Top Minnesota Vikings Rookies: Week 16 vs. Packers

The Minnesota Vikings are coming off a horrible loss to the hated Green Bay Packers. How did the Vikings’ rookies contribute to this turd of a game?

The Minnesota Vikings couldn’t get any sort of offense going against the Green Bay Packers in Week 16. The defense gave them plenty of chances and all they could muster off of three turnovers was 10 points.

Kirk Cousins was in a daze all night long and the play calling of Kevin Stefanski did him no favors. It was a horrible effort by the offense and in such a key game was very mind-boggling to see. The Vikings had a handful of rookies playing in this one, and like the rest of the team, they struggled mightily. Here’s the rundown of the Vikings rookies in a forgettable Week 16 game.

As usual, we’ll start with Garrett Bradbury. Bradbury has been up and down all season long, but tonight was by far his worst game. He was completely destroyed by Za’Darius Smith and it wasn’t even fair. Cousins had no chance when Smith would loop around and come crashing down over the rookie.

This has been a common problem with Bradbury all season long, and something he’s going to need to work on. He needs to get stronger and maybe even a little bigger, so he can handle the elite pass rushers he faces. He doesn’t even need to handle them, just slow them down a bit instead of getting completely destroyed.

It was just a horrible game for the Vikings’ first-rounder. Hopefully, it’s something he can learn and get better from.

Defensively, Armon Watts was the only rookie to register a statistic. He had one tackle. Kris Boyd was out there and nearly got the ball on the one muffed punt by the Packers. Other than that, he did zip.

Offensively, there wasn’t much going for the purple and gold rookies either. Alexander Mattison didn’t play and when Cousins only throws for 122 yards, there aren’t going to be a lot of marks on the stat sheet.

Bisi Johnson had one catch for six yards. He did have a 51-yard touchdown called back on a Riley Reiff hold that could’ve given the team the late boost they needed to get back into this one.

If we are going to name a Rookie of the Week for the Vikings, I guess it goes to Irv Smith Jr. He had two catches for four yards. It’s pretty sad when that’s the best performance from the rookies, but this was a horrible game for the Vikings offensively. Hopefully, against the Bears next week, the rookies and the team, in general, perform at a much higher level to get some positive momentum going before the start of the playoffs.