Quote: @Tyr said:
I would have liked to see them put away the Bears in the first half, but its hard to ignore the fact that the team has shown resiliency and keeps finding ways to win. I fele it speaks well of the coaching and fame management changes and in a league where so many fames are decided by a scorw, those things end up making a big didference. I do worry that the talent on D is not there, at least for a 3-4, but at the same time the D keeps finding ways to cone up with plays late to seal the game. It is very dofferent than what we are used ro seeing even if they haven’t figured iur how to dominate yet
I've seen some improvements in the team and comfort level in the schemes. It's there if you look for them.
For instance, the offense has looked much better since Weeks 1 and 2. Jefferson has still gone off but it hasn't been at the expense of the rest of the offense. We've found ways to get Thielen, KJ, and Irv opportunities and it played a big part in Kirk starting off 16 for 16 or whatever it was and the Vikings driving for 3 straight TDs to start. I don't really have any concerns with the offense at this point. The running game was a lot better and I would expect that to to continue as the line gels. It may have felt like we took our foot off the gas but in reality we had a couple drives stall out in Bears territory and we missed some long FGs. Shit happens. We still scored 29 points this week... 28 last week... And 28 the week before that. If we keep doing that on offense we'll be good.
Defensively... the pass rush needs to get better and we're still a little vulnerable to giving up chunks plays at inopportune times but we have a lot of youth in the secondary. I will say the Vikings did an excellent job against the Bears running game. They were the top rushing team in the NFL and we held them to 78 yds on 24 attempts... 3.3 ypc. I'll take that after we've been giving up well over 100 yards and over 4 yds per rush.
Special teams took a step back this week, but they'd been really good to this point. I think this was a blip.
I guess I just don't expect domination in all phases every week. Especially when we have a first year HC. Did anyone even expect us to be a contender this year? Except Maroon? :-D
Like this was supposed to be a year where O'Connell cut his teeth and started building this team for the future. Competitive rebuild is what I kept hearing from the fans and media. It feels like fans are grading our performances like we're the Kansas City Chiefs who've been one of the best teams in the league for awhile now and have an elite young QB. Not a team with a rookie HC that we all new had some roster flaws going into the season.
