Quote: @VikingOracle said:
Well, that was sobering. Bucs had a chip on their shoulder and the Vikings paid for taking them too lightly (yes, I agree the Vikes probably were looking towards the Eagles a bit too much). Here are my miscellaneous thoughts:
- Vikings Blitz Packages: All preseason we were told about the confusion, etc. that the new blitz packages created. Frankly, I didn't see it. Seemed to me that the Bucs' blitz packages were more creative and effective. I think only Pace and Hunter actually hit Baker during the game. And then in the 4th quarter, the Vikes only rushed 3 a number of times. Really seems like they went away from what worked in the first half.
To your point:Blitzing BakerBy PFF’s metrics, the Vikings blitzed the heck out of Baker Mayfield, chasing him with extra rushers on 21 of 38 drop-backs. But the journeyman quarterback handled it pretty well. He was not sacked and completed 11-of-19 passes for 114 yards and scrambled twice. Mayfield only averaged 3.9 yards per attempt when he wasn’t blitzed. In total, the Vikings did not pressure him often, only nine times during the entire game.
Part of the reason for his relative success was getting the ball out quickly on short passes. When blitzed Mayfield threw the ball in 2.37 seconds and averaged only 8.3 yards downfield per throw. In the second half in particular it seemed that the Bucs made sound adjustments after sputtering against Brian Flores’s defense badly in the first half.
It will be worth watching to see how the Eagles counter the aggressiveness from Flores on Thursday. Jalen Hurts saw a lot of pressure from Bill Belichick, getting blitzed on 42% of drop-backs and only gained 4.4 yards per attempt on those rushes.
Quote: @pattersaur said:
Agree with all of OP's points, especially the last one.
Nothing against CJ and KJ but targeting them-- especially KJ-- repeatedly when it's not working well at all was a bad decision by Kirk. Ham had one bad drop in an otherwise okay game by him but the Osborne connection just wasn't there for whatever reason. The chunk plays to JJ were amazing as usual but in conjunction with the above gripes, sprinkle in Hockenson's 8 catches for a pitiful 35 yards and you have an offense that's just not gonna sustain drives. Hockenson is making way too much money and is way too good to be used this way. Bizarre playcalling.
I thunk the while point, and a lot of people argued offaeason about it, but KJ is not a #2 WR. He’s fine in situations, but he doesnt have the ball skills or wiggle of a starting WR. Teams will continue to shadow JJ and TJ if we dont get our running game going.
Quote: @Bullazin said:
@ pattersaur said:
Agree with all of OP's points, especially the last one.
Nothing against CJ and KJ but targeting them-- especially KJ-- repeatedly when it's not working well at all was a bad decision by Kirk. Ham had one bad drop in an otherwise okay game by him but the Osborne connection just wasn't there for whatever reason. The chunk plays to JJ were amazing as usual but in conjunction with the above gripes, sprinkle in Hockenson's 8 catches for a pitiful 35 yards and you have an offense that's just not gonna sustain drives. Hockenson is making way too much money and is way too good to be used this way. Bizarre playcalling.
Teams will continue to shadow JJ and TJ if we dont get our running game going.
Well that was the big selling point in giving Oliver 21 million dollars, right? Double TE, power running game with Mattison to complement our passing game. Instead we went out in our first game against a mediocre opponent and passed the ball 73% of the time.
Our problem isn’t a skill position problem. KJ is not in the top 5 of problems we have on
offense. We could have 3 #1 WRs and our
offense would still exhibit the same problems.
We don’t commit to the run. We
can’t run the ball when we need to. We
can’t build the play action off that non-existent run game. Teams can just tee off on Cousins, and the blocking
schemes/players routinely let free rushers get to Cousins. And Cousins is a more algorithmic type of QB
that you really need to have the right scheme planned for the game. If the defense is sending us stuff we didn’t
plan for, and the answer is outside the gameplan, it’s just not going to
happen.
I think ultimately, outside of us being in a rebuilding year
and not having enough talent, we just got outcoached. The bucs were prepared for what we were going
to do, and made adjustments, and we didn’t have anything to counter their adjustments
successfully. Like we don’t have a short
quick passing game that we can lean on.
It doesn’t appear that we have hot routes to exploit blitzes. It’s like every play is a long developing
pass play where we are playing the game of who breaks first, our OLine or their
secondary.
Now that Mayfield has his victory against the Purple, he can return to mediocrity & start turning the ball over, as I’m certain he will…!  
Quote: @supafreak84 said:
@ Bullazin said:
@ pattersaur said:
Agree with all of OP's points, especially the last one.
Nothing against CJ and KJ but targeting them-- especially KJ-- repeatedly when it's not working well at all was a bad decision by Kirk. Ham had one bad drop in an otherwise okay game by him but the Osborne connection just wasn't there for whatever reason. The chunk plays to JJ were amazing as usual but in conjunction with the above gripes, sprinkle in Hockenson's 8 catches for a pitiful 35 yards and you have an offense that's just not gonna sustain drives. Hockenson is making way too much money and is way too good to be used this way. Bizarre playcalling.
Teams will continue to shadow JJ and TJ if we dont get our running game going.
Well that was the big selling point in giving Oliver 21 million dollars, right? Double TE, power running game with Mattison to complement our passing game. Instead we went out in our first game against a mediocre opponent and passed the ball 73% of the time.
That was exactly my thinking. definitely wrong this first game. We’ll see if KOC agrees.
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