Minnesota Vikings????

Wallace looks good, though.

Also..why didnt we started running short slant pass plays, dinking screen passes over the top of the DL.

All round improvement, defensive line good, secondary very solid against a great receiver core, OL much improved, linebackers stepped up and AD started making things happen. We'll give him a pass for the fumbles.

Good win against a division rival. Even the kickers looked half decent!

I think we can after Rivers next week, bang him up and keep Allen out of the game.

D9Male wrote: »

You make it sound so easy!

back on the purple kool aid!

D9Male wrote: »

So what was the verdict from last night? I saw the game on condensed view, and I thought that AP and the defense basically won the game for the Vikings. AP was really phenomenal. His yards after contact was particularly impressive I guess (haven't seen stats, but I reckon half his yards were after an attempted tackle.

But aside from the result, I am positive. Maybe Week 1 was an aberration. The offensive line seems to be getting its act together. Teddy has the platform to really kick on and establish himself as a top tier quarterback. But he was hesitant and looked nervy.

Yeah, looking at TB in comparison with Carr he has looked pretty average. He would really benefit from a more physically dominant option to throw to in pressure situations. Someone freakish likes Julio Jones, Megraton or Gronkowksi. We just dont have that.

Barr was great, Phil Rivers must be in Ribbons today. Nice to find a team that makes are OL look brilliant.

Next week vs the Broncos we will face some serious heat, they banged up Stafford all night last night so I worry about getting much change there. Hoping we can get through to Manning and shake him up. Broncos will have much better coverage than the Chargers too. Tough game for Bridgewater to get his zen back.

D9Male wrote: »

We should lose to the Broncos (their D is sensational), but the next four games are all a toss of a coin.

Home to KC
@ Lions
@ Chicago
Home to Rams.

Assuming we go into that stretch 2-2, we could come out of it anywhere between 2-6 and 6-2.

I'll eat my hat if we don't beat the Bears! The others could go either way, agreed.

Hulk Hands wrote: »

Ive been waiting a long time to come out of Soldier Field with a win. Even in 09 when we shouldve been in the Superbowl and the Bears in a rut, we got beaten there. We'd be 2-3 pts favs in that game as things stand

I have to believe we can stop Jimmy Clausen. If not, it's going to be a long season. I know I am getting carried away, but we have to take something out of Soldier Field. As a team we need to beat divisional rivals when they are weak, and you could not be any weaker than the Bears right now.

Not much hope against the Broncos though. I hope we can keep it respectable but they will stop AP and our passing game doesn't hold out much hope right now. Charles Johnson has been pretty weak, at this stage I'd be almost in favour of given Patterson a look, might as well get him out there somewhere.

I feel like as far as losses go that hurt a lot less than wk 1. A lot of pluses on offense , the OL line still a huge problem but Kalil wasnt too bad. TB picked it up this week, Diggs looks like a real threat. Patterson continues to underwhelm, he cant be too far from being cut. Losing by 3 to the Broncos is no shame.

I feel good about KC at home, which is probably why it will it will hurt so much when Alex Smith and his feeble arm beat us!

Kidding,...i hope.

D9Male wrote: »

KC are better than their results so far. 1-3 team they ain't. Look at the teams they have lost to so far this season. Denver, Green Bay and the Bengals. They are likely to be top 3 seeds in the AFC this season.

We (Bears) are playing them next and I watched KC against the Packers & Bengals. They are as usual decent defensively (Marcus Peters has done very well at CB), on ST's and have Charles. However their Oline is awful and Smith seems to either be getting worse or more nervy - pulling it down quickly and running. They've no receivers (no TD's to receivers in forever) and look to Kelce constantly.

They are not a team to fear imho. I think we can run them to within a score even at Arrowhead. I think the Vikes can definitely beat them.

While KC's record is false possibly false, their one win was by 7 points over the Texans (not exactly impressive) and they are very poor offensively.

If the Broncos game was an acceptable loss, yesterday's game turned into a pretty ugly win. Not a great day for Teddy.

