Wednesday Open Thread: September 13, 2017

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

We’ve made it half-way through another week, and our Vikings football fix will be here before we know it. Not even a full 6 day span for us this week, as the good guys will square off against the Steelers in Pittsburgh at noon on Sunday.

I like Sunday noon games, I’d be fine if we played them all at that time, with the obvious exception for our playoff games and the Super Bowl, those games always seem to have odd start times......really odd times, like 4:42. Who comes up with that time, and how? I’ve always wondered that. I’d roll with 4:30 myself, or even 4:45 if you wanted to change it up.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, we were talking football. Yeah, the defense will be put to the test by Rothlisberger and that Steelers WR corps, led by Antonio Brown. I’m cautiously optimistic that our offense will hold its own. I’m under no delusion that they’ll put up a performance like Monday’s every time out this year, but performing like that in Prime Time against a hated rival was certainly a welcome sight for us Vikings fans. We haven’t seen a balanced offensive attack like that since 2009. Since then, we’ve either we’ve had no QB, no WR corps, or no O line. For the rest of the season, I hope the offense looks more like Monday night’s version and nothing like 2016’s version.

Around the DN since our last open thread:

Wludford has notes on Monday’s game. He also shares some notes and thoughts on the week one power rankings.

Ted pointed out the fact that Sam Bradford shut a lot of people up with Monday’s performance.

From Chris, Dalvin Cook shows off his versatility both on AND off the field.

Eric highlights five game-changing plays from Monday’s game.

The Vikings have waived Taylor Heinecke with an injury settlement. The writing was on the wall with Heinecke’s slow start in the pre-season, the injury sealed his fate. You always kinda wonder how it would have turned out for Heinecke if he hadn’t kung-fu’d that door last year. Best of luck to him, and best of luck to me finding a way to replace all those green bottle jokes.

Vikings news from other sources:

Other places are pretty impressed with Monday’s win, too. ESPN looks at Dalvin Cook’s performance, and the Pioneer Press says the O line answered plenty of questions with their play.

From Vikings.com, see Coach Zimmer’s press conference from yesterday, they also have his post-game locker room speech. There’s a lot more in the media vault. You’ll notice I just link the videos now instead of all the stories. I do this because the news stories are mainly just a synopsis of the videos, and quality football experts like y’all don’t need someone else to tell you what you watched, so I just link the videos unless I see a story worth sharing.

Around the rest of the NFL:

The New York Post said the NFL got good news and bad news with the Sunday Night Football ratings. I wonder which news they got first? I never understood why people ask that. Who cares? Just blurt it all out & get it over, no reason to make a dramatic production out of it. Goofballs.

From NFL.com, it looks like rookie QB Deshaun Watson will get the start for the Texans over Macho Man Tom Savage when they play the Bengals on Sunday.

We come to our media selection.

In all the excitement about the game, I didn’t have room for this, so I’ll do it now. On Friday, the music world lost a great one, and one of my all-time favorite musicians. Don Williams, the gentle giant, passed away from emphysema at the age of 78. He had a sound all his own, & has a lot of great songs. I love real country (not this new techno junk they put on the air), and Don Williams was one of the best. Man, we’ve lost Merle, now Don Williams.

Here’s one of my favorite songs of his.

We all know the rules, but in case someone is new:

-No discussion of politics or religion
-No feeding of the trolls
-This isn't a male version of The View, so leave the gender hatred at the door
-Keep vulgar language to a minimum, using spoiler tags if you must
-No pictures that could get someone fired or in serious trouble with their employer
-If you can't disagree in a civil manner, feel free to go away
-While navigating the open thread, just assume it's sarcasm

With that, the beer light is on and the bar is open. Belly up & tie one on. Don't forget to tip your waitress, & try the blood sausage.