What We Saw: Week 9 2018

Lions vs. Vikings

Lions

Well, another week has come and gone with the Lions looking more like the team from Week One than the team that demolished the Packers, Patriots, and Dolphins. The Seahawks game could be written as a game where the ball just didn’t bounce the Lions’ way, but this week against the Vikings the Lions were pathetic at best.

Don’t worry about losing Tate, it was the offensive line that caused the pathetic offensive showing

Although you could definitely argue that missing Tate was a key reason why they failed so spectacularly in the red zone, it was truly a miracle that they were ever in the red zone at all. Drives were being actively crushed by sacks and pressures throughout the night.

The right guard position rotated between T.J. Lang, the starter, and Kenny Wiggins, a Lions fan they picked out of the stands via lottery. He actually did pretty well for a random bystander, only giving up two sacks, three hurries, and five pressures on 30 pass protection snaps.

Unfortunately, for a professional football player, that’s terrible and so was Kenny Wiggins. Hopefully he doesn’t have to play much more as Lang continues to recover from some health issues.

Stafford didn’t help much, but it wasn’t as bad as the stat line looks

The 5.5 yards per attempt that Matthew Stafford posted was really ugly, but a lot of it was due to lack of time. He had to get the ball out very quickly or not at all on just about every play. However, he had quite a few plays where he didn’t help, holding the ball for far too long. There isn’t much to say about this performance; it wasn’t good by Stafford in any way, but it wasn’t exactly like he was missing open throws. The offense as a whole was just entirely shut down.

As expected, Kerryon Johnson’s floor dropped heavily with the return of Theo Riddick

The preview had Theo Riddick as the better start in any form of PPR and he at least came through a little bit. I think he continues to see usage regardless of game script, which will be nice, but against worse run defenses I would still expect Kerryon Johnson to have the bigger games. Still, it was nice to see Riddick taking up his usual position from 2017 and earlier with Golden Tate traded away.

The receiving corps struggled, but against a very well designed scheme

As with Kerryon, the prediction was that the Vikings would shadow Marvin Jones and double Kenny Golladay. It worked a little bit too well on Golladay, and although Jones managed a few grabs when breaking out of coverage neither had a particularly good game. However, it looks like they’re going to be the go-to plays in the red zone with the rest of the team fairly non-existent in terms of pass catching. Any idea that a receiver would come from the ashes and take Tate’s place is pretty much done.

Streaming the Lions D/ST is actually starting to look a little bit less horrible

The complete lack of sacks this week was something distressing, but holding the Vikings offense to 17 points is solid, and outside of a break-away run by Dalvin Cook, the run defense was quite a bit more stout. Taking legitimate analysis without outliers isn’t a good idea in football, but without the 70 yard run the Vikings were rushing for just 2.6 yards per carry. Do with that what you will.

-Ian Rye

Vikings

The Vikings laid waste to the lowly Detroit Lions. The Vikings dominated the defensive side of the ball and made Matthew Stafford look like a rookie in this one. The Vikings went to 5-3-1 on the season after winning 24-9. The Vikings are now neck and neck with the Chicago Bears as they head into their bye week before a huge matchup with the Bears on Sunday Night Football.

Defense Wins Championships

The Minnesota defense came up big on a day where Stafford looked like he didn’t remember what a football was. They recorded 10 sacks and got one fumble that was returned for a touchdown by the sensational Danielle Hunter. This defense was lights out, holding all Detroit WRs to under 70 yards and allowing no touchdowns on the day. This was a great coming out party for a defense that has been up and down this year and they will need to keep it up coming out of their bye if they want to stay in contention for the division title this year.

Kirk loves his Cousin, named turnover.

As you can imagine, Kirk Cousins once again was a friend to the turnover. Like an ex you can’t get away from, so is a turnover to Kirk. He not only threw an interception but also lost a fumble. Thankfully, his defense bailed him out in this one, but there is no way he can be this careless with the ball when the division games heat up coming out of the bye. Something has got to give for Cousins, because what he is doing now is going to spell doom for their chances in the division and for a spot in the playoffs.

Adam Thielen!!!….comes up short.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Adam Thielen tied Megatron’s record for most consecutive games with 100 yards receiving and that was all. He ended up with just four catches for 22 yards and a touchdown. He will start again next week as he tries to outdo himself, but if he wants to get the record, it looks like that won’t happen until next season as there are only 7 games left for the Vikings this year. He still has almost 1,00 yards and 7 touchdowns. Don’t worry, this is a blip on a historical season.

-Matt Dean