Stock Market Report, Week 1

A little off message but I wasn’t aware that Rogers worked with and developed McNabb whilst both were at Syracuse.

That’s exactly what you’re going to get McNabb. it’s Jeckyl and hyde, It’s really frustrating , just prepare for it

Well written. The ONLY thing I might quibble with is saying McNaab was terrible in second half. I thought offense was terrible in 2d half, but not sure it was due to bad play by McNaab. Perhaps. BB made extremely poor effort to catch key pass, and OL provided no protection in 2d half.

Everything else was spot on. SD play calling in 2d half was much better than in the first. So was the pass protection on blitz’s up the middle. the D made numerous individual great plays throughout the first half (Robison, Allen, Griffin, Winfield, EJ, Greenway, even Abdullah). Veryy few if any indivudal plays by D in second half — maybe a pass defense by Grifin and Cook here and there.

Real let down was on offense in second half. I prefer to believe that primary probem was Musgrave, and that he will learn and adapt and get better for the rest of the season.

Go Vikes. Get better, put it together, and run off some wins!

As much we all hollered for Childress’ firing, the KOA generated more offense, at least by a couple of yards, than yesterday’s offensive melt down.

WR Jenkins looks good but Berrian should be replaced by Arceneaux.
I thought the play calling sucked. Was that the fault of Mcnabb or Musgrave?
We had a good chance of winning that game because I think Chargers were a little off. Shame to blow it. There might not be many more opportunities like that.
Disappointed they didn’t use Tight ends a lot. I think that could / should be one of our strengths.
Not all gloom and doom. There were some bright spots/ some things to build on.

No body has won the starting QB position from Webb and he should be the starting QB.

reminded me of the Chicago game in Chicago last year. Short passes for big gains all day or at least the second half. The tackling was poor on those passes most of the time.

It also reminded me of the Cleveland game two years ago, except that we lost and fell apart in the second half. AP was strong, out QB did nothing, but we stopped producing in the second half of this game.

god… that first play on offense that turned into a turnover…

I mean, even if Harvin catches that the defender was right on his ass. He probably would have been tackled for a loss anyway.

Bizarre first play that really hurt us. Should have set the tone with Adrian and kept it going. Ugh.

Defense looked awesome, but it reminded me of 2007/2008 (i.e. defense keeping us in/winning games because our offense outside of AP is crap). You just can’t keep those guys on the field all day. They were absolute warriors for 3 quarters. If Winfield stays healthy he might have a career year with Pagac’s defense. The guy was ALL OVER the place making plays.

Just can’t understand the offensive play calling. We could have Ponder in there handing off the ball, making little dink/dunk passes. What’s the point of having a potential future HOFer when he’s just doing what a rookie could do? That’s kind of like how Favre was in that first game against Cleveland in 2009. Fortunately we opened things up a couple weeks later against the 49ers and turned it on.
Would love to see that happen again. Just wish we had a real superstar deep threat that McNabb could launch to. :/

and I think it showed us the same holes we always knew we had.

Our receivers are not getting open. Even when McNabb had time in the pocket he still had no one to throw to. It’s hard to blame that on McNabb, remember he’s not a big risk taker like Favre was so he’s not going to try and thread passes.

McNabb isn’t a great QB. Saw under thrown passes last night some of them to receivers that if he had led them would have been TD’s. Berrian had that guy beat by at least a yard and a half but the ball was way under thrown.

Inconsistent secondary, some plays I watched Cook he was amazing other plays I watched him and I wondered how he had an NFL jersey on. A player is only as good as his worst play and how often he does it should dictate if he’s on the field or not.

Second half adjustments. We did an excellent job of game planning the first half, Frazier and co should have realized that Turner was going to make his own adjustments and try to work around them. Wildcat was not an adjustment it was a farce. I hope this officially kills people wanting that in Minnesota.

