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Vikings Discussion & Random Thoughts
I hope all of you had a relaxing and blessed day of relaxation with your families yesterday for Christmas. We have one more day in Billings, then head back to the Northern Dakota tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to getting back home and finishing the work I’m doing on my shop, chomping at the bit.
Vikings vs. Lions
What a game by the Minnesota Vikings defense yesterday! Harrison Smith turned back the clock and played like he was 26 years old instead of 36. Andrew VanGinkel also put on a dominant performance, as did Erik Wilson, Jalen Redmond, and well, probably most players on the defensive side of the ball. The D absolutely smothered one of the better offenses in the NFL the entire day, and it was a lot of fun to watch. The offensive side of the ball……well…….it was not so fun to watch.
Max Brosmer played just like an UDFA rookie quarterback is likely to play. HC Kevin O’Connell didn’t do the kid any favors with his play calling. The running game was working well, thankfully, as the team averaged 5.6 yards per carry. Jordan Addison threw in a 65 yard end-around that put the final nail in the Lions’ coffin. The Vikings attempted 16 passes, which was far too many, to be honest. They dropped back more often than that, but 7 of those dropbacks resulted in a sack. I’m not sure how much of the offense’s struggle was on Brosmer, how much was on the O-line, and how much was on O’Connell, but it was a poop stain of a day for the passing offense, and not much fun to watch for Vikings fans.
It’s always fun to knock a division rival out of the playoffs, and I love that the team is ending the year on a winning streak, regardless of how comically clownish the passing offense looks right now. I’d love to see them finish it off by beating the Packers next week.
Vikings and NFL News
Justin Jefferson broke Randy Moss’ record for most receiving yards through their first 6 seasons, from Vikings.com.
Full highlights from yesterday’s week 17 Vikings vs. Lions game. Vikings.com also looks at the Vikings’ current selection of 2026 NFL draft picks.
Lamar Jackson is unlikely to play against the Peckers tomorrow, per NFL.com.
Stats and highlights from yesterday’s game, courtesy of ESPN.
All of your NFL week 17 scores and highlights thus far, also from ESPN.
Media Selection
STRIKE UP THE BAND!!!!!!
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Here you go, new thread for tonight’s & tomorrow’s games.
Vikings: Latest News and Game Insights
BYU beats Georgia Tech from the pinche SEC 25-21 by intercepting a 4th down pass in the end zone with 5s left. Go Big 12!!
Army wins the Wasabi Fenway Bowl 41-16.
Nice… congrats to the Army guys!
I’m stoked…
No need for us to participate in this clown show anymore. Kick the U.N. out of our country. They hate us and Israel.
Bunch of Woke, DEI, Virtue Signaling Crooks.
C. J. Stroud has thrown 4 passes, and completed all of them for 142 yards and 2 TD’s in 5 minutes and 43 seconds.
C.J. Stroud with a 75 yard bomb to a wide open receiver for a TD, on 3rd and short. First drive of the game.
Does everyone have their 3rd streaming service of the week?
It’s 4:30… I turned on the game… commercials and people blabbing away…
Mute is the way to go.
Totally invested…
Army up over UConn 14-10 at the half.
There are two kinds of people in this world…
Avoid both of them…
Male and Female??
It’s my secret…
So you are asexual??
#grin
Got a tee time for 8 a.m. tomorrow. The last several times I have played, I have scored pretty well. That is primarily because I found a driver swing. While I’m not a bomber, I can hit the ball solidly and consistently with my driver now. My wedge play has been good for a few years, and I chip and putt decently well. Thus overall, my game is pretty decent. I don’t have any weak areas really. Pretty confident I can shoot in the low 80’s for the most part on an average day.
Now watch… I’ll shoot 95 tomorrow… grin.
Did you change something with tbe driver?
Not the driver, my swing. I had always tried to really release the head through the ball with disastrous results. Pull hooks, high slices, cold tops, you name it. I got to the point where I hit 3 wood and 5 wood off the tee, and just gave up. I recently played in a tournament though on a PGA course, and I knew I would have to contribute off the tee. So in the warm up session on the range, I pulled out the driver, and tried a couple shots. Quick low, duck hooks that didn’t go more than 100 yards. So then I decided to try and “block” my left hand through the ball, just to try and keep the clubface square, and voila… the ball caught the center of the clubface, and took off beautifully with a little draw. Tried it again, same result. That day I hit 13 of 14 fairways with my driver, missing one by about a yard.
I thought it was Saturday. I must’ve been mistaken
Just think of it as Extended Boxing Day.
Good Morning Football had a fun Recap of the Christmas game at the beginning of their show yesterday. It was the first 10m of the video.
