Aloha, everyone, and welcome to the Skoloholics Vikings – Chargers game thread! I would never refer to a week 3 game as “huge”, but this is an important game for both teams. The Vikings and Chargers both had elevated expectations coming into this year, as both teams made the playoffs last year and were expected to be back in the mix this year. Well, here they both sit at 0-2. Neither team has looked horrible in their first two games, but there are significant concerns for aspects of both teams. I don’t recall the exact percentage, but an 0-3 team’s chances of making the playoffs are under 3%.
The Vikings’ rushing attack has been abysmal this year. It was fairly abysmal last year as well. Our run/pass ratio is way off balance, and the offensive coaching staff needs to make some major changes in order to have a balanced attack that keeps teams on their toes. When they know we’re passing, they just blitz the hell out of the Vikings, and with our O-line, that is a recipe for disaster.
Let’s hope the Vikings can put a notch in the W column. If so, they’ll be in decent position within a weak division.
Where to Watch
Vikings.com has all the details on how to Watch Minnesota Vikings vs. Los Angeles Chargers.
BROADCAST TV
FOX (FOX 9 KMSP in the Twin Cities)
Play-by-Play: Kevin Kugler
Analyst: Mark Sanchez
Sideline reporter: Laura Okmin
Kickoff: Noon (CT)
After the game be sure to join us back on the Weekend Open Thread for all of the rest of the NFL action takes.
Haven’t watched the replays.
Did the ball hit hock in the hands on the last play or no
He was heavily covered. Not sure if he could have caught the ball. Looked like it glanced off his fingertips. Not really catchable from my vantage point.
I’m trying to figure out where blame goes with today’s game.
I mean I’m REALLY disappointed in KAM not addressing the Oline.
I’m really disappointed in KOC’s play calling.
I’m really disappointed we blitz like mad but get ZERO pressure.
I’m really disappointed kirk missed KJ for a sure TD.
I’m really disappointed Hok couldn’t be a man and hold onto the ball (we are seriously cursed)
I’m really disappointed we had an interception go off our hands and helmet and land in the wr hands foe a td.
Just flat out disappointed.
You forgot Mattison’s drop that would have been a TD.
Now wait a minute…he was 6 or 7 yards away with the defense at his back he had to run around and score…chances are he’s tackled before he scores.
More incriminating was the offense facing the worst ranked secondary with their best corner out and can’t get a TD in the redzone with 8 cracks. Kirk missed an open routine throw to KJ and he didn’t step up with Bosa pressuring from his right which he could see to buy time for Mattison to come across and toss him a sure TD on another RZ fail. Kirk played terrible.
I believe they we’re booing the entire team my good fellow.
The team. KC bashers are off the charts. Do you actually see the talent level around him? WTF…
Idiots are going to Idiot.
You can have a POS like 67 that puts you in a 1st and 20. Ok Kirk, try and give you 3 seconds, dig us out.
The Kirk hate schtick gets old. He’s not blameless, but it is a team game and the team lost today. There is plenty of blame to pass around.
‘There is plenty of blame to pass around.’
Enough for a double portion for just about everyone today.
Cousins should fake an injury for a few weeks so the “fans” can see how bad this team is without him.
Not who he is.
Of course, just being facetious.
would not be worse than 0-3
True, but the losses would have been by 20 points or more a game. Not competitive at all.
By the end of the weekend, I expect the Vikings QB to be leading the league in passing yards and TD’s.
309 for Tua and 367 for KC.
Hebert had 409 but don’t know what he was prior to this weekend.
537, not enough to take the lead.
Sad that we are focused on stats since we can’t get Wins.
Maybe when they review the film they will find another yard for JJ.
Well, when you have the most productive QB in the league behind arguably the worst pass blocking line in the league, and you’re 0-3 it’s just a sad state of affairs.
Which supports the argument that the IOL was ‘good enough’ as we were still getting good results?
The O-line conveniently fails “when it matters most”.
Just a coincidence.
The oline didn’t throw an interception.
Laughing… the O-line didn’t block either.
TSwift ain’t that hot. Might not kick out of bed for eating crackers.
