Philadelphia Eagles at Minnesota Vikings: Third Quarter Open Thread

The Minnesota Vikings started the second quarter by getting into a 1st-and-goal situation after a pass to Matt Asiata. But the offense stalled after Matt Cassel finally threw a couple of incompletions, and the Vikings brought Blair Walsh in for a 21-yard field goal to extend their lead back to seven at 10-3.

The Philadelphia Eagles started their next drive at their own 20-yard line after a touchback. The Eagles got a couple of passes from Nick Foles to DeSean Jackson to move the ball into Minnesota territory. The Vikings got a big stop on 3rd-and-1, courtesy of Jared Allen, and the Eagles chose to go for it on 4th-and-1 from the Minnesota 18. The Eagles ran a reverse on which it appeared that Jackson scored an 18-yard touchdown, but the Eagles were penalized for an illegal peelback block by Foles to negate it and push the Eagles back 15 yards. The Eagles brought Alex Henery out for a 51-yard field goal, which he drilled to make the score 10-6 in favor of the Vikings.

After another short kickoff, the Vikings again put together a nice drive, pushing into Eagles territory one more time. Just before the two-minute warning, we got another flash of brilliance from Cordarrelle Patterson, as he came in motion around the right side of the formation and took a pitch, looking as though he was going to throw it downfield. The Eagles had it covered, though, so Patterson went all the way back across the field for a 12-yard gain and a Vikings' first down. Hopefully we'll have a picture of that in a bit.

The Vikings appeared to have been stopped on third down, but the Eagles were called for pass interference in the end zone, giving the Vikings 1st-and-goal at the 1-yard line. Minnesota made short work of it from there, as Matt Asiata scored his first NFL touchdown from a yard out, with the Blair Walsh extra point making the score 17-6 in favor of the Vikings. That capped a 17-play drive for the Vikings, their longest of the year.

The Eagles put together a drive at the end of the quarter, as they started from their own 20-yard line. The Eagles pushed down to the Minnesota 14-yard line on a pass from Foles to LeSean McCoy, but left themselves just five seconds to work with. So, the Eagles brought in Alex Henery again for his third field goal attempt of the afternoon, and he hit from 33 yards to make the score 17-9 as we go into the locker room.

Matt Cassel had a great first half for the Vikings, completing 14-of-20 passes for 202 yards and a touchdown. Greg Jennings already has his first 100-yard game as a Viking, bringing in 7 catches for 114 yards and the 57-yard touchdown in the first half of play. Asiata has 13 carries, but has only managed 28 yards to go along with his touchdown. For the Eagles, Foles is 11-of-17 for 144 yards. Foles is also the leading rusher for the Eagles with five carries for 41 yards. McCoy has just 19 yards on four carries thus far. DeSean Jackson is the Eagles' leading receiver with 64 yards on four grabs.

In addition, the Vikings have yet to punt on the afternoon, which is always a nice stat to be able to put up there.

The Eagles will get the ball first to start the second half of play, as they deferred after winning the opening coin toss. Can the Vikings hold on for what would be a pretty significant upset? Didn't I ask that question last week? I'm pretty sure that I did. Let's see if they can do it this time, though!