So who's the whipping boy now?

@"Norse" said:

@CourtneyRCronin	6h
Russell Wilson on why Seattle had so much success running the ball: “They kept playing 2 high shell, just super deep. They didn’t want any shots thrown on them. So we said, OK, and we’ll just run it and do what we do really well.”

176 yards and had 40:00 minutes of procession in the game.

@"StickyBun" said: The effort was good. The team has balls, they came back. But ultimately we seem to settle for less as fans. I mean this is supposed to be a Superbowl caliber team. Last year was a shit show. This year, 8-4, which is fine but still have the kind of tough losses the team seems to produce. 

Anyway, moving on: they've got their destiny in their hands. If they piss it away, its on them completely. 

I think this was the week to catch them for that division win and before the rematch @ USB at Xmas.

Now that game may not have any meaning for the division while we're fighting to a chance to go on the road week1 of the post-season. 

@"greediron" said:

@"ArizonaViking" said:

@"Norse" said:

@CourtneyRCronin	6h
Russell Wilson on why Seattle had so much success running the ball: “They kept playing 2 high shell, just super deep. They didn’t want any shots thrown on them. So we said, OK, and we’ll just run it and do what we do really well.”

176 yards and had 40:00 minutes of procession in the game.

That right there is piss-pour game planning by the coaches.  All season long stop the run, stop the run.  Then they do this.

Funny how yesterday everyone was agreeing that we couldn't let Wilson beat us deep.

They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected.
The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes.
My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

@"jargomcfargo" said: They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected. The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes. My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

@"kmillard" said:

@"jargomcfargo" said: They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected. The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes. My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

Smith hasn’t played well for a while.

The defense is not good enough to stop the run and the pass anymore.  They have to pick their poison and hope for the best.  Once again Zimmer was completely out-coached.

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"kmillard" said:

@"jargomcfargo" said: They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected. The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes. My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

Smith hasn’t played well for a while.

I could be wrong,  but I think Smith was supposed to be at the line,  IIRC he came off the line in coverage of a TE or RB that leaked out to that side and didnt see anybody else over there like it was their man.  If Rhodes was supposed to have help over top I dont think it was to come from HS.. maybe that is why Rhodes let his man go,  but for fuck sake,  there has to be some pre snap recognition by Rhodes there to see that his help was at the LOS.

@"greediron" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"kmillard" said:

@"jargomcfargo" said: They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected. The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes. My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

Smith hasn’t played well for a while.

I could be wrong,  but I think Smith was supposed to be at the line,  IIRC he came off the line in coverage of a TE or RB that leaked out to that side and didnt see anybody else over there like it was their man.  If Rhodes was supposed to have help over top I dont think it was to come from HS.. maybe that is why Rhodes let his man go,  but for fuck sake,  there has to be some pre snap recognition by Rhodes there to see that his help was at the LOS.

Well it was pretty obvious Rhodes thought he had some help over the top.  Not sure who was at fault, maybe since we were 2 deep the whole game, when Smith came up, it wasn't communicated. 

It almost looked like Rhodes was expecting to cover the RB in the flat but once HS didn't bail like he often does, Rhodes was in no mans land.

@"kmillard" said:

@"jargomcfargo" said: They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected. The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes. My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

Smith hasn’t played well for a while.

@"Nichelle" said:

@"kmillard" said:

@"jargomcfargo" said: They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected. The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes. My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

Smith hasn’t played well for a while.

???????

@"Wetlander" said: Zimmer's defensive game plan worked well in the first half...  held Seattle to 10 points.  The turning point in the game was Dalvin's fumble early in the 2nd half which gave Seattle a very short field...  defense held them to 3 points.  Then the INT (which if that was Rhodes would have been called PI and negated the turnover) gave Seattle another short field...  all of a sudden, we lose all our momentum.

I was impressed with the way the Vikings fought in this game... there is no quit in this team.  We've seen that on display the past two weeks.  I like that.  We just can't make as many mistakes as we did on the road against a good team and expect to win.  We've had close losses to Seattle, Kansas City, and Green Bay because we lost the turnover battle.

The team is very close...  if they can play a cleaner game on the road and keep Rhodes from giving up big plays in the passing game, I like our chances against anyone.

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"greediron" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"kmillard" said:

@"jargomcfargo" said: They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected. The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes. My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

Smith hasn’t played well for a while.

I could be wrong,  but I think Smith was supposed to be at the line,  IIRC he came off the line in coverage of a TE or RB that leaked out to that side and didnt see anybody else over there like it was their man.  If Rhodes was supposed to have help over top I dont think it was to come from HS.. maybe that is why Rhodes let his man go,  but for fuck sake,  there has to be some pre snap recognition by Rhodes there to see that his help was at the LOS.

