For what it’s worth, the Minnesota Vikings finished the 2014 preseason 4-0 by defeating the Titans in rainy Nashville.
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Teddy Bridgewater got in some work in the first half and threw another touchdown, hitting Adam Thielen with a nice touch pass in the corner of the end zone. Bridgewater finishes the preseason with 5 TDs and 0 INTs.
The defensive stars tonight, if there were any true defensive stars, were Shaun Prater and Corey Wootton, the latter of whom collected a strip sack against Tennessee’s Zach Mettenberger.
In extended action, Christian Ponder did very little of consequence. If his appearance represented a trade showcase, it wasn’t much of a showcase.
If there was one truly positive takeaway from the game, it was the solid kicking of Blair Walsh, who handled the rainy, slippery conditions with zero problem. He seems to have shaken off the slump he was in earlier.
The negatives were all injury-related. Adam Thielen left with a bad hip, Zach Line was felled by an ankle injury and Antone Exum seemed to jar his shoulder when making a big hit. We await status reports on all three men.
The eternal battle for the Mike linebacker spot continued with Audie Cole and Jasper Brinkley both seeing plenty of time on the field. I can’t say either man did anything to separate himself.
The majority of cuts were probably already decided before this game anyway, so I doubt many jobs were won or lost. The open starting positions may come down to coin flips for Mike Zimmer and company.
There’s always the chance that some waiver pickups could be made as well. We’ll see if anyone interesting is cut in the coming days.
The linebacker, safety and corner positions still look like toss-ups. Defensive line depth continues to look solid, with backups like Wootton, Tom Johnson and Shamar Stephen making nice contributions.
Offensive line depth still looks like an issue. Can the Vikings count on players like Tiny Richardson and Austin Wentworth to fill backup roles?
Final preseason games don’t often lead to a lot of answers. This one was no exception. Unfortunately, the injuries may ultimately play into roster decisions more than anything that happened on the field performance-wise.
And now that preseason is over, we can begin looking forward to real games. Sept. 7 can’t get here fast enough.