The first pre-season game is underway. The starting offense has finished up its work for the night, having played well into the 2nd quarter (they had a good drive going at the end of the 1st and Chilly decided to leave them in). Perhaps surprisingly, the passing game looked better than the running game. Tarvaris Jackson hooked up consistently with Troy Williamson and then Bobby Wade, with Wade ripping off two 21-yard gainers (aided by spotty Rams coverage). Jackson looked fairly comfortable in the pocket, but did seem a bit eager to pull it down and run for yardage on occasions where he might’ve scrambled and made something happen downfield passing. The one good drive the team put together finally ended with Tarvaris being tackled as he tried to scramble for the end-zone, setting up a Ryan Longwell field goal.
As for the running game…it’s hard to make any real assessments given that LG Steve Hutchinson missed the game due to a family issue (Anthony Herrera filled in). Rookie Adrian Peterson got the majority of the snaps, and though he looks freaky-fast hitting the line, he failed to really make anything happen. He was stuffed on his first carry by Rams rookie Adam Carriker, who split the O-Line and made the play. Chester Taylor touched the ball only once and was dropped for a 4-yard loss.
And now to the defense. All camp we’ve been hearing about rookie CB Marcus McCauley – and if one quarter-plus of action in the pre-season is any indication, the hype around McCauley may be justified. His first play in at nickelback wasn’t a good one – there was miscommunication with fellow corner Antoine Winfield, which caused McCauley to jump an underneath route when he was supposed to stay with the deep man (it was a moot point as Winfield was called for holding). McCauley quickly redeemed himself however by making a good tackle to stop Drew Bennett short of a first-down, forcing a punt. McCauley later had a nice stick on Rams receiver Dominique Thompson, which impressed guest analyst John Randle.
The biggest defensive play of the starter period was an interception by S Dwight Smith on a ball tipped by Ben Leber. Overall the run defense looked stout. The combo of Winfield, Griffin and McCauley at CB should give us one of the best-tackling defensive backfields in the league, which is good because we still have no pass-rush, meaning lots of guys are going to be catching balls and having to be tackled.
A few other observations:
Troy Williamson started the game returning kicks.
Tarvaris Jackson needs to learn to get out-of-bounds or slide when he scrambles. There are no heroes in pre-season games, T-Jack.
Chris Kluwe‘s second punt was so ugly that if it were a kid even Mother Teresa wouldn’t have taken it in.
Brad Childress had his laminated play-card but didn’t seem to be holding it in front of his face to keep people from reading his lips. That’s only for regular season games I guess.
The new Vikings pre-season play-by-play guy, Ari Wolfe, looks like Eddie Deezen or perhaps a thinner, even-more-chicken-necked Thom Brenneman.
The doofus running the graphics for KSTP spelled John Randle’s name “John Randall” during the open. This guy’s only one of the greatest defensive players in the team’s history and a sure-fire Hall-of-Famer – you’d think these jokers would know how to spell his name. That being said, Randle is a complete stiff in the booth, and adds nothing to the telecast.
Ed Hochuli’s guns looked smaller than usual to me, but it could’ve been the lighting.
Sideline reporter Ann Carroll looks like Lindsay Lohan’s heinous mom Dina.
The new Vikings mascot, whose name I still don’t know, needs to be chained to Steely McBeam and dropped into a river someplace.
The second half is coming up, and I will be turning off the sound, popping the Cubs game up on MLB.tv and rocking some tunes.