Titans game/NFL Observations

[StickierBuns]

8-2 and hanging in there by stacking wins, me likey. Having said that, I don't get the vibe this is a 'great' team.

• This team leaves a lot of points on the field. Continue to be inconsistent on both sides of the ball while winning football games against inferior opponents. As it stands today, Minnesota has beaten only 2 teams with winning records. KOC sounded a bit frustrated they can't put teams away.
  
• Gutsy performance by Sam Darnold. Dagger TD was dropped by Nailor. No INTs. He continues to surprise me with his athleticism, he got out of some trouble in the pocket.
  
• Defense again had their way mostly, bad look for Metellus on that long TD however. 
  
• Joe Burrow with another good game and another Bengals loss.
  
• Hero run by Josh Allen to ice the game against the Chiefs. Big boy play.
  
• Kirko came up small for what's now a 6-5 Atlanta Falcons team. Penix got in for a few plays and looked spry and a great arm.
  
• Bo Nix: I underestimated you a bit, my friend. Its still a small ball offense, short throws and behind the line of scrimmage passes but that's the offense with a guy with Nix's skill set. Letting his playmakers make plays. Not sure what the ceiling will be for that, however.
  
• The 49ers are the king of pissing away wins. Shanahan is a great coach but needs to fade some heat. Purdy is another small ball QB where that becomes problematic situationally. 
  
• Getting a game winning kick blocked like Chicago did is ridiculous. Green Bay is no juggernaut, no matter how hard the national media wants to bang the drum for Jordan Love.
  
• Baltimore is 7-4 and Lamar Jackson isn't Patrick Mahomes. 
  
• Saw this morning the Giants are benching Danny Dimes for DeVito. Should have drafted a QB.
  

Detroit appears to be the best team in the league, we'll find out. An unexpectedly fun year in Vikingland continues to be so.

[Montana Tom]

I was a big Bo Nix fan coming out of Oregon. He is coming into his own as a rookie in Denver. He will only get better.

[Bullazin]

8-2 and hanging in there by stacking wins, me likey. Having said that, I don't get the vibe this is a 'great' team.

• This team leaves a lot of points on the field. Continue to be inconsistent on both sides of the ball while winning football games against inferior opponents. As it stands today, Minnesota has beaten only 2 teams with winning records. KOC sounded a bit frustrated they can't put teams away.
  
• Gutsy performance by Sam Darnold. Dagger TD was dropped by Nailor. No INTs. He continues to surprise me with his athleticism, he got out of some trouble in the pocket.
  
• Defense again had their way mostly, bad look for Metellus on that long TD however. 
  
• Joe Burrow with another good game and another Bengals loss.
  
• Hero run by Josh Allen to ice the game against the Chiefs. Big boy play.
  
• Kirko came up small for what's now a 6-5 Atlanta Falcons team. Penix got in for a few plays and looked spry and a great arm.
  
• Bo Nix: I underestimated you a bit, my friend. Its still a small ball offense, short throws and behind the line of scrimmage passes but that's the offense with a guy with Nix's skill set. Letting his playmakers make plays. Not sure what the ceiling will be for that, however.
  
• The 49ers are the king of pissing away wins. Shanahan is a great coach but needs to fade some heat. Purdy is another small ball QB where that becomes problematic situationally. 
  
• Getting a game winning kick blocked like Chicago did is ridiculous. Green Bay is no juggernaut, no matter how hard the national media wants to bang the drum for Jordan Love.
  
• Baltimore is 7-4 and Lamar Jackson isn't Patrick Mahomes. 
  
• Saw this morning the Giants are benching Danny Dimes for DeVito. Should have drafted a QB.
  

Detroit appears to be the best team in the league, we'll find out. An unexpectedly fun year in Vikingland continues to be so.

Nice wrap sb. I agree with so much.  

What a fun season though. No one should be complaining not should they be comfortable. 

QB’s just can win with us fans. They touch the ball every play there are going to be some turnovers. Sammie is a badass QB and against public perception, short of an implosion, he will be and should be offered a starters contract to stay here.  We all love JJM but he hasn’t been on the field yet. 