Yeah… it’s like that…
Laughed at this…
And Love gave his team sneakers this year.
He makes $55M a year and he spent $5K on gifts for his team.
https://www.outkick.com/sports/packers-qb-jordan-love-gets-crushed-online-cheap-team-christmas-gifts
Got a couple games this afternoon we’re interested in. Texans vs the Chargers should be a good one, then the Packers vs the Ravens in the evening.
It is alway good to watch FTP lose, especially since we close out the season against them next week.
I am more interested in the Army game vs UConn and BYU vs Georgia Tech. I don’t have to worry about watching the ‘woke garbage’, ‘league/Ref cheating’ and there is less commercials when watching college games. NFL seems to have become a ‘Commercial Show’ interrupted by football.
Certainly the NFL is only about making money, and commercials are one of their many sources of revenue. They are also extremely committed to the woke ideology of the left, and all that messaging is wearing thin on fans. Finally the rules changes do nothing to make the game better, and things like taunting, or simulating a weapon during a celebration are just stupid. All this virtue signaling. Too much for my satisfaction to be honest.
That throw/catch to end the Goophers game was amazing!
The defender was laid/streached out behind the WR to intercept the ball.
Only the WR laid/streached out just a little bit more to haul it in.
His arm was under the ball when he landed so there was no ‘it moved’. It might have moved but since it never touched the ground… ‘TD and Game Gophers!’
Rodents win in overtime 20-17.
Boys with toys…
The stupidity of the left, on full blast…
Woke Logic at it’s best.
The AFC QB’s in the playoff’s this year will almost certainly be:
Nix
Maye
Lawrence
Rodgers
Allen
Herbert
Stroud
Supposedly Snoop Dog put on an “amazing” halftime show yesterday. I didn’t watch any of it. I don’t feel like my life was significantly negatively impacted by missing it.
I believe that in fact my was significantly improved by missing the show and not caring.
Highly likely…
I usually don’t like halftime shows. I found yesterday’s very enjoyable. It will be by far better than the super bowl halftime show, and the NFL will be embarrassed. Hopefully.
Big game on.
Rate Bowl
Gophers vs Lobos
7-6 Rodents at the half.
Love is out for tomorrow’s game. It doesn’t matter really since Detroit lost
eh, they still could win the division which they would love to do, so it still does matter.
Pukers having nothing to play for.
Locked into #7 seed.
Not true at all, if the bears lose out and the pack wins out they win the Division.
Which would be #2 overall seed, they have a lot to play for.
In theory……
Hopefully by the time our game with them kicks off they will have no motivation.
Or we snatch the division title out of their hands and hand it go the Bores. A win/lose situation right there.
South of Billings
I hate brown Christmases. My sister sent me a pic of her dog walk in Calgary and they had a good two feet of snow. Rub it in!
Yup, it’s white back home, too.
Brandel graded out as our best offensive player at 68.0
Skule graded out at 64.5
Turner 83.6
Cashman 81.2
Hitman 79.7
Seems like low grades for our high flying and powerful offense.
They had me on the edge of my seat all afternoon.
Eric Wilson, with one game to go:
Van Ginkel, in only 11 games:
Dallas Turner, in year 2:
Jalen Redmond:
Levi Drake Rodriguez, in year 2:
Blake Cashman, in only 12 games (!):
Cashman is a stud, Turner is not a bust.
Wilson has been an incredible FA pickup
I didn’t know this…
Linebackers are normally have the most tackles I understand.
And doesn’t the LBs with the weakest DL in front of them mean even more??
Not sure that this is good news, he is being a good backstop for the DL.
I got that screaming goat in my stocking. Best gift ever.
Pictograph cave
GF, saw your picture late yesterday. First, you North Dakotans need to learn your directions, Lockwood is east of billings, not the west end (I know where that place is cuz you can probably see my office on the other side of the interstate from it). Also, I’ve never actually heard of it somehow but I’ll have to check it out with the wife and kiddos. Sounds pretty fun.
Merry Christmas everybody. I hope you all had a good one. We opened lots of presents then went and played pickle ball and basketball since it is 60 degrees here, followed by a nice ham, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole dinner. Getting pizza and going to scheels with the boys today while mom stays home sick.
Christmas was good, the Vikings win was icing on the cake, delicious icing.
Glad to hear that yours was good as well.
Crap, yeah. I meant the east end. It’s north-south of the interstate.
Happy Boxing Day
My daughter and daughter in law both lied to my grandson and told him that Boxing Day was about boxing. Now he is running around hitting everyone.
He sounds like a ‘real boy’.