The main problem was in the fourth quarter the wheels had fallen off and you could tell that the Vikes were expecting to lose as the fourth quarter continued I thought it was more and more evident that the defense was giving up because they had no faith in the offense. That’s a terrible feeling to have, that no matter how well you do you can’t win because your offense can’t help you out.

Everything we’ve seen so far in pre-season appears to hold up based on this first game, at least:

1. Offensive line = Pretty bad (which led to the passing injuries, almost certainly)
2. Receivers = Okay but not great
3. Secondary = Ugly and slow (going to be a LONG season)
4. Defensive Line = Worked hard but just not all that effective, when it mattered most (2nd half)

The only bright spot I can see is that we get K.Williams back soon, which could help the D-line a lot, in theory.

As myself and many of us have said, it’s going to be a long season, folks. You’ll definitely need to temper any unrealistic expectations you may have had about the team. :(

Hey guys, thanks for Bryant McKinnie, we enjoyed him yesterday. What a steal.

is it too early to bring Randy Moss out of retirement? :p

dodges tomatoes and cabbages being thrown

So, I feel like I need to vent a little and go with my initial observations.

1. I was surprised that Abdullah seemed to have a very bad game. He was beat several times, took a very bad angle on one play and seemed out of position from time to time. Honestly, he reminded me of Tyrell Johnson when Johnson used to play in place of Abdullah.

2. Remember the Vikings CB from 10 years ago perhaps (can’t remember his name) when the Vikings played the Packers on Monday Night Football. It was raining, near the end of the game, at Favre tossed one up to Freeman (?). The CB made a decent play on the ball, the ball dropped to the ground on top of the Packers’ receiver. While the CB danced around the field congratulating himself on his “almost play”, the Packers’ receiver jumped up and ran in for a TD. The CB was cut the next day as I recall. I recall this, because I wonder if Guion is at risk. Two false starts at critical moments. When Evans jumped offsides, it made me wonder if some bookie had gotten into the Vikings locker room at half time. Seriously though, three offsides calls on DTs in one series at critical times. Isn’t our D-line coach supposed to be highly regarded.

3. Okay. How can a person explain Harvin running back the opening TD and then sitting out the next two or three kick offs? Was he tired? The kick offs come after the other team’s offense has had the ball and after what seem like endless commercials. I have to believe the coaching staff decided to do a kick off rotation. But why? Booker’s no slouch, but it’s just weird to me that they would rotate kick offs like that particularly after Harvin’s first return. That coaching decision was simply bizzaro.

4. Continuing on the player rotation theme, what’s up with rotating Tyrell Johnson with Sanford. Sanford had a good game all in all. He couldn’t wrap up Tolbert at the game line, but let’s face facts who could? (Remember Greenway and one other Vikings couldn’t stop Tolbert on the previous play for a 1st down). Aside from Johnson just being awful, I question the coaching staffs judgment because players get into a groove as the game goes on. I have the same thoughts about the WildCat calls. Why mess with stuff when you have something going? The timing was weird.

5. Gerhart was a stud when he was in the game. He’s a more conventional back than Peterson and less athletic (though no slouch), but I think his on field situation recognition is better than Peterson’s. He seems to absolutely maximize the yards that are available to him with what is given to him. Here’s not a breakaway back like Peterson. He won’t make people miss, but he does break tackles. I think we just might find that he’s more predictable (fewer tackles for a loss) than Peterson. I’m not suggesting that Gerhart replaces Peterson. At the same time, I can’t figure out why he’d only get two carries?. The running back was actually doing fine for the most part.

6. Our O-line seems okay in the run game but not very good at all on passing downs. Musgrave could have helped them out with more TE play (blocking and passing) and play action plays. What’s up with that.

7. I know there’s a lot of love for Winfield. I love him too. However, for all his tackling prowess, he’s just not that effective in coverage. He’s the ultimate fantasy pick for someone wanting an impact player on defense. He gets around the field and tackles like crazy. He’s good at forcing fumbles too. However, he’s not good in coverage, and he wasn’t yesterday either. There. I said it.

