5 most disappointing Vikings from their Week 1 loss to the Packers

Yannick Ngakoue – DE

The Vikings knew that not having Danielle Hunter in this game was going to be an issue, but the fact that there was basically zero pressure on Aaron Rodgers all day was a shock to even Packers fans.

Rodgers had all the time in the world to scan the field and find the open man. There was really only one time he had a purple jersey in his face on Sunday and it was when Minnesota safety Harrison Smith came in off a blitz.

One player who was supposed to help generate some sort of pass rush for the Vikings in Week 1 was Yannick Ngakoue and he failed miserably.

Minnesota realized Hunter’s injury was going to linger into the regular season, so they recently sent a second-round draft pick and conditional fifth-round draft selection to the Jacksonville Jaguars in order to secure Ngakoue’s services for 2020.

The early return on this deal was not good as Ngakoue didn’t register a single statistic in his Vikings debut. He couldn’t generate any sort of pressure and he was seen basically slow dancing in the arms of Green Bay left tackle David Bakhtiari for most of the time he was out there.

There were some reports that Ngakoue was dealing with an ankle injury on Sunday and he wasn’t at full health. He was also rotating snaps with Jalyn Holmes and he didn’t see a full workload.

That’s not good, but it’s no excuse for Ngakoue’s poor performance in Week 1, as he should’ve been the one to step up with Hunter out. But instead, he faded into oblivion.