What a game! It truly was"Teddy Time" as the Vikings looked sharp from start to finish. Well, except when Ponder took the reigns at the end of the fourth quarter. For the brief time he was the in there, the Vikings quickly reverted to looking like last year's team, going nowhere and settling for two field goals, including a beautiful 55 yard masterpiece by Blair Walsh to seal the win.
Bridgewater was fantastic. No turnovers while throwing for over over 300 yards, he looked poised in there. Scrambling when he had to but usually just finding and hitting the open reciever, he even had a nifty touchdown run.
And it wasn't just Bridgewater. Great kickoff returns and punt returns often led to superb field position to start drives. The TANDEM of Mckinnon and Asiata at running back produced over 200 yards rushing on nearly 40 carries, taking the pressure off Teddy's passing game. The cool thing? Neither back danced behind the line of scrimmage waiting for a better block leading to multiple negative yardage plays. They went FORWARD every time.
I've always maintained that a multiple back offense leads to greater team success than one predictable runner with the ball. We saw that yesterday. I think the Vikes can build on that in future games.
And the defense played their hearts out. I don't mind that they got burned a couple of times. They were without their field general in Chad Greenway, and they are young and inexperienced. But they kept pressuring Ryan over and over again. Eventually they cracked him. That's no little feat.
Vikes/Packers Thursday. Teddy has a sprained ankle. The suspense is building...
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