Well it was pretty obvious Rhodes thought he had some help over the top.  Not sure who was at fault, maybe since we were 2 deep the whole game, when Smith came up, it wasn't communicated. 

It almost looked like Rhodes was expecting to cover the RB in the flat but once HS didn't bail like he often does, Rhodes was in no mans land.

i agree that is what he thought.   I think if that had been on HS we would have seen some sort of contrition from Harry to Rhodes after the play, but nothing.

Time of Possession

Seattle had the ball for 39:45
Vikings had the ball for 20:15

Looking at those, it seems stunning we scored 30 points. 

@"BlackMagic7" said: Time of Possession

Seattle had the ball for 39:45
Vikings had the ball for 20:15

Looking at those, it seems stunning we scored 30 points. 

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"BlackMagic7" said: Time of Possession

Seattle had the ball for 39:45
Vikings had the ball for 20:15

Looking at those, it seems stunning we scored 30 points. 

we scored to fast.  if we had taken more time off the clock with our TD drives then the D wouldnt have looked so bad?

Look, we bitch about everything after a loss and sometimes after a win.  We beat Dallas with a specific game plan to not let them get Elliot going.  But Dak put up huge numbers.  But we won.
Now we have a specific game plan to not let Wilson beat us deep and make their average backs beat us.  And it was working.  We had the lead at half and got the ball to start the 3rd Q.  But the offense failed in that quarter.  No drives, fumble, INT (shouldn't have been) and somehow we are surprised Seattle scored off those?  And we give up a huge gain on a fake punt?  Who was responsible there?  It wasn't the defense that didn't stop them.  It wasn't the defense that didn't sustain drives.  The D score to give us the lead.
Dunno, I see lots of hindsight geniuses.

@"greediron" said:

Look, we bitch about everything after a loss and sometimes after a win.  We beat Dallas with a specific game plan to not let them get Elliot going.  But Dak put up huge numbers.  But we won. Now we have a specific game plan to not let Wilson beat us deep and make their average backs beat us.  And it was working.  We had the lead at half and got the ball to start the 3rd Q.  But the offense failed in that quarter.  No drives, fumble, INT (shouldn't have been) and somehow we are surprised Seattle scored off those?  And we give up a huge gain on a fake punt?  Who was responsible there?  It wasn't the defense that didn't stop them.  It wasn't the defense that didn't sustain drives.  The D score to give us the lead. Dunno, I see lots of hindsight geniuses.

Not that it means anything, but the national media hasn't downgraded the Vikings at all in their rankings over the loss. They thought the team showed well. 

Those TOP numbers are ridiculous. Seattle possessed the ball for a rounded 3 quarters. Seattle ran 24 more offensive plays than we did.

We ran for 78 yards. Seattle ran for 218.

If you can convert the chains, you can control the clock. If you can pile up scores and a lead while doing so, you control the opponents tempo. We got out Zimmer'd. We couldn't sustain drives off nice runs and they dried up as Seattle pulled away. Seattle pulled away by gashing us with the run, draining the clock while they walked to the endzone. 

TOP doesn't mean much by itself, but it means a lot when your team is also executing playcalls and converting. When we were getting late into the game, i'm sure a lot of us were not only thinking about the deficit we needed to over come but just stopping them on 3rd down cause they were converting and stealing time from our ability to come back. TOP and deficit clearly dictated the tempo we finished the game with...

I don't know if TOP can be pinned on one "whipping boy" though. It's a sum of the whole kind of stat...

@"greediron" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"kmillard" said:

@"jargomcfargo" said: They were in the game at the end with a chance to win it. That's better than I expected. The defense has been together for awhile and is aging before our eyes. My guess is Rhodes will carry the whipping boy crown for another week. His penalty led to 7 points, but Smith may have been responsible for the long touchdown pass, although I don't see how Rhodes can't see him, up at the line, in front of him.

Smith hasn’t played well for a while.

I could be wrong,  but I think Smith was supposed to be at the line,  IIRC he came off the line in coverage of a TE or RB that leaked out to that side and didnt see anybody else over there like it was their man.  If Rhodes was supposed to have help over top I dont think it was to come from HS.. maybe that is why Rhodes let his man go,  but for fuck sake,  there has to be some pre snap recognition by Rhodes there to see that his help was at the LOS.

Well it was pretty obvious Rhodes thought he had some help over the top.  Not sure who was at fault, maybe since we were 2 deep the whole game, when Smith came up, it wasn't communicated. 

It almost looked like Rhodes was expecting to cover the RB in the flat but once HS didn't bail like he often does, Rhodes was in no mans land.