He is definitely a boy. He’s now playing a game where he’s killing zombies.
Amen…
I think I got my 22 Lever Action in high school that way.
Thought I was ‘The Rifleman’ Jr with that gun.
I’m getting kiddo a 20 gauge for his birthday, he’s outgrown his .410
Did you know Chuck Connors was a professional basketball player for the Celtics, and played baseball for the Dodgers and the Cubs? He was also the first player to ever break a backboard on a dunk in a game.
Yes, Yes/No, No.
Wish I could get an 1100 for $150. I have the 870, love it.
The 1100 was a great qual gun.
Much to MT’s chagrin, it appears like the Vikes could very well finish 3rd in the division, our likely non-divisional opponents would be:
Panthers
Bucs
Falcons
Saints
Pats
Bills
Dolphins
Jets
Bengals
Redskins
Falcons
Rams
I don’t see any losses there – next year is going to be our year!!
The Vikings winning a nothing game was like a lump of coal in my stocking.
I know!! I didn’t think we had a chance going into the game. once again I was wrong.
We won’t be playing the falcons twice, that’s for sure.
I just put that in there to see if anyone was paying attention….
Shit. Who did I miss
Oh yeah, we play 17 games. need more coffee.
Kiddo and I got all 3 games right in our pick ‘em league. Eli used 16 confidence points on the Vikings. I only used 2
Kiddo is rockin…
The Apple fell a long way from the tree in this instance. #grin
The NFC playoff picture is pretty complete, save the #1 seed and NFC South. The Seahawks are currently in the top position for the #1 seed, followed by the Bears, Eagles, Rams, Niners, and Packers. Either the Bucs or the Panthers will end up in the fourth spot as the NFC South Division champ.
The Seahawks are playing the Panthers this week, and finish with the Niners. The Niners finish with the Bears, then the Seahawks. The Rams finish with the Falcons and the Cardinals. Gonna be a wild race to the #1 seed.
I hope FTP have nothing to play for, no motivation next week.
Don’t know if we can muster that defense two weeks in a row but I believe we can be that bad on offense again.
The O-line is the bottom line for the offense really. Losing 3 of the 5 starters is gonna hurt any team. Remember when that happened to Mahomes in the Super Bowl against the Bucs? Nine points was all they could muster.
I’m going to give you the 5 principles of warfare being conducted by foreign entities in our country.
– It’s easier to change a young mind than an older mind
– It’s easier to create instability when you create division in America
– It’s easier to create confusion when you normalize the abnormal
– If you portray law and order as fascism, you can tear down a democratic Western society
– In Marxism, crisis is the key
Now, take those principles I just gave you and think about what teachers unions and school districts brought into your schools in the last decade. Normalize the abnormal.
– Let’s have a man go into a women’s bathroom pretending he’s a female athlete and let him win all the awards on the podium
– DEI and CRT were designed to create division, to divide America between two classes of people, the oppressed and the oppressors.
– The oppressors are white people, everyone else falls into the oppressed class
If you divide a country along those lines and you train children that that’s the story, now you can start to create the protest movement that starts to bring down the country.
The other thing is, in Marxism, crisis is the key. You have to keep creating another crisis to create the sense that your country is falling apart.
We need to educate our young people on this. They need to know they are being manipulated to feel like they are oppressed, the country is in terrible shape, and the Government has to be overthrown. The Marxist playbook.
‘We need to educate our young people on this’
Tough to educate them when ‘The Woke’ have taken over our school systems.
Mostly Teachers Unions and Politicians.
It is… parents must be educated, we need to get rid of all the liberals on the schoolboards, and the teacher’s union has to be reined in. Trump’s conservative renaissance is our only hope really. Faith, family, and freedom, must be our rallying cry.
It is much like the Army, and business for that matter, training is a line responsibility. Education is similar.
The education of ‘your’ children is ‘your’ responsibility as a parent. It is far to important a task to leave up to educators.
I need to take issue with GF from up top.
Our running backs averaged 3.1 yards per carry – that is 1.2 yards below league average….our running game was not working well.
Toss out addisons run, and we probably had kess tban 100 yards of offense
Yes, we had about 90 without the Addison run.
So we take out the long runs?
Ah, I remember those debates fondly.
LOL, me too.
The “injury vs. aggravated injury” debate was also fun.
only by non-RBs….
Why?
Because it doesn’t fit the narrative.
Duh.
Lets change the statement to: “the running game was working well, for one play”
Hell of a lot better than the passing game
The run by Addison is part of the running game, tho
I have to think having nothing to play for, Flores dialed up pressure allll the timeeeee and