I have never thought she was attractive… at all.
Never watched/listened/looked at her on purpose, but what little I have seen she seemed ‘not bad but not great’.
I assume huge ‘assets’ makes her more attractive.
Her bank account and number of followers/fans are large assets I assume.
When I heard KOC say “we’ll keep looking for our best five to put out there”, referring to the O-line, all I could think was “you should have started doing that in January”.
Biggest question mark of the off season.
“Why retain the crappiest IOL in the NFL??”
I guess because KAM and KOC are smart and we’re dumb.
Or they outsmarted themselves by thinking RG will be better in year 2, C and LG were not quite THAT BAD and maybe a year of working together in the new offense and a year of our superior coaching will help us get thru. Because we has such a great O last year that the IOL can’t be hurting us that bad, if you ignore all of KC’s bruises.
Lot of folks here insist Cousins gets hit a lot because he holds the ball too long.
There are occasions, but that could be him ‘waiting to see what the receivers are going to do before he throws’ as KOCs scheme call for.
That’s my take.
We can share it.
1.5 seconds before you are hit. I just don’t understand it.
Another great question, why when the scheme requires long reads do you not fix the GD line to give your QB time to make those reads.
Pretty dumb for a ‘smart’ coach.
KC is harassed constantly. Holding ball to long is nonsense. Fix the GD line.
Thien doing well in garbage time.
Thielen
That tipped ball for a TD today burns me up. Such a lucky play for the Chargers.
Yes, if you noticed it came of his hands then he bumped it up more of his helmet.
Yep. Very unlucky for us.
Hawks did the craziest 2 point conversion i have ever seen.
Didn’t see it, but I’ll watch it on NFL+
Think Panthers will be a early 2.5 fave. Their qb is not known yet.
Well,
Twins win
JJ 149 yards
JJ only cramped up
All i got
Cardinals running over the Dallas D-line like a Mack truck.
The Black Kirk Cousins just threw a terrible interception in the end zone.
Go Cardinals!
Thielen has 122 yards so far. He’ll be licking his chops on our game film.
Dalton having a day?
PROB 300+
The Bears will be battling it out with us for the basement.
Blaine Gabbert is in now at QB for the Chiefs. The Bears have a chance!
Cardinals “representin” against the Cowboys. Just scored a TD to go up 28 – 16 with 7:22 left in the 4th.
Cardinals going to upset the Boys!
The Black Kirk Cousins will need to lead a comeback!
Draft pick is ours!
Dallas has rushed for 160 yards, but the Cardinals have rushed for 193 yards.
14 more games with this suckfest at QB for the Vikings.
Laughing… one of the best QB’s in the league. The suckfest is the O-line and the Defense.
Gonna be a classic bookend Trivial Pursuit question for the grandkids…”after winning a record 11/11 one score games in 2022, the following season this team lost 11/11 one score games”
Never forget Brandon Staley gifted the Vikings that game and they couldn’t capitalize. I mean that is 95% of the time you lose the game when you gift someone the ball on your own 25 yard line lol….epic mismanagement in all areas.
Can you imagine if we did that?
I think our O-line false starting and holding hurt a lot.
Here we go!!! Bears intercept Mahomes and return it 47 yards to the KC 28 yard line!!!
It’s Justin Fields time!!!
Kelce on a roll. GF, commercials, football.
He probably hears a cash register ring every time he pounds that thing…..
Give it a couple of weeks and she will be coming out with a new song about how some guy disappointed her.
LOL
@I bet she’s real low maintenance…@
Laughing… “why do you have to spend so much time with all your guy friends?”
If the Bears come back and beat KC, it will be the greatest comeback in NFL history.
Haha savage nvf
Unfortunately at the moment, Fields is 5-13 for 39 yards and an interception with a passer rating of 14.5.
And it’s 41-0
Not to mention against the defending SB champ.
Bears are on the board with a field goal!
@it could happen@
Like to watch fins@bills next weekend. Prob will cuz we suck.
It’s like watching HS football.
You know, sometimes shit happens and we’re getting some.
