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Week 6: VIKINGS (1-4) at Bears (1-4)


swede700

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Bears quarterback Justin Fields is headed for further tests on the right hand injury that forced him out of Sunday’s loss to the Vikings and his thumb is the specific area of concern.

PFT has learned, via a league source, that Fields’ thumb was injured during the game. Fields was not able to grip the ball, which is why he could not return to the game.

Bears head coach Matt Eberflus said after the game that X-rays on Fields were negative and that he will be having an MRI on Monday to provide further information about the injury.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/justin-fields-has-an-injured-right-thumb-could-not-grip-ball

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2 hours ago, Captain Relax said:

The Browns are showing that SF is beatable.  Every time RedZone showed the Viking offense, Cousins seemed very tentative.  Also, O'Connell needs to receive an electric shock every time he calls a screen play!  Defense was aggressive and tough. Need to sign Hunter long term!!

I’m not sure the Browns playing well against the 49ers means anything for this team. The Browns are also a wildly different and superior team to us. 
 

 

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6 hours ago, PrplChilPill said:

They had how many yards in the second half? Unreal they won.

The Defence stepped up, as they should have, playing mostly against a QB who is not an NFL calibre passer, and mostly against a 3rd-string QB from a 3rd-tier football school, who NEVER sends players who become regulars in The NFL, and against a stripped-down team of mostly rookies and castoffs.  Our Offence, on the other hand, just wanted to risk nothing to be assured of a win (and would have lost it by doing that if not bailed out by a defensive Takeaway and TD). 

They SHOULD have been playing their young players to get them more game experience, and to see what they can do, to make better decisions on who should stay or be replaced next season.

A lot of this is KOC's fault, but more of it is Kirk's than a lot of people think.  A lot of KOC's called plays are dumped by Cousins and replaced with check-downs, and a lot of those he follows are failing because the latter is back to his old (pre-2022 mindset of being worried about throwing INTs (into tight windows), and he doesn't trust the receivers to be where the need to be to lead them (e.g. enough to throw ahead of them).  So, he is throwing behind many of his targets, so they  don't get separation, and have a tough catch that often needs a dive (which causes the tip-ups, which can be intercepted with 2 defenders around).

Whatever psychology KOC used on Kirk last season that emboldened him to take more risks (and which made him much more effective than ever in his career) has been tossed away by Kirk (maybe because this is his FA new contract year, and he wants he stats to look as good as possible, so he can get as much money and as many years as possible guaranteed).  His fear is that more INTs would hurt those possibilities. 

 

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4 minutes ago, Robb_K said:

Whatever psychology KOC used on Kirk last season that emboldened him to take more risks (and which made him much more effective than ever in his career) has been tossed away by Kirk (maybe because this is his FA new contract year, and he wants he stats to look as good as possible, so he can get as much money and as many years as possible guaranteed).  His fear is that more INTs would hurt those possibilities. 

jeez man, ease up. lol

it's also Kirko's first game without Jefferson on hand. so of course he's going to play it conservatively until he finds his new footing.

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14 minutes ago, vike daddy said:

jeez man, ease up. lol

it's also Kirko's first game without Jefferson on hand. so of course he's going to play it conservatively until he finds his new footing.

Why? Why play conservative?  It rarely works. They got less than sixty yards in the second half. Brutal. 

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16 minutes ago, vike daddy said:

jeez man, ease up. lol

it's also Kirko's first game without Jefferson on hand. so of course he's going to play it conservatively until he finds his new footing.

I'm not talking about just this game.  To MY eyes, he's been doing this EVERY game this season.  I noticed a big change last season over how he played every year under Zimmer.  And this season he's seemed to me to have reverted back to the game he had before.  Part of it might well be the fear of getting hit too much, and possibly get his ribs broken, after last season's pummeling.  But Our OL has been playing significantly better than last season (especially the weakest link, Ed Ingram(even though he's still allowing a few rushers to get by him here and there).  But, I still think he's tossing the ball off early on checkdowns to avoid  a sack when the pocket is holding up (I've heard that mentioned by respected veteran analysts, too.  They've ALL noticed that The Vikings pocket has been solid longer than recent seasons, and The OL players PFF and other scales grades are very high compared to NFL average this season.  And the eye-test bears that out.

Edited by Robb_K
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O'Connell: "Being 1-0 in the division, a lot of things we can improve on as a football team, but number one thing I wanted to see today was just our response, and I thought our defense was a great example of regardless of what was going on in the football game, our inability to move it in the second half."

"Offensively they just never flinched. They made a bunch of big, big-time plays, Jordan Hicks was tremendous, Byron Murphy, Josh Metellus, Danielle Hunter are just a few of the names that come to mind. They got off to a great start. They forced a bunch of negatives. We finally did win the turnover battle, and then ultimately able to get a big turnover there late by Byron to kind of seal that drive up and allow us to get a 1st down, run that clock all the way out essentially on that sequence."

"Offensively we’ve got to be better. Didn’t run it all that well today. Didn’t handle the movement. Didn’t handle a lot of the things we anticipated that we did see, and then in general, just a couple plays here and there in the pass game. I thought Kirk played really clean, really efficient football, gave some guys some opportunities. Jordan down the sideline in the first half, a couple 3rd downs there where we’re just slightly off. We’ll detail stuff up and continue to try to push forward."

"Proud of our group all together to get a win in the NFC North. Just got to start finding ways now. Our response off of a victory is to take a strong look at the tape in really all three phases and figure out how we improve and continue to just chase our best performance which is still out there for us."

https://vikingswire.usatoday.com/lists/vikings-bears-kevin-o-connell-press-conference/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1RzqOd3fPUcw-E6MzwYmsayt1PWbCun50f6LPUQetXBfIJYeeutxoWids

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On 10/9/2023 at 9:20 AM, swede700 said:

Since I will actually be at this one, I hope my presence there can start a positive streak.  It hasn't worked for years, but if the Twins can exorcise their demons, so can I. 

It worked...it wasn't pretty, but it worked. 

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