Diggs has to cement his growing importance in the side, Wallace had a nothing day where Diggs broke 100 yds receiving. Still have problems with Sendejo at safety.

D9Male wrote: »

No idea how this season is going to progress. Yesterday's game looked very ugly.

Looks as if the best we can hope for is that Bridgwater will become a serviceable quarterback. He makes some really bad plays and doesn't look to be a guy who can change his mind more than once in a play.

Our division is pretty bad. That, along with the poor record of other wild card possibles in the NFC (Dallas, Philly, St Louis, Seattle all have losing records) gives us a squeak. This might be one of the years where a 9-7 record gets a wildcard slot.

It's disappointing to watch what we hoped would be a franchise qb struggle. He had decent protection y/day so the OL can't be the only excuse. 9-7 would be an amazing result for us this year. I'd take it now with bells on, playoffs or not.

Is it 17 starts for Bridgewater now? I suppose we have to give the guy a chance, see if his potential can flourish, not much room for that in the NFL unfortunately.

Hulk Hands wrote: »

Thought yesterday was positive overall. The Chiefs are a good side and they were destroyed, the margin of victory didn't reflect the game whatsoever. Our D, without one of its most important components in Griffen, stuffed the Chiefs.

It's a bit of knee-jerk to be condemning Bridgewater now. Just one game ago he had his best ever game as a pro and everyone said what a mature young QB he was to give a performance like that against that D with zero OL help. He had one bad int yesterday but the other was just good play by Peters.

Sooner we get Sullivan back, we can reorganise the OL to get Clemmings more help. Hes a liability at the moment, albeit in a tough situation. Be interesting to see who starts when CJ is back, him or Diggs. For some reason I think Norv will be reluctant to bench the former given how he saved our season offensively last year. You need Wallace in there if you even for the extra attention he warrants

Has to be Diggs, on merit. I don't want to sound like i'm dumping on TB, but he needs to find a way to improve on his decision making. He's been inconsistent.

Anyway, my overall feeling is that rather than being playoff dark horses we're still a work in progress. I like Zimmer as HC much more than I like Norv as offensive coordinator too.

D9Male wrote: »

Looks as if the best we can hope for is that Bridgwater will become a serviceable quarterback. He makes some really bad plays and doesn't look to be a guy who can change his mind more than once in a play.

This is one of the main reasons people have praised BW in his career thus far. His ability to work through his progressions is very good and the exact opposite from what we has from Ponder previously. He's also shown a touch of "Favre", when a play breaks down he can innovate and keep it alive (such as the flip pass to Peterson for a big gain against the Chargers). Strange comment

D9Male wrote: »

I don't think it is too knee jerk to be giving Teddy a hard time. I feel his good game was more of an aberration than anything.

The stats are not good. He is 26th in the NFL among starting QB's. He has passed for just 3 touch downs in five games. I would love to be wrong, and our OL has not really helped him. He is doing a fair bit with his legs, which does help. But he just seems to freeze a little bit. He takes the sack when he should throw it away. He is hesitant. I don't know. Maybe I look at him a bit too critically because I really want to win and he is the easy fall guy, but I am not impressed.

How is the good game an abberation? Did you watch last season? Or the Lions game even? We're a massively run first offense, his stats are never going to be up there. In all 3 games we've won we've been ahead early and just needed to manage the game out. In the game against the Broncos we had to chase and he showed he can air it out very well. Even against the 49ers aswel, although the whole thing was a shambles that night.

He's taking sacks because he has the bravery to step up in the pocket, despite terrible protection for the most part. His movement in the pocket is thankfully excellent, I shudder to think how we'd get on with an immobile QB. During the off season Vikings fans were embarrassing by proclaiming him as the next elite QB etc, when that was never going to happen. He is however as expected, a mid level QB at the moment who should progress into a comfortable top 10 guy.

As for Norv Turner, he's one of the best things to have happened the franchise in a while and its going to be a kick in the stones when he eventually gets another HC slot elsewhere. Zimmers knew to the role and you can tell the influence Norv is having over everything. Not sure how everyones not delighted with him given what we had to put up with from our OC before him