The fudge seemingly get so lucky, but they do make a lot of plays. They have been media darlings since forever and I am excited for our next matchup with them. 

I’m all for 22 personnel unless Oliver is out now. Nailer has stunk this year. 

Bo Nix?  He’s got big balls, But so does 4 pick Nick. I try not to conflate the hate because of Sean Peyton, but it’s hard not too.

[MaroonBells]

8-2 and hanging in there by stacking wins, me likey. Having said that, I don't get the vibe this is a 'great' team.

• This team leaves a lot of points on the field. Continue to be inconsistent on both sides of the ball while winning football games against inferior opponents. As it stands today, Minnesota has beaten only 2 teams with winning records. KOC sounded a bit frustrated they can't put teams away.
  
• Gutsy performance by Sam Darnold. Dagger TD was dropped by Nailor. No INTs. He continues to surprise me with his athleticism, he got out of some trouble in the pocket.
  
• Defense again had their way mostly, bad look for Metellus on that long TD however. 
  
• Joe Burrow with another good game and another Bengals loss.
  
• Hero run by Josh Allen to ice the game against the Chiefs. Big boy play.
  
• Kirko came up small for what's now a 6-5 Atlanta Falcons team. Penix got in for a few plays and looked spry and a great arm.
  
• Bo Nix: I underestimated you a bit, my friend. Its still a small ball offense, short throws and behind the line of scrimmage passes but that's the offense with a guy with Nix's skill set. Letting his playmakers make plays. Not sure what the ceiling will be for that, however.
  
• The 49ers are the king of pissing away wins. Shanahan is a great coach but needs to fade some heat. Purdy is another small ball QB where that becomes problematic situationally. 
  
• Getting a game winning kick blocked like Chicago did is ridiculous. Green Bay is no juggernaut, no matter how hard the national media wants to bang the drum for Jordan Love.
  
• Baltimore is 7-4 and Lamar Jackson isn't Patrick Mahomes. 
  
• Saw this morning the Giants are benching Danny Dimes for DeVito. Should have drafted a QB.
  

Detroit appears to be the best team in the league, we'll find out. An unexpectedly fun year in Vikingland continues to be so.

Interesting about Daniel Jones. But one could make the argument that they may have done it the right way by getting the big time receiver first. If they had drafted a QB, he'd be thrown onto a team without any weapons, and we've all seen how that works out.  Now with Nabers, and whoever they can add next year, will be part of a better surround for the QB they draft. Problem is, next year's class isn't as good as this year's was.

Detroit is a machine right now, but I hear they lost Anzalone for what looks like the rest of the regular season. I think the only injury the Vikings suffered in Nashville was Addison with his cramps. Fingers crossed but the Vikings are unusually healthy right now. 

Now it's on to Chicago and let's win there...

[StickierBuns]

Interesting about Daniel Jones. But one could make the argument that they may have done it the right way by getting the big time receiver first. If they had drafted a QB, he'd be thrown onto a team without any weapons, and we've all seen how that works out.  Now with Nabers, and whoever they can add next year, will be part of a better surround for the QB they draft. Problem is, next year's class isn't as good as this year's was.

Detroit is a machine right now, but I hear they lost Anzalone for what looks like the rest of the regular season. I think the only injury the Vikings suffered in Nashville was Addison with his cramps. Fingers crossed but the Vikings are unusually healthy right now. 

Now it's on to Chicago and let's win there...

Oliver had an ankle issue.

#Vikings TE Josh Oliver suffered a left ankle injury in yesterday’s game against the #Titans and left the locker room post-game in a walking boot, per
@BenGoessling
via
@AccessVikings
.
Despite the boot, he was seen walking on it.

[purplefaithful]

ATL has quietly cooled down to 6/5, that was a bit of a surprise.
Not sold on NIX (yet)
ITs an interesting discussion re: Giants. I can see arguments both ways. If any of the QB's from this year not named Maye/Caleb/Daniels are future HOF? They will be sorry
Everybody should be talking about the Steelers. I think they are #3 in AFC now - but could give Bills or Chiefs quite a game - they are built for outdoor football in cold

Posted this in another thread, Nice bounce-back from Darnold, but the Vikings aren't playing their best ball even though they are relatively healthy. I am calling a Bears win this Sunday on Monday. Caleb looked much more comfortable yesterday vs Pack.

