It was great to see E.J. Henderson not only play, but be extraordinarily active. He looks like a player that can still be a good middle linebacker. It will take longer to see if he's lost quickness or strength, but still, E.J. Henderson is a really fun player.
It looked like Asher Allen was out of position and/or taking bad angles on a few plays.
I love--love--passes to running backs. Routine, easy plays that often pick up positive yardage.
In 2008, Adrian Peterson was held under 4.44 yards per carry in just two out of 16 regular season games. That's pretty impressive. In 2009, he was held under 4.0 yards per carry in nine of 16 games. That's quite a dropoff. But when you watch Adrian Peterson run, you still see a supreme talent. If Peterson runs more like '08 than '09, we don't need Favre to match his career year again. I expect him to return to that dominating form.
NBC did a good job showing us Adrian Peterson's poor pass blocking on that one play when Favre got sacked.
I was also impressed, and encouraged, by Henderson's play. He wasn't tackling Frank Gore, but while he was in there, it seemed like there wasn't a running play where he didn't make the tackle himself, or at least assisted on the tackle. Amazingly, he looked like the same E.J. Henderson.
ReplyDeleteAdrian Peterson will not return to his 2008 form with the way this offensive line run blocks.
And I hate to admit this, and the stats won't reflect it and score won't reflect it, but I came away fairly impressed by Tarvaris Jackson's play.
He didn't have much to work with, but playing against much of the 49ers first-team defense, he showed some surprising touch on some passes, and looked in command of the team and what he was doing.
I noticed him constantly talking to his receivers between plays and making hand motions about where they should have been after incompletions, etc. He looked calm and confident and in charge, even as he was often running for his life behind a bunch of ackup offensive lineman.
At least that's the vibe I got (my vibe is often wrong). Maybe you are right about him, PV. Maybe in his fifth year, after sitting and learning behind Favre, and knowing the offense, maybe he could be a fairly successful NFL quarterback next year with the skill players the Vikings have.
Also, maybe I'm delusional, to think that after a pre-season game where Jackson led the team to a field goal in almost two quarters of work.
Jackson's sort of been in a weird spot. On the one hand, there's probably no NFL coach that would believe in him the way Childress has, who would have went into '07 and '08 with him as starter. On the other hand, he's got to feel like he's been jerked around: benched in '08, then two years of having the team lure Favre in. My guess is at the end of this season he's going to think "This team's been yanking me around--I'm outta here," before realizing that there's one NFL coach willing to give him a shot at a starting job. We'll see.
ReplyDeleteWe should probably mention Joe Webb's ability to make Viking fans salivate. That 48 yard run almost convinced me he should be the #3 QB. Almost.
I didn't get that far in the game, so didn't see Webbs run live.
ReplyDeleteBut clearly, Webb's athletic ability is outtasite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9PsUH1fmJk.