10 Takeaways

[greediron]

http://www.vikings.com/news/article-1/10-Takeaways-from-Sundays-Win-Over-the-Rams/a77aace4-b1e2-4ff8-8fdd-da840e50089f

I want to highlight a couple points.

1. The offensive line dominated
The Los Angeles Rams
have perhaps the best defensive line on the Vikings 2017 schedule. The
Vikings offensive line saved its best game for its best competition. The
Minnesota Moving Company was downright dominant against a ferocious
Rams defense, allowing no sacks and helping the running backs average
4.9 yards per carry. The Vikings controlled the clock with a 37:22-22:38
time of possession advantage and they drove the ball consistently, with
touchdown drives of 71 and 93 yards in the second half and a pair of
11-play and a pair of 12-play series during the game. Quarterback Case Keenum
has now had six games in which he’s not been sacked, the Vikings have
allowed one sack in the last six games and the Vikings have surrendered
only 10 sacks in the first 10 games of the season.

That
is just plain amazing.  There was lots of love for Donald on here last
week.  Shurmur's offense and the o-line pretty much nullified him. 
Easton earns some big kudos for his work yesterday.  Obviously Case
shook off one sack while also somehow avoiding losing the ball on a
nasty swipe from the DE, but for the most part, the offensive line play
has been stellar.  The one play where Case held it for over 10 seconds. 
And running the ball with authority.  Some nice holes for Murray and I
loved Reiff pulling him and the would be tackler into the endzone.  That
was domination from a unit that was the absolute worst last year.

2. Defense took a punch, then delivered the pain
The
Rams offense threw a haymaker on the opening drive, but the Vikings
defense landed all the punches after that. Jared Goff and Co. drove 75
yards in nine plays to score a touchdown and take an early 7-0 lead.
From that point forward, the Rams offense couldn’t muster much of
anything. The Rams ensuing possessions ended like this: punt, punt,
fumble, end of half, punt, punt, punt, punt, downs. The only time Los
Angeles had anything going was in the second quarter on a nine-play,
46-yard series that had the visitors in position to reclaim the lead. On
3rd and 4 from the Minnesota 11, Goff found rookie receiver Cooper Kupp
in the middle of the field. Kupp secured the reception and turned to
the goal line, which is where Vikings safety Anthony Harris
met him, stripped the football away from him and recovered the fumble.
Other than the scoring drive and the lost fumble drive, the Rams didn’t
get past the Minnesota 49 until the final series of the game. Seven of
the Rams 10 drives yielded one or zero 1st downs and the Rams averaged
only 4.5 yards per play.

Been saying it all year.  The
defense will yield yards and sometimes scores on the first drive.  It is
like they have a plan to not show any of their looks during the
scripted plays.  I wonder if offenses use the screen shots on their
scripted stuff to build an offensive plan for the rest of the game?  It
just doesn't make sense that they can look so passive on the opening
drive and then do what the do for the rest of the game.  After the
initial drive, only one drive got over midfield. 

They seemingly
bend on the first drive in order to shut down the rest of the game.  I
honestly think that if our offense can score more than 7 points at home
and avoid turnovers, we will win every game.


Keenum and the offense came up big on 3rd downs yesterday.  Patience and ball control certainly worked well.