Monday Open Thread: September 10, 2018

Merry post-win Monday, everyone!

Mondays are already awesome, but Mondays after a win are even better. So, what did y’all think of the game? I know it wasn’t perfect, the first game of the season never is, especially with a new OC and QB coming aboard, but I thought it was a pretty good overall performance by the purple & gold.

Offense: The O line held up pretty well, and Cousins put up a solid performance; not spectacular, but solid, and free of major mistakes (except for the head-first slide, don’t do that again until the last day of the fully guaranteed contract, mmmmkayyyyyy?). I like how Cousins plays, I’ll never like the contract, but I like how he plays, and I feel much more confident I think you’ll see the offense improve as the season goes on, but for it being game one, I was satisfied with the offense’s performance yesterday.

Defense: We’ve come to expect dominance, and although you probably wouldn’t categorize yesterday’s defensive performance as dominant, they played a solid game. One flaw that stood out was that they allowed guys to get wide open behind the secondary a lot more often than they should have. I’m not sure what the cause was, but I’m guessing Zimmer and Co. will find out, if they haven’t already. The Vikings were lucky with that one drop, and Grape.....Garp........Grapapoo.......the 49ers QB missed more than one wide open receiver for what would have likely been a long TD. Other than that, the defense didn’t have any glaring deficiencies, and Harrison Smith showed why he’s considered one of the best at his position. Wow, what a game. Oh, and I know some questioned the FO taking Mike Hughes in the first. It doesn’t seem so bad now, does it? He didn’t play a perfect game, but he played much better than most fans expected him to play, I was very happy with his performance. Sendejo had a nice night, even against the pass. I’ll be the first to admit that I thought the FO was wrong when they gave him an extension a couple years back, and I’ll be the first to admit that they were right & I was wrong, I’m happy to see him playing well.

I’ll save the rest for the comments, but I’m happy with the team’s overall performance. Yes, I know there were mistakes, I’m not ignoring them, but I expect them to happen in the first game of the season. You expect mistakes in game one, especially in the current era where there are fewer practices in the preseason. I also expect to see fewer and fewer as the season progresses. SKOL!

Around the DN since our last open thread:

Saxyprince posted Climbing The Podcast: Episode 107 [It’s Time].

Chris, ,Ted, Eric, Dan Persons, Lucas Ailport, and Skelly 10; who all write for the DN, started a new feature called The Norse Reporters. Check it out.

Dan Persons has your post-game wrap-up.

Ted was here with the Stock Market Report: 49ers.

Lucas Ailport points out the studs from yesterday’s game.

just_rob has a place to talk about the Bears-Packers game. He wrote this before the game, I can’t wait to check out the comments as the game progressed.

Vikings news from other sources and news from around the league:

Over at Vikings.com, you can catch Coach Zimmer’s post-game locker room speech, and see him again as he addressed the media after the game, see Kirk Cousins talk with the media after getting his first win (with many more to come) as a Viking, and there is a ton more to sift through in the media vault.

Adrian Peterson passed Jim Brown, and moved to 10th on the NFL all-time rushing yards list, and he also scored his 100th career touchdown, per NBC Sports. Sorry, that link is the latest I could find when I posted this, I’ll try to update.

From NFL.com, catch up on all of the scores and highlights from week one.

We come to today’s media selection:

Ahhhhh, this is my favorite DN tradition, and this is the first time this season we get to play it after a real game. Strike up the band!!

Again, 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 the bad language to a minimum (using the spoiler tags, if you must)
• Speaking of which, if discussing a newer show or movie, please use spoiler tags
• 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 and tie one on. Don’t forget to tip your waitress, and try the tiger meat