Wildcard Round: VIKINGS (10-6) at Saints (13-3)

[swede700]

 

[swede700]

Here is the epitome of Danielle Hunter yesterday (from @Arif's post on the Athletic)...

Quote

In 1,058 snaps in the regular season, All-Pro right tackle Ryan Ramczyk didn’t allow a single sack. In 49 snaps against Danielle Hunter, he allowed two.

 

[TENINCH]

11 minutes ago, swede700 said:

Here is the epitome of Danielle Hunter yesterday (from @Arif's post on the Athletic)...

 

He's not an All Pro though and Cam Jordan is

[VikeManDan]

16 hours ago, vike daddy said:

On first-and-10 at the Minnesota 20, Brees received a snap and dropped to pass. The Saints were trailing by three with 4:26 to play in regulation and appeared poised to score a go-ahead touchdown when Brees surveyed the field, not knowing Danielle Hunter was bearing down on him. As the play unfolded in an unexpected manner, Brees reared to throw when Hunter struck his arm, knocking the ball free.

Minnesota recovered and burned two and a half minutes of game clock before New Orleans was able to regain possession, ultimately settling for a game-tying field goal. It was the last time the Saints would hold the ball.

Brees: "The fumble was really frustrating because there was a miscommunication as to what we were doing and the ball should've been out of my hands and all of a sudden that wasn't the route that was run and so now I'm just trying to throw the ball into the dirt to avoid a sack, right? And right as my hand's going back, he just kind of gets a piece of my arm and that ball comes out. So, I'm really disappointed in that. That never should have happened."

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001094715/article/brees-crucial-fumble-was-result-of-miscommunication

Like everyone I was really hoping the offense could've sealed the win by picking up a few first downs.

[VikeManDan]

Great game, really happy we closed it out and were ready to play!

I was ecstatic yesterday afternoon and am excited we've got another week to talk about the Vikings in the playoffs.

[VikeManDan]

On 12/31/2019 at 12:15 PM, VikeManDan said:

He's definitely an X-Factor.

I want to control the clock and grind out the win. Lean on Cook and Mattison and have Kirk hit the throws he needs to make. 

I posted in the 2019 defense thread a table that had TOP stats for each game. Needless to say they weren't pretty for games that we lost.

Taysom Hill was DEFINITELY an X-Factor.

Would've like to see Mattison get more than 5 carries.

32:36 TOP does not include OT (36:56 total then).

[PrplChilPill]

I've been arguing all year to move Hunter and or Griffin inside, with some Barr mixed in. Glad it worked.

 

[TENINCH]

 

[vike daddy]

The Vikings’ victory over the Saints on Sunday was aided in part by the Saints’ misuse of their timeouts, which forced the Saints to settle for field goals at the end of both halves when, with better clock management, they might have scored touchdowns.

Late in the fourth quarter the Saints’ timeout usage was incredibly costly: With the Vikings facing third-and-19 with 2:54 remaining, New Orleans had two timeouts. They used one of them, which was a sensible thing to do — but only if they were prepared to use another one after the play, which they didn’t. Instead, after stopping the Vikings on third-and-19, the Saints allowed the Vikings to run the play clock all the way down before punting. By the time the Saints’ punt return was done, it was after two minutes. The Saints had just wasted the two-minute warning, because it passed on a punt, and the clock stops after punts anyway. If the Saints had used their third and final timeout immediately after sacking Kirk Cousins on third-and-19, they would have forced the Vikings to punt with about 2:48 remaining in the fourth quarter. They could have run multiple offensive plays before the two-minute warning. Instead, the Saints saved that final timeout.

And what were they saving it for? Nothing. Amazingly, even after foolishly saving that final timeout, the Saints never used it. On their first offensive play after the two-minute warning, Alvin Kamara had an opportunity to step out of bounds but decided to cut back inside to pick up a few extra yards. That was a mistake, but that’s what the Saints saved the timeout for, right? Nope. They let the clock keep running. Two plays later, Kamara again went down in bounds. Now they’ll use the timeout, right? Wrong. The clock kept running. The next play, Michael Thomas was tackled in bounds. Again, the clock kept running. On the next play Jared Cook was tackled in bounds and the clock was still running. Now the Saints were getting nervous about running out of time, so they lined up to spike the ball with 21 seconds left, but they weren’t lined up properly so they were penalized and got a 10-second runoff. At this point, surely they’ll use their timeout to avoid the 10-second runoff, right? Nope. They opted for the runoff. They then ran one more play, an incomplete pass, before kicking the game-tying field goal with that last timeout still in hand.

