Vikes thread!

[glenn57]

Oh boy!

[Steve-o]

KOC made it scarier than it needed to be by going for it on 4th down instead of kicking the field goal, but at the same time... I'll bet he earned some street cred with his team by trying to get Aaron Jones his TD for one more Lambeau Leap.

[Gunner55]

Yeah, I wish they'd taken the FG too as I got a little worried when it came down to the onside kick. Everything was going great until Nailor misplayed that punt & gave them some momentum just before the 1/2. I hope he learned his lesson there as he should've just let that 1 go. I read where some of the GB players gave Jones some grief about not allowing him to get a TD & do a Lambeau Leap. He did jump into the stands with a bunch of Vikings fans on his way to the locker room though.

[markn]

Still, this "Prevent Defense" thing with a lead in the second half is nerve racking. Vikes got more out-played in the second half than the packers were in the first. Defense wins again.

[LPS]

Was a great first half but way too stressful in the second half.  I hope they learned something from it.

[Bobberineyes]

Sure was lps, but I like to think they let up on purpose,  just to keep the fans in the stands...

[Steve-o]

I'm hoping KOC and Flores are trying to be smart-like-a-fox and not show teams more than they need to, to beat them.

In hindsight, I wish Flores would have sent more pressure on the Packers QB on the last drive, but with a tenuous 2 score lead and under two minutes to go - he really didn't have to.

And you have to give the Packers defense credit.  The Vikes were happy to dial-it-down on offense to chew clock, but the Pac forced them into turnovers and punts.  Didn't I hear an announcer say the Vikes only had 5 3-and-outs all season leading into the game?  The Pac got them 5 times by themselves.  Well, I exaggerated, one of those 5 was a 4-and-out, but they were getting the Vikings offense off the field.

Erin Rodgers' Jets lost again yesterday, who are now 2-2 on the season, and looking like they might not be a good as everyone predicted.  I hope the next game isn't a trap-game for the Vikings.  Five-and-Oh, baby!!!   

(HD, ya think you could find us a purple koolaid emoji?    )

[Gunner55]

But things shifted in a big way after that. Jalen Nailor made a bad decision on special teams and muffed a punt that set up a Packers touchdown. The Vikings' offense went five straight possessions without scoring, before coming up with a key drive to push their advantage from six points back to nine. Their defense allowed a whopping 226 yards and 22 points in the fourth quarter.

"The lack of scoring in the second half really wasn't about us taking our foot off the gas or anything," O'Connell said. "They did some things to adjust. We had some self-inflicted penalties. A couple of their second-half adjustment pressures gave us some problems that I've gotta get cleaned up. 100 percent on me."

[Steve-o]

I don't know if this was another Bill Parcells thing, but wasn't there a coach who first used to break the 16 week season into 4 parts.  At the end of the first 4 weeks, he would do a serious assessment of where his team was at and what he could expect the rest of the way.  Ya gotta like what you see from the Vikes at the quarter pole.

All teams make adjustments at the half, and KOC will need to be quicker to make the counter-moves in the 2nd half going forward.  But that's what he said and he took ownership.   

[dutchboy]

The offensive adjustment is get the ball to Jefferson. They can't cover him anymore than they could cover Moss.

[Steve-o]

Yep, as long as you have a QB that knows how to throw a receiver open and not throw the ball over the middle behind the receiver to get him lit up every play.

I might be misremembering things again, but once Cousins got out from under Zimmer's thumb, he started playing much better - not afraid to make mistakes.  But when Kapt. Kirk was playing more tentatively, I seem to recall that he'd make those check-down throws over the middle and he often struggled to hit receivers in stride.