Vikings Territory: 4 Takeaways From The Vikings Final Preseason Game

Press release from Vikings Territory:

Dustin Baker Dustin Baker

2021-08-28

The Minnesota Vikings uncharacteristically dropped all three preseason games in 2021 after a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Friday night.

The Vikings showed a bit more optimism versus the Chiefs than displays previously against the Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts. But on the whole, the preseason product was disappointing. Thankfully, preseason is not generally an indicator of regular season performance.

Any discontent over the Vikings preseason offensive performance must be caveated with Dalvin Cook, Justin Jefferson, and Adam Thielen playing next to zilch. Those men are the keynote playmakers, undoubtedly. When they do not play — as a sum of all parts — the offense feels grimy.

After that, it was back to doldrums for the first-team offense. Cousins was sacked after a missed block by RB3 Ameer Abdullah, killing the second drive on arrival. And then Cousins’ final drive came up empty deep in Minnesota’s own territory.

But hey — on-the-bubble halfback A.J. Rose did score an offensive touchdown, Minnesota’s first such score of the preseason.

In a first half when Vikings fans fumed over the first-team offense’s inability to score a touchdown, a return to normalcy from Griffen stood out gloriously. He briefly played like a shoo-in for RDE1 duties — like the old days — and smiled all along the way.

Drafted out of the 3rd Round of the 2021 NFL Draft, the Texas A&M rookie has been all over the board for production. That’s what raw rookies do. Some practices he looks magnificent. Then in some preseason spots, he seems lost.

Yet, Mond made amends. Gradually in the second half, he settled in and moved the sticks. Under his leadership, Minnesota made the last preseason game entertaining and competitive. Mond has a long way to go, but if the Vikings sign no other backup quarterbacks, the team could limp to some offensive proficiency under Mond when Cook, Jefferson, and Thielen are actually on the field. Everything Mond did this offseason was surrounded by second and third-stringers, for the most part. Remember that. It matters.

To date as a Viking, Joseph has little problem drilling field goals from 50 yards in. Versus Kansas City though, he missed another field goal over 50 yards. That’s problematic. This one was blamed on “the wind,” so that is supposedly a factor to consider. A lot of stadiums have wind — Green Bay, Chicago, anyone?

That’s a tricky sell because Spielman’s track record on kicker personnel (Kaare Vedvick, Daniel Carlson) is splotchy. Eddy Pineiro or Riley Patterson are the logical fallbacks, and both are available.

This press release was produced by Vikings Territory .The views expressed here are the author’s own.