Fish Fry

Vikings 41
Dolphins 17

Now THAT'S how you supposed to play football! From now on, THAT'S how you play football!

The 1st game of the Vikings 3 game mini-season, the 1st game post-DeFilippo, was not perfection, but it was almost unquestionably their most complete performance of the season.

The 1st quarter was an absolute masterpiece. First drive, right down the field for a Kirk to Stefon TD. Second drive, right down the field for a Dalvin TD. Third drive, right down the field for a Tay Train TD. 21-0 after a quarter. Wow! The purple palace was alive!

Quick passes, play action throws downfield, getting Kirk out of the pocket, blowing open HUGE running lanes...everything our former OC refused to let happen. It was like last year's Pat Shurmur offense, only with a better QB and a healthy Dalvin. This is what we wanted all season. Now, obviously 21 points a quarter is not sustainable, but in just this one quarter of football the bad vibes were swept away.

Now, the bad vibes DID return for a while, cause these ARE the Vikings. Drive #4 looked destined to make this is a 28-0 rout. Cook had another 20 yard burst, but it got called back on the worst phantom holding call I have seen in a long time. Compton had a perfect block on the play but got flagged. And then a few plays, and another penalty, later Kirk threw probably his worst pass as a Viking, a gift-wrapped pick six that stunned the crowd, and seemed to stun the players too. (Btw Dolphins, way to mock the SKOL chant down 14 points)

Thus began the mid game lull that threatened the good vibes and also put the win in some doubt for a while. I was pretty concerned when the Dolphins got a 70 yard TD run on the 1st play of the 3rd quarter to cut the lead to 4. But it turned out that was the Dolphins last punch.

We got a huge.punt return from Sherels that swung momentum back our way. It only got us a field goal cause the offense hadn't snapped out of it yet, but the Dolphins were never a threat again.

The defense never gave them a shot. Holy shit was the 2nd half performance by the Zim Reapers a sight to behold! After that TD run the Dolphins were just overwhelmed by our pass rush. ALL the blitzes worked. There were some nice plays in the secondary on the passes Tannehill was able to get off. They could not do ANYTHING. Even when it became complete garbage time this defense didn't let up. This defense usually plays better in second halves anyway, but this was an all timer.

And after the weird middle part of the game where Kevin Stefanski bizarrely went away from all the stuff that worked on the 1st 4 drives, the offense started to produce again just enough to get a few more scores, including that perfect deep ball to Robinson, and the Barry Sanders-esque spin move TD by Cook, and make almost the whole 4th quarter a cruise. How nice to not have to totally sweat out a 4th quarter.

I'll be curious to see Stefanski's 2nd game as play caller next week. I've already seen enough to know that the JDF firing was the right move. Stefanski clearly has a better grasp of what the players on this offense can and can't do. This team put up 41 points on a solid team fighting for their own season, and could have easily had more.

The biggest takeaway from this game is that, similar to the Saints game, they had 2 major plays go violently against them(the pick six, the TD run), but this time they did not let those plays decide the game. They have had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes this year that has either cost them games, or made comfortable wins tense. The best teams aren't the ones that just never make any mistakes, but the ones that can overcome them.

So now we are down to a TWO game season. The Bears officially clinched the division today, but at least the Packahs got eliminated. The Redskins unfortunately won, but I can't imagine them now winning at Tennessee next Saturday. We'll see what happens with the Eagles and Panthers. So there is still a chance that the Vikings take the field in Detroit next week in a win-and-in position.

And the 5th seed is back in play now thanks to Slick Nick Mullens and the 49ers upsetting Seattle. Seattle plays a suddenly desperate Chiefs team next week, so if the Vikings can win out they may very well jump Seattle and get the 5 seed and likely the much more favorable matchup in Dallas. Plus the odds the Bears will have anything to play for in week 17 have diminished, so that game could prove easier.

It's nice to have things lining up favorably for the Vikings, and that they actually won to help them line up this time after a couple weeks of all the help coming from the outside.