone once and it looked like he had a receiver open. He had a free play due to a Cowboy offside. Prescott had just thrown a TD pass on a similar play, but Cousins threw to Ham for a two yard pass. Still, I don't believe there were any close calls where he almost threw to they guys in the other jerseys. In this big game on the road where he wanted to get some of that monkey off his back he was trying to be very careful with his throws. A lot of the throws were very short to Cook and those plays worked really well. I expect that the Vikings will do more of that down the stretch of the season. Those weary defenders probably hate that play having to come up and make a tackle on a physical running back. (The Vikings have two of them.) That play is going to work even better as the season winds down against teams like the Denver Broncos who don't have much to play for. It was a good game for the offensive line. They only gave up one sack perhaps partly because Cousins threw a lot of short passes, but they also did a great job on the run blocking. The play action was working too because of the success of the running game. That must have helped with the pass blocking. The one sack that was given up seemed to be a mental error by Reiff. This was the first close game this season that the Vikings won. It wasn't pretty, but of course we're all happy that it was a W. If they had not prevailed in the end there would be a lot of bitterness here. They are going to have to find a way to defend the pass better, but I get it that they made a huge commitment to stop the run against a team with one of the best running backs in the league. In their seven wins, they won by 16, 20, 18, 18, 12, 10, and 4. In their three losses, they lost by 5, 10, and 3. The Chicago game is the outlier. They can play with anyone when they bring their A game. Bruce, you were up until midnight -- you could have watched the game live on Sunday!
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