8. Peterson looked very good except when used to block for his QB. On the play that was called back due to a false start by the offense, I saw Peterson completely whiff on his blocking assignment. It reminded me that basically we spent $100M for the best 1st and 2nd down back in the business. He’s still a liability on passing downs, and that has to change, or he’s going to cause his coaching staff and fans a lot of heartache. He’s the ultimate decoy on passing downs, because he is a threat to break away at any time. And defensive coverage on passing downs play to Peterson’s strength when in space. However, the Vikings can’t keep him on the field on passing down if he can’t block.

9. McNabb looked bad. The O-line and Berrian didn’t help matters, but McNabb deserves a lot of the blame. McNabb underthrew Berrian when Berrian managed to get his first (non-blown coverage) seperation in years. There’s no excuse for Berrian not making the catch anyway, but McNabb underthrew the play. I also noticed that McNabb had a hard time leading his receivers throughout the game. On one throw to Percy Harvin, McNabb threw to the wrong side of Harvin’s body which caused Harvin to adjust to the play and lose momentum. That sort of thing is the difference between 5 yard gains and 25 yard gains. The first interception might also have been intercepted by the CB if not by the rushing LB. Regardless, Harvin would never have had a chance to do more than catch the ball for a moment before getting hit. It was a terrible play at every level.

10. I like our O-line on running plays. I don’t know about the short yardage stuff yet. We’ve had trouble with that for years now. But on the average running play, they do fine.

11. Coaching staff has me worried. There were just a few too many seriously questionable, and even downright oddball, decisions during the game. I used to think that the talent on the Vikings not only had to overcome the opposing team but also Childress’ decision making. I’m a little worried that the same might be true this year. Weird personnel decisions, weird rotations of players and weird play calling. By the end of the game, I was half expecting to see a time out followed by a 12 man huddle, but the defense never got off the field.

In general, I was pleased with Peterson, Jenkins, our O-line in the run game, Kleinsasser’s blocking, Jaren Allen, Robison in the 1st half, our linebackers, Pagnac’s aggressive style and some of the play at the corners.

I was displeased with Pagnac’s inability to stop the short dink and dunks. They were predictable and started leading to big plays. I was also disappointed with some of the personnel decisions on both side of the ball. Berrian needs to go. Tyrell Johnson needs to go. With our O-line cratering on passing downs, we needed to see that 3 TE set mixing things up (Will they go out for the pass or stay in for the run? Or fake run blocking and go out for the pass? Etc.) Guion needs to get the message about jumping offsides. At this point, I think his career is at stake.

All in all, I didn’t expect the score to be so close, but I also didn’t expect us to be so completely dominated on offense in the 2nd half.

Let’s hope for better things this week.

was horrible. that was down right inexcusable. I hope thats not a sign of things to come, or else GB is going to hang 50 on us

Anyone watch the ravens/steelers game?

When they 2 teams got in that brawl I noticed McCheese was kind of just standing around. I think it was in the 3rd maybe early 4th quarter. He looked dogged, I think my grandma could have kicked his butt at that point.

I watched that whole game and the only time he looked good to me was the first play when he got down field and made a couple blocks on the play. They brobably should have taken him out at that point and gave him O2 and fluids.

I attended the Vikes vs. Cowboys preseason game and noticed that Romo could repeatedly throw and complete every pass over the middle with no resistance. Rivers basically mimicked the feat and made 10-20 yard passes and 5 yard check downs repeatedly with no defensive adaptation. the line backers are/should be our strength on defense and they are not adapting.

The offense looked decent in the first -Running good, mediocre passing, and 17 points. I was excited, I saw creativity, players doing things differently on both sides.

