About Last Night: Vikings/Rams Thoughts

Jaymar Johnson has worked hard and is no longer practice squad eligible. Payne is, I believe. He and Small or Mitchell will be on the PS.

But, seriously, dude needs more than one series of work in the first pre-season game of the year. Particularly if circumstances at some point dictate that he is going to be “the guy” behind center this season.

After the first series, the only player that stayed in the game was the center. I know we’d like to see Jackson for our own peace of mind, but the time our starters were on the field is pretty standard. I don’t expect Childress to change his plan to satisfy the fans.

Expect the starters to play 3 series or a quarter next week, and the first half in week 3, then largely get sat down in game 4. That’s just how this team has pretty much always operated under Childress.

The offense had a shaky start, but it was nice to see Rosenfels work through it.
I would have liked to see Jackson for another series, but I guess we’ll have to wait til next wk……Percy is supposed to report to Winter Park by Monday, so maybe we’ll see him next week too.

As you said, the O-Line was weak, especially run blocking. AP wouldn’t have done any better than A.Young did.
They gotta make bigger holes and running lanes than they did last night. I wasn’t impressed with the pass protection neither….They need lots more improvement. I wouldn’t blame Favre at all if he so NO after watching that. :)

There isn’t much room for another WR, but Payne made a name for himself last night, as did Mitchell. I doubt either will make the team, but at least the competition is there.

The D looked Great. The funny thing is, we mostly only seen the back ups, and they kicked but all night.
M.Williams had a good performance, but he’s gotta make that INT next time.

ST’s coughed up another TD. I’m not real surprised by that considering they’ve led the league in coughing up TD’s for the last 3yrs.

remember, it was only the first pre-season game against weak competition.
i’d think san francisco will be a much better test on both sides of the ball next week.

i also think t-jack will get extended playing time next week in place of sage.
i hope to see more of joe webb next week too, that was fun to watch.

personally, i like jaymar johnson and greg lewis for the other wr roster slots.
logan payne caught more balls, but i think jaymar’s catches showed better
natural athleticism and were pretty impressive.

i want to see more of reynaud too, he looked good on that sweep that got penalized.
no injuries? if so, that’s good news.

is more of Webb. He defintley has the athletic ability(overuse of those words). He looked to have some good accuracy, but there were a couple of instances where he showed some bad decision making. One in particular was a deep pass down field. He had a wr open, but he shorted it by a little. Give him time to develop(oh no).

I was well pleased to see Chris Cook school Danny Amendola on this particular proverbial lesson: If you truly like appearing in punt return highlight clips, we can always arrange for you to appear in one in which we knock that stinking football out of your hands and don’t really care any more about how fast you can actually run.

(It’s not only a certain #28 in this league who is vulnerable to robbery.)

Much as I think I would have been a happier camper if I could have seen the first-string players play last night, it was surprisingly encouraging to see that the Vikings have attracted and coached so much talent that even the second- and third-string players were bringing some very respectable pain. There was so much talent that it is going to make me cringe when they start cutting down the roster.

who the hell will be starting at corner! It seems like there is a lot of talent and a lot of depth at the corner this year for us. And again, like mike mayok said, it’s all about the special teams. Cook looked great on returns and at corner. Allen was looking good at corner, but it seemed like he was making some bad choices on punt returns. Didn’t get to see to much of lito, and same goes with sapp. Wow, this is really exciting. And another little comment, there has been a lot said about the age of our team. And it seems like a lot of that is fading away. antoine is getting old, but it looks like he will have enough replacements, assuming we keep the guys that long. And as for Phat Pat, you cant replace him, but we have the next best thing behind him on the depth chart. And next year, we can address our line. I keep hearing that the packers are built for the future, because they are such a young team. But it seems to me like we aren’t just a bunch of old geezers in wheelchairs going out for our last hurrah. Man, that was a lot.

I liked a lot of what I saw from him, though since he is a former Gopher I am a little bias, but if he expects to make the team he needs to work on his hands. He let too many passes slip through his hands that any other starting WR in the league would have held onto.

Darius Reynaud had some very good runs in the second half. Yes, every one seemed to get called back by a penalty, but he looked better than Albert Young or Toby Gerhart.

Haven’t watched the fourth quarter yet, and when I do I’ll post something more, but Logan Payne and Reynaud stood out, as did Sage. The whole defense looked good, and if this turns out to be the 2000 Ravens redux, I like our chances.

To me two things stood out.

First and foremost is the run blocking. It is beyond horrible regardless of who is playing. The depth on this offensive line will come back to haunt the Vikings this year unless they find a veteran to come in to go with Cook. DeGeare looks OK but is probably a year or two away from being able to handle top notch DTs in the NFL on a consistent basis. There is a reason he was drafted in the fifth round.

Second and almost as much of a concern is the snaps that TJack had during the game. Many say he does not need them because he gets the snaps in training camp. OK. Fine.

But why does Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, & Carson Palmer all play most of the first quarter (Peyton) and into the second quarter (Rodgers & Palmer)? These guys are clearly better than TJack and they got some work.

Chilly is the coach and can do whatever he wants but IMHO, TJack would be well served to get some action during the preseason. It couldn’t hurt.

It seems that Chilly knows more than many of the other coaches around the league. I wonder if the other guys are telling their coaches they want to play?

I don’t know but put me in the category that says give TJack some snaps!

Sage Rosenfels and Gus Frerotte ranked 1st and 3rd in preseason passer rating in 2007, respectively. Neither should start for a team as talented as the Vikings.

Troy Williamson appears to be on his way to a breakout season based on 1 great preseason game so far this year.

I can’t help but think that the Vikings’ rushing offense should have averaged better than 2.5 yards per carry (3.0 for Gerhart) vs. StL, though.

I just don’t understand what Chilly see’s in TJ. I have waited for him to develop for five seasons and I fail to see any improvement in his game. Against the Rams he should have played at least a whole quarter because he needs the work in games. TJ must be one helluva practice player is all I can say. Sage will probably get traded or waived after the pre season just so there is no controversy . I admit I liked what I saw of Webb and think he might have some upside.