Vikings Are Done With Pop-Up Kicks After Jacoby Jones TD

Dec 8, 2013; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones (12) returns a kickoff for a touchdown in the fourth quarter against the Minnesota Vikings at M

Mike Priefer is making the necessary adjustment after Sunday’s Jacoby Jones kick return. He is throwing the pop-up or “mortar” kick out of the playbook.

“They read it perfectly,” Priefer said, explaining how the Ravens were able to beat the play for a TD. “They did a good job. I got outcoached on that play, unfortunately. We didn’t execute it well enough. We had guys over there. We had, I think, two of them got pinned inside. He hit that seam full-speed.”

The Jones TD came with less than 2 minutes remaining, after the Vikings had just taken the lead on a Toby Gerhart TD run. The Vikings themselves answered the Jones TD with an explosive Cordarrelle Patterson screen-pass TD from 79-yards out, but that’s beside the point. Had the Vikings covered the kick and forced the Ravens to march down the field, the game might have had a very different outcome.

Or maybe the Ravens would have gone down and scored anyway, like they ended up doing after the Patterson touchdown (with a little help from the officials). We’ll never know. Point is, the pop-up kick worked one week against Devin Hester, but the Ravens saw that tape and were ready for it the next week. Mike Priefer out-foxed himself, is what it boils down to.

But Priefer has copped to his mistake and will now correct it. That’s all we ask from people around Minnesota. Just correct those correctable ones.

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