8 hours ago
A: Harrison Smith
"Harrison Smith returned to the Vikings’ defense on Sunday and—poof—it once again became an amoebic machine of terror. This is Brian Flores’s vision, one that allows players to make their own determinations presnap. It just necessitates that those players happen to be available. And, man, was Harrison Smith available Sunday.
I left the Vikings-Bengals game wondering if this was one of the single greatest individual defensive plays I’ve seen in the past few years. Watch everything that Smith does leading up to the interception.
In short, Smith cut off each of Jake Browning’s first two reads. That was before he backpedaled out and tipped the eventual attempt to Isaiah Rodgers—who returned 87 yards for a touchdown.
When I passed the play around to a few coaches, the response I liked the most was simply the emoji of a goat. No added context. And, honestly, none needed.
Over the first two weeks of the season without Harrison Smith, the Vikings were eighth in EPA and ninth in opponent play success rate. With Sunday’s demolishing of the Bengals factored in, the Vikings are now first in total EPA and fifth in opposing play success rate."
- Conor Orr, SI.com
"Harrison Smith returned to the Vikings’ defense on Sunday and—poof—it once again became an amoebic machine of terror. This is Brian Flores’s vision, one that allows players to make their own determinations presnap. It just necessitates that those players happen to be available. And, man, was Harrison Smith available Sunday.
I left the Vikings-Bengals game wondering if this was one of the single greatest individual defensive plays I’ve seen in the past few years. Watch everything that Smith does leading up to the interception.
In short, Smith cut off each of Jake Browning’s first two reads. That was before he backpedaled out and tipped the eventual attempt to Isaiah Rodgers—who returned 87 yards for a touchdown.
When I passed the play around to a few coaches, the response I liked the most was simply the emoji of a goat. No added context. And, honestly, none needed.
Over the first two weeks of the season without Harrison Smith, the Vikings were eighth in EPA and ninth in opponent play success rate. With Sunday’s demolishing of the Bengals factored in, the Vikings are now first in total EPA and fifth in opposing play success rate."
- Conor Orr, SI.com
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