THEN we saw the same vanilla crap we’ve seen for years. Shallow (and dropped) passes. Run Run Pass Punt. Zone Coverage. Bleh! I have to disagree with you Ted, when we have 39 passing yards, we need to STOP giving AP the ball and start making some damned throws! I couldnt tell if this was Mcnabb, or because of the lackluster WR corps. Either way, this offense needs something, and fast, otherwise we will see the same game we saw over and over which is AP trying to win the game on his own.

I watched the Chargers for almost ten years when I lived in SD. They always make good second half adjustments, often shutting down their opponents, and Rivers is a great 2nd half QB.

Really though, this whole thing came down to what we already feared would happen: Teams see we can’t generate a down-field threat with guys like Berrian, who doesn’t rate a cornerback so much as a chaperone to make sure he gets to the restroom. As a result, defenses will bring up their linebackers and safeties to stuff the gaps, making even a great RB like Peterson look average.

You put your top DB on Harvin, your second best on Michael Jenkins, and anybody with decent speed on Berrian. Passing attack eliminated. Now you bring everybody else up to plug gaps and/or blitz. Vikings offense snuffed. That’s what the Chargers did yesterday, and that’s what everybody else is going to do for the rest of the season.

They picked which players play and call the plays

Say our beloved Vikings put up a dismal year and finish with 4-5 wins, giving them somewhere in the top 5 pick in next years draft. Does anyone else want to Justin Blackmon (if he comes out) in a Vikings jersey as bad as I do? I just feel we NEED a deep threat, Mcnabb had for 1) no time to throw deep on several occasions but also, didnt have many options to look at, sorry, just not sold on Jenkins as a deep threat and BB is a joke for that title.

When they had Percy in the back field I saw AD out in as a wide receiver. All I could think was all those games where Moss would catch a ball at the line of scrimmage and then run 10 yards up field. Of course with AD he’d knock the living crap out of the first CB and keep on running leaving bloody cleat prints in his path.

Seriously though we out coached them in the first half and they out coached us in the second. I don’t think anyone here actually believes we have the team with the more talent so we needed coaching to help us out. It did the first half we took away their deep ball and pressured Rivers. On O we ran out of a bunch of different sets and did some light throwing. Remember D McNabb didn’t have a lot of time to get his rhythm with our receivers either.

I know it stinks that we lost when it looked like we could win, but remember this was San Diego’s game to lose, and they didn’t.

Greenway, EJ, and ’Toine were the only people getting solo tackles. Everyone else seemed to need help to get someone down. Where the hell was Sanford smashing skulls at? I thought that was his “thing”?

Ted, you placed a “solid investments” for the DC Fred Pagac? I disagree. The players seemed to play fairly well(except for the tackling in the 2nd half) and I really did like the pressure he dialed up to try to get after Rivers, but they absolutely KILLED us in the flats ALL game long. Somewhere there needed to be an adjustment for the RB coming out of the backfield.

Tyrell Johnson was not horrible and did not give up a big play, he actually made a few tackles by taking the right angles.
Chris Cook did not get burned and in fact other than the PI call was good in pass coverage and did not allow one long ball to be completed against him.
So there is hope for these guys, of course a lot more for Cook who has more upside but atleast they were not stinking up the joint.

Lets go get those Bucs next week!

Berrian, Tyrell Johnson, even Asher Allen… i feel some of these guys are/were ‘grandfathered in’, b/c of “veteran presence” and/or b/c they were drafted in early rounds and we feel “too invested” to let them go when other players have clearly out-shined them.

having said that, it’s only Wk 1 and we played against a good Chargers squad. still, despite the high points, i’m not entirely optimistic considering the bad things were really bad.

the key for us this season, since we’re probably playing for a Wild Card spot at best, will be to go 4-0 vs the Bears/Lions. outside of the Saints and Falcons (whoever doesn’t win that division will likely nab one WC spot), there isn’t a solid contender outside of our division for the second WC spot. sweeping the Bears and Lions, as tall of an order as that may sound, is plausible and necessary.

i meant to say Mistral should be higher on the depth chart than Tyrell.