They should have won that game and Cinci should have won too...Tough losses for those franchises to reconcile this am.

[pattersaur]

Bo Nix looks great! Denver fans gotta be over the moon atm. He scored like 40 points yesterday distributing the ball to mostly nobodies against a decent team. Seems like a solid ceiling to me.

Giants had to bench Jones because of the contract injury guarantees. I wonder if there's a solution the NFL and NFLPA can come to on this. Because it behooves teams to bench guys like Jones, Russell Wilson, Derek Carr, it's happened to others. Problem is the on-field product suffers when the better QB is getting benched for money reasons. If that clause wasn't there would DeVito be starting? Jones has been bad but probably not.

Last miscellaneous note- How big of a nothingburger has the New AND Improved Kickoff Rule been? Maybe some team is waiting to unleash a new tactic in the playoffs but through 10.9 weeks it's been a nonfactor. Keep fishing, rule committee geniuses.

[medaille]

I’ve said my bit on drafting QBs, so I don’t need to rehash that, but the Giants not drafting a QB was criminally negligent, but thank god they didn’t as our path to getting one of the good QBs in the draft would have been much more expensive and potentially not possible.

Regarding the Vikings, I think we’re probably right where the consensus is. High quality defense, frustrating offense (because you see the potential of what it could be). I think we’re one of those teams that could beat any team, but probably can’t win 4 in a row against playoff caliber teams. That said, it doesn’t mean that Sam Darnold is capped at this level of production. I think you could see it playout where he continues to grow in this offense and it probably doesn’t take too much more before things hit a tipping point and this offense becomes legit dangerous. I think Darnold’s biggest asset this year has been his short memory. I think you look at Cousins’ time here and you’d just see the days where the offense imploded. Darnold is relatively productive every game, and bad moments don’t snowball into bad games. That’s a recipe for being in every game with our defense.

Very few teams are flawless throughout the season. The good ones figure out how to get wins when things aren’t perfect and we’ve been mostly doing that. They just have to figure out how to play defense if Cashman isn’t in there.

[purplefaithful]

The fact that we're not talking about our new LT says a lot.

I will be interested to see how he graded out

---

I’ve said my bit on drafting QBs, so I don’t need to rehash that, but the Giants not drafting a QB was criminally negligent, but thank god they didn’t as our path to getting one of the good QBs in the draft would have been much more expensive and potentially not possible.

Regarding the Vikings, I think we’re probably right where the consensus is.  High quality defense, frustrating offense (because you see the potential of what it could be).  I think we’re one of those teams that could beat any team, but probably can’t win 4 in a row against playoff caliber teams.  That said, it doesn’t mean that Sam Darnold is capped at this level of production.  I think you could see it playout where he continues to grow in this offense and it probably doesn’t take too much more before things hit a tipping point and this offense becomes legit dangerous.  I think Darnold’s biggest asset this year has been his short memory.  I think you look at Cousins’ time here and you’d just see the days where the offense imploded.  Darnold is relatively productive every game, and bad moments don’t snowball into bad games.  That’s a recipe for being in every game with our defense.

Very few teams are flawless throughout the season.  The good ones figure out how to get wins when things aren’t perfect and we’ve been mostly doing that.  They just have to figure out how to play defense if Cashman isn’t in there.

Cashman is the heart of this D, no doubt about that. 

I would have bet the farm (and lost) the Gmen were taking a QB at 6 and I figured it to be JJM. He just seems like a good fit with a Daboll scheme.

[purplefaithful]

Quiet Pat Jones II had five sacks in his first 42 NFL games.

He has seven in 10 games this year after his third two-sack game of the season. His first sack – on third-and-4 at the Vikings 6 – came when he lined up outside and destroyed Prince in a three-man rush. His second sack – on fourth-and-4 with 8:36 left – came when he lined up inside and destroyed right guard Dillon Radunz, a Becker High grad, on a four-man rush. Jones hit Levis three other times.

This young man knows how to handle a contract year.

Source: STARTRIBUNE