The Viking defense has been dominant this season. The run defense is still outstanding, the pass rush has been unrelenting, and the overall pass defense is much improved. We have the chance to root for a spectacular defense.
The Viking offense has...sucked. We can admit that. But while it feels like we're watching a mediocre team (.500: we are), while it seems like we're "winning ugly," we're still looking at a spectacular, dominant defensive unit. When the Vikings win games in 2008, they're going to be "ugly" wins. That's the way this team is built: the defense is carrying the team.
There's no doubt that the Vikings made many mistakes against an inferior team, and that the game was much closer than it should have been. But if the Vikings had a spectacular offense and a terrible defense, maybe they'd have won a game like this 30-28 and we wouldn't call it "ugly," even though one unit would have struggled. I remember the 2003 Vikes, the 2004 Vikes: great offenses, terrible defenses. The wins weren't "ugly," but they were just as tenuous. I'm enjoying rooting for a dominant defense. Certainly I hope the offense improves as the season goes on so the defense isn't forced to carry the team, and so the team doesn't lose games despite great defense.
But we root for a great defensive team with a terrible offense. It's an offense with players like Adrian Peterson and Bernard Berrian, players capable of big yardage plays, so they'll occasionally look competent. Mostly they won't. I'm still going to love watching this team play, and I'm hoping a reliable defense and questionable offense is able to pull out more wins throughout the season than a team with opposite problems.
Too few pleasures in life.
There is plenty to complain about in the Vikings' 12-10 win. But I don't know about you, but I have enough stresses, enough boredom, enough hassles in life. It is the job of the Viking coaches and players to worry about the improvements they have to make if they expect to beat the Chicago Bears next week. I just want to take pleasure in the Viking win.
If the Viking offense plays as bad against other teams as it played today against the Lions, the Vikes will lose a lot of games the rest of the year. And when that happens, I'll be sad. So for now, I'm going to take pleasure where it comes. The defense was spectacular. Kevin Williams was a dominant force. And the Vikings won another game.
There are two positives that stick out to me (besides the obvious Ws):
ReplyDelete1. The Vikings of the past few years tended to lose games like this.
2. Not coincidental to #1, the Vikes have a 2-minute offense. That point alone justifies making Frerotte the starter.
I have a couple take-aways from this game, and a couple questions that I hope you guys can answer for me:
ReplyDelete1. Kevin Williams is a badass
2. The vikings have gotten some big calls in their favor this season. Many will pile this as "luck" for the vikings, but I feel they are games we should have won anyways and that in the past the vikings haven't had many calls go their way at all.
3. We're still running a zone coverage. I know we played the blame game on Cedric Griffin last week, but on the Calvin Johnson wide-open play to set up the Lions TD, I saw 3 vikings defenders on that side of the field covering no one. Winfield was playing up, Gordon was midfield about 10 yards in front of where Johnson caught the ball, and Sharper was another 10 yards behind him. There was only 1 receiver on that side of the field. Who are they covering? I think the coaching is to blame because our pro-bowl talent on defense doesn't understand who to cover.
Questions:
1. I couldn't hear the game, I was at a bar. How much booing was there? When did they boo? How long were they chanting "fire childress"? Can someone summarize for me please?
2. After we scored our only TD of the game to make it 10-8, why did we not go for 2? You knew it was going to be a close game, you knew our offense was struggling against possibly the worst team in the NFL at home....why did we kick an extra point? This game could've ended in a disaster, which could have possibly been less of a disaster if we went for two. Can someone explain this to me in case I'm missing something?