Schmidt’s Week 3 game grades: Minnesota Vikings vs Buccaneers

The Minnesota Vikings found their groove again with a dominating win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers where every unit earned high grades for Week 3.

The Minnesota Vikings started Case Keenum for the second week in a row. However, Week 3 went very different for Keenum and the Vikings compared to Week 2. The Week 3 Vikings looked very similar to the team we saw play on Monday Night in Week 1.

The Vikings opened the playbook for Keenum and it paid off big for them. The Vikings had their way against a pretty good Tampa Bay Buccaneers team. The Vikings play as a team and earned a solid team victory by the score of 34-17.

There were many important parts to the Vikings win, but a couple stood out more than others. The first one is the full week of preparation for Keenum was huge to the offense and his success. Second, was the way the offensive line bounced back from a poor performance last week. And last, the Vikings cut their penalties from 11 to 5 this week.

It was a dominating performance on all sides of the ball for the Vikings. The offense was clicking on all cylinders, the defense was stingy and the special teams did their job by making no mental mistakes. The win was important as the Vikings have three straight games against NFC North competition.

But let’s dive into the game grades for the Vikings’ win yesterday against the Buccaneers.

Vikings offensive grade: A

The Minnesota Vikings’ offense was on fire from the opening kick to the last seconds of the game.  The offense racked up a total of 494 yards. The passing game earned 369 yards while the rushing game earned 125 yards.

The Vikings offense’ is a scary unit when they are this balance. The Vikings threw 33 times while rushing the ball 37 times. Being this balance on offense creates havoc for the opposing defenses because they don’t know what it is coming.

Case Keenum who earn the game ball threw for 369 yards and 3 touchdowns. The thing that stood out about the performance from Keenum was his accuracy on the deep ball. This display was going on right from the opening drive when he hit Adam Thielen for 45 yards to set up the Vikings for their first touchdown of the game.

As good as Keenum was on Sunday, he had a lot of help from his wide receivers. Stefon Diggs and Thielen lead the way for the receiver group. However, it was the Diggs’ show yesterday as he had 8 receptions for 173 receiving yards and two touchdowns.

It is Diggs second multiple touchdown game already on the young season and continues to get better each week. Diggs is establishing himself as the best wide receiver on the Vikings and the biggest passing threat since for the Vikings since Randy Moss. He has the speed, moves and jumping ability that makes him so hard to defend.

While the passing game was putting on the show, Dalvin Cook kept making Vikings fans forget about Adrian Peterson. Cook ran the ball 27 times for 97 yards and his first career touchdown in the NFL.

Also, he added five catches for 72 yards. The questions about his ability to catch the ball out of the backfield from the previous two weeks were put to rest as he caught all 5 of his targets.

The thing that makes Cook so good is his ability to get north and south quickly. There is not much dancing around or moving east or west. He quickly searches for opportunities to move up the field, which usually leads to a lot more positive runs than negative runs.

Overall, the Vikings’ offense was fun to watch on Sunday. The big passing plays are exciting to see again. The Vikings running game looks much improved compared to last season. Also, need to give credit to the offensive line that bounced back from a tough Week 2 performance.

Vikings defensive grade: A-

The Minnesota Vikings entered Week 3 with zero turnovers forced by their defense. Well, that quickly changed as the Vikings were able to get 3 interceptions. Andrew Sendejo, Trae Waynes, and Harrison Smith were the Vikings to pick up an interception on Sunday.

Trae Waynes has struggled in his early career but made a great play on his interception. He was defending against DeSean Jackson of the Buccaneers, who is a speed guy. Waynes did a good job of quickly turning or “speed turn” on the play where he was able to undercut the route for the interception.

The interception by Sendejo was a pivotal one that killed the momentum for the Buccaneers. Jameis Winston for the Bucs threw it right into the arms of Sendejo during the early part of the fourth quarter.

The Vikings pass rush came back to life this week as they were able to generate two sacks. One of the sacks came from Shamar Stephen and the other one came from Everson “Sack Daddy” Griffin.

The pressure created by the Vikings front seven caused problems for the run game of Tampa Bay and really helped in the three turnovers that the Vikings were able to force.

As good as the Vikings defense was on Sunday, there was one bad play that stood out. It was when DeSean Jackson caught his 25 yard touchdown. Tramaine Brock was the cornerback for the Vikings who was in the right position for the ball but he lost or never saw the ball as Jackson was able to leap and make the catch.

It was tough mistake because he was right there and if he would have located the ball it most likely would have been an incomplete pass or possibly an interception.

Vikings Special Teams grade: B+

The Vikings kicking game looked good thanks to Kai Forbath making every one of his kicks. Forbath entered this game with missing at least one extra point in each of the previous two games but went 4/4 in Week 3.

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Forbath looked like his preseason self by making all of his kicks. One thing to take note on was that the Vikings looked to line up more on the right hash mark for his kicks instead of right down the middle. It could be a little adjustment by him and should be something to continue to watch throughout the season.

Ryan Quigley continues to perform well as the Vikings punter. He punted three times with his longest punt was for 47 yards. He averaged about 40 yards a punt and had one punt inside the 20.

Jerick McKinnon only returned one kick out of the end zone this week which was only for 20 yards. However, he started to take a knee on the kickoffs. He may have learned it is better to just take a knee instead of trying to return the kick and give the team worse fell position.

Next: Top 5 takeaways from week 3 vs Tampa Bay

Overall, the Vikings special teams made no crucial penalties or mistakes that gave bad field position for the Vikings offense or good field position for Tampa Bay.