Reading thru some of the discussion and there is always a lot of blame – just sports.
But I wonder about something, if the last pass to Hock had been completed, should we have spiked it instead.
Yeah… I think we should have taken the spike, and set up a play properly. The time it took to get the play in caused a rush to get the snap off, and resulted in a lot of confusion. I will also say that once the ball was snapped, Cousins could have thrown the ball away, instead of trying to force it in there. In the heat of the moment, he threw a ball into heavy coverage, expecting it to just get knocked away and be incomplete. Instead it gets tipped up into the air and intercepted. 20/20 hindsight, but he should have thrown that ball in the dirt.
Kind of like the first rule of laying up.
I know I have as good as hindsight as anyone else. I would have preferred a spike now that I know what happened. But if it ended in a TD no one would be saying shit.
Sometimes you make the play, sometimes the other guys do.
By the way. I used to be a baseball pitcher and can tell you over and over the times I should have thrown a curve instead of a fastball.
Laughing. The problem is there was nowhere Cousins could have thrown that ball where Hock could catch it from what I could see.
You’re a QB, believe the throw was right as it should be – right on Hock’s outside shoulder with defender slightly to the inside. They made a play and the interception was just unlucky.
They were rushing hard and not like our guys were getting wide open down there. They were playing us tough.
It felt a bit like the SB loss by the Seahawks, felt like the Vikings were expecting LAC to call a TO. Up until the intercept I was feeling pretty good as there was so little time left even our porous defense may have been able to prevent LA with 3 to’s to get in FG range.
You a lot like the Seahawks loss.
Yes. Simple clock management.
I suppose i could be a Bears/Bronco fan.
70-20… wow.
Wouldn’t be any worse they all suck…
Derek Carr injured his shoulder and had to leave the game up 17-0 over Green Bay. The Packers come back to take the lead 18-17, then the Saints miss the game winning 46 yard field goal to lose by 1.
Most Viking shit ever
Mahomes twisted his ankle pretty good but staying in the game with 8 seconds left in the half to throw one more pass to set up a short field goal to up 34-0 on the Bears.
Does everyone like the new defense. They seem more aggressive and tackle better. But something is sorta similar. We rush a lot of people and play soft on the backend. We don’t seem to get home much and give up a ton of underneath throws I don’t know the exact yardage today with short throws, but it seemed like a lot.
I like the scheme, don’t like the execution. They rushed 6 or more players tons of times and only sacked Herbert once, and only hit him 3 times.
They gotta do a lot better than that.
That’s the point – why rush 6? i mean if you going to rush six you better get home – we don’t. Might as well rush four and cover better.
I think that Flores is an aggressive DC who wants to bring pressure. So far, his horses are faltering though. We’ll see if the players start figuring it out and begin to actually get home, or if Flores is forced to abandon the scheme.
Aggressive is good, effective aggressiveness is better.
Yep. Rushing 6 and not getting home is deplorable.
Fields having a rough go of it in the first half.
😆
Chicago is struggling this year, maybe worse than the Vikings are. If they get the #1 overall pick next year, do they take a QB and give up on Fields?
Unless fields completely changes who he is over the next 2 months, they are getting a new QB. Maybe they’ll sign Kirk.
They should’ve traded him and drafted a real QB this offseason
Yes.
And so are the Vikings.
I think I said that… grin.
JJ missed the 150 for 3 games by you guessed it…..1 yard.
this team is a walking dark cloud of bad luck.
Yeah the opposite of last year
Bolts can’t feel real good, injury to Williams looked like ligaments. Happy at least for JJ. It’s something.
This is pure towing the corporate line BS. Naturally he can’t say he doesn’t believe they’ll turn it around but there is a lot to clean up when you see the same problems 3 weeks straight to sit there and be so matter a fact. There comes a point where you can’t dig out of the hole.
Carolina is playing and beating Seattle right now. 0-6 is a distinct possibility. I want to hear this speech then.
Well at least when asked what he thought of his team’s execution, he didn’t say “I’m all for it”.
