A Cleansing Victory

Vikings 34
Raiders 14

That felt good!

The week since the Green Bay game had felt dirty. Tons of hate, tons of angst, tons of stupid hot takes from everybody.

This was just what we needed to wash all that away. The Vikings came out today and wiped the floor with the Oakland Raiders. It was never really a contest.

Literally the first play of the game had Kirk being tripped up by his own lineman. But that was merely a tease of a darkest timeline game that never came. The Vikes went right down the field, with strong running and a long pass to Irv Smith, before a pretty TD pass from Kirk to Thielen.

The Vikings sandwiched two more touchdowns around a Harrison Smith pick. It was 21-0, a score that has occurred in all 3.games this year oddly.

Only late in the 2nd quarter was there even a hint of danger. The Raiders scored on a fleaflicker. Then they got on the move again, partially due to Rhodes being mugged on an uncalled hold(the refs were awful again today), but the D stuffed Oakland on a 4th and 1.

Zimmer got his blueprint again. Big lead early, so you can focus on running the ball. And that means Dalvin Cook, who is the best back in football. This guy is amazing. He looks like Barry Sanders meets Adrian Peterson, with the pass catching skills of Marshall Faulk. He can really do it all. If he can stay healthy all year he's gonna run for 2,000.

And our run game looked great even with Cook out. Mattison lept into the endzone for his 1st career TD(he was not gonna let himself be stopped at the 1 this time). Even Mike Boone got out there late.

I was worried about the fan reaction to Kirk, but he played really well. It was mostly game manager stuff, but he did what he needed to. He moved the chains. He had a couple good scrambles. He did get dinged for intentional grounding. But he did the stuff that doesn't show up in stats. He chucked one deep to Rudolph, who was covered by a defender whose back was turned. No danger of a pick, but Rudy was able to draw a PI.

The defense didn't have the splashy plays they did against Atlanta, but they overpowered the Raiders. Derek Carr got flustered, and once we figured out how to contain Darren Waller they had no chance. Eric Kendricks in particular had a standout game.

But I have no shame in admitting that my favorite thing in this game was watching Daniel Carlson clank a field goal try off the upright. I was bathing in schadenfreude. It was already funny that they tried a field goal down 31-7. But considering this dink cost us the Green Bay game last year, and ultimately the playoffs, then joined the Raiders and suddenly couldn't miss made me loathe him. I lived that the crowd booed him everytime he set foot on the field. And meanwhile Dan Bailey split the uprights from 50.

So now we go to Chicago, and we will lose, cause we always do. Just the way it is. But after that we will get on a nice run. This is a good team, and they've already shown resilience.