More Pre-Season Game 2 coverage: Vikings 20 Seahawks 7
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What I liked:
Offense: McNabb and the offense looked like a different team. Kyle Rudolph made some plays, Peterson looked like he will be fan-damn-tastic, as usual, and a few WR’s made some nice plays. Ponder and Webb both showed their athleticism/rookism on their runs, but any play for positive yards should be positive, so I’m putting it here.
Defence: The goal line stand was well done. Sure, we knew Tarvaris wasn’t going to pass, but, with our second team defence, which will include players heavily in the rotation with the first teamers, I think this was an important part of the game.
Special Teams: They look like a different unit than last year, and if my memory serves me correctly, last year was not bad at all. They were stopping all KR immediately, and the punt coverage was excellent, and most tackles were made by different players, which I think is important. I don’t know if Seattle is good or bad on their ST’s, but we made them look bad.
Empty backfield: I thought to myself immediately as McNabb lined up backed against his goalline with no RB….the Childress era is dead! No more conservative plays because we are backed up. We were playing to get a first down, not playing to punt it away. The line held up ok, and McNabb made a nice-ish throw to Rudolph, who made a sweet catch and showed why we drafted the kid where we did.
Penalties: Few and far between, ‘nuff said. Loadholt had a false start that really drained the momentum on a long drive, but compared to previous years, we looked good on all sides of the ball.
What I didn’t like:
QB Battle: Ponder/Webb: Maybe it’s a double negative in that I liked what Ponder tried to do in the short game, but he did not really look for the long ball at any given time, seemed content to settle for short passes. Joe Webb, however, threw a few deep balls that were just off-target. Whether that’s a timing problem with receivers, or a sign of something to work on, I just don’t know. So I wish Ponder would’ve taken some shots, and I wish Webb would’ve looked better on his shots. Double negative? Who knows, Ponder had an excellent throw on the rollout to Aromadlfkjafjlewjflwjfeq-shadu (too early to spell check sorry)
Offensive Line: The offensive line looked better. However, the RB’s were usually hit at the line of scrimmage by multiple bodies, so we need to work on that. Charlie Johnson looked terrible when he gave up a sack, but otherwise seemed to be fine. McNabb did scramble a bit, and I think that will become the norm early on as our line gels.
Me: It was really lonely watching a game at 9pm after the wife and daughter went to sleep. I need a life, sheesh. Also, I fell asleep the last 5 minutes or so and knew I didn’t have to rewind. Regular season I would’ve rewatched that, but last night I was tired. I must be getting old. Ok, I do like me, but it just fit under the don’t like section, so be cool.
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