I remember McKay saying that lol…those creamsicle uniforms with the buccaneer on the helmet were fantastic.
Yeah… great line. Loved McKay.
One of the greatest lines in the history of sport
Lol wtf, what a joke
A terrible one unfortunately because the Vikings were already a joke.
Once every 10 years or so the team is a complete dumpster fire, looks like this may be that year, haven’t been complete crap since 2013 so they’re do
Cheering for seachickens. Want a clash of 0-3 titans next week. Riveting.
Both offenses finish with the same yards, 475.
Vikings won T.O.P 33 to 26.
MN 130 rushing yards
LAC 30 rushing yards
454 LAC passing yards
367 MN passing yards
MN 2 turnovers
SD 1 turnover
MN 78 plays
SD 64 plays
Vikings had at least 8 snaps in the red zone to win this game and bungled everything to lose.
We blitz more than any team in the league and may have one of the lowest pressure rates in the league. Whether it’s talent or scheme. We ain’t getting home. We score to take the lead and the Chargers walk right back down the field and score a TD like our defense wasn’t there.
Ouch. That wasn’t fun. At least Jefferson is OK, that was scary.
That scared me more than when he pretended to get hurt last year.
One in EZ? Thought that was poor taste.
Yeah, that one. I thought it was funny after the fact but definitely held my breath.
Yes, don’t think you should fake that crap.
Do you think he was pretending this time? I think one of the announcers said something that it was possible.
It was cramps…he was seen being stretched out in the huddle during a timeout beforehand.
Ah, thanks.
Apparently Arizona saw the Vikings futility and decided the Vikings are better at sucking than them.
Like a opinion on that clock BS from KC, that won’t happen.
KOC saying “it looked like Justin just had a lot of time to throw the ball down the field”…
I bet if you look he took about half the time kirk did. He didn’t get hit because he made decisions and didn’t hold the ball.
I think he had great protection and his receivers were wide open.
That’s a BS statement from KOC..Herbert hung in there and felt the pressure and dealt. Him trying to blame the defense is soft. Offense was terrible today
Go back and watch the game. Herbert was pressured like three times and each time it was just one guy. He was never hit by three guys at once like Cousins was.
Herbert had our line they lose.
Yep
KOC intoning the protection for Cousins wasn’t good enough today (duh). Says “we have to look for the best five guys to put out there”. Looks like Risner’s stock is on the rise.
KOC saying in his presser they should have spiked the ball instead of trying to run a play. Duh.
So why didn’t Kirk instinctively know that he should have had the offense line up quick to do that?
His coach didn’t hold his hand and tell him ahead of time. Kirk only does what he’s told. Gotta remember, it’s not like he’s been in the league for that long.
Yes, KOC calls the plays and Cousins executes them. That’s that whole collaboration and communication thing at work.
Because the Head Coach was in his ear calling a play… duh.
What did you say? The crowd noise and Kirk’s dick in your mouth are making it hard to understand.
Nice… insult me much? If you can’t say anything nice, keep quiet.
i don’t see the insult. Thought you’d take it as a compliment.
And I thought you were a good person.
With the #1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft….the Mn Vikings select…..????
Toni Manderwich.
Justin Fields.
They won’t get #1, so with their first pick in the 2024 NFL draft, the Minnesota Vikings select Bo Nix, QB, Oregon
The Tank is in!!! Prob not.
Trade back 5 times…
…& pick WR
Your mom
Is she that good?
See if I can sneak this past the mods….IF you want your paycheck to keep up with inflation don’t vote democrat you ignorant pieces of shit….
Teacher Salaries Not Keeping Up With Inflation, NEA Report Finds | NEA
Wait a minute…Republicans have always wanted to abolish the Board of Education and the resources they bring?? You want salaries to get worse for teachers?
We privatizing education now lol….
Wait a minute… when the Board of Education is interested in teaching fellatio as part of sex education, you can’t endorse them.
I missed that class apparently.
Made me mad when my sister (who was a teacher) told me about it.
Cool….Taylor Swift is in the press box watching Kelce
Tonight she’s gonna ride him harder than the Lone Ranger rode silver