If the Saints had managed the clock better, they could have taken multiple shots at the end zone and tried to win the game in regulation. Instead they tied the game and lost in overtime.

The Saints also mismanaged their timeouts late in the first half: When the Vikings got first-and-goal at the 5-yard line with a minute left in the first half, the Saints should have called timeout to save themselves time for their next possession. Instead they allowed Minnesota to bleed the clock before scoring a touchdown with 23 seconds remaining. That meant that when the Saints got the ball on the ensuing kickoff, they had very little time and ended up missing a field goal on first-and-10 as time expired in the first half. With more time, the Saints might have driven down the field for a touchdown, or at least driven further down the field for an easier field goal.

With better timeout usage, the Saints might have scored a touchdown at the end of either half. Instead they missed a field goal at the end of the first half, made a field goal at the end of the second half, and cost themselves good opportunities to score in a game they would lose in overtime.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/01/06/saints-mismanaged-their-timeouts-in-costly-fashion/

[CriminalMind]

That is correct, we were lucky to escape with the win. But in reality, with more aggressive Minny play Calling we might have been able to better possess the ball with our last regulation possession, and not give saints the ball at the end. Zimmer was fortunate Payton screwed up

[vikingsrule]

8 minutes ago, CriminalMind said:

That is correct, we were lucky to escape with the win. But in reality, with more aggressive Minny play Calling we might have been able to better possess the ball with our last regulation possession, and not give saints the ball at the end. Zimmer was fortunate Payton screwed up

Or if the refs didn’t miss the call when Teddy foolishly ran on the field, we could have kept that drive going after an unsportsmanlike like penalty. Instead, we had the ball on a second and long. 

[vike daddy]

As tight end Kyle Rudolph caught the game-winning pass in the corner of the end zone, it was so silent that Kirk Cousins wasn’t so sure that the play would send Minnesota to the next round.

“First of all, when you score and everything goes quiet, it throws you off a little bit,” Cousins said on this week’s episode of Under Center with Kirk Cousins. “Because you are used to cheers or some sort of reaction. It was so quiet that you are thinking ‘Wait, what just happened?’ ” The Vikings offensive line gathered around Rudolph to celebrate the final play of a 26-20 victory, but Cousins’ first thought was to look over to the referee. “I looked to the ref, and he gave the touchdown signal, so my first thought was ‘Game over,’ ” Cousins said. “Our sideline was running on the field, and then Chris Myers from FOX came over and said ‘Hey, we are going to do the postgame interview.’ ”

When Jeff Anderson of the Vikings PR staff told Cousins that the play was under review, his first thought was to find quarterbacks coach Klint Kubiak and get his mind right in case there was an ensuing play. “So I told Chris, ‘Hey, I can’t do anything yet, and I said ‘Hey, I am going to get my mind right in case we have to keep going.’ I went over to the bench and sat down. I sat there for about 10 to 15 seconds talking to Klint Kubiak, just saying, ‘Hey what’s the thought here, what do you think of the drive?’

The quarterback put his head down on the Vikings team bench as the celebration continued. “I was kind of looking down and wasn’t looking up and Kevin Stefanski came over after what felt like a while, but was probably only 15 seconds." “He said ‘Kirk, we won the game’ and he walked away cause he could tell I didn’t realize we won the game, so he felt the need to come over and tell me in his way,” Cousins laughed. Cousins could finally celebrate what will go down as one of the best plays in Vikings history.

“So I looked up, and it basically looked like a postgame scene with media all over the field and I thought, ‘Well, I guess we won.’ At that point, I took the field and felt a huge sigh of relief.”

https://www.vikings.com/news/kirk-cousins-breaks-down-moments-of-suspense-in-silent-superdome-following-game-

[vikesfan89]

It took a while for me to believe that he caught it and it was aTD

[vikingsrule]

1 minute ago, vikesfan89 said:

It took a while for me to believe that he caught it and it was aTD

I assumed the refs were going to call a push off on Rudolph given what happened to the Saints last year. 

[vike daddy]

19 minutes ago, vikesfan89 said:

It took a while for me to believe that he caught it and it was aTD

i was watching with the sound off and forgot that if the score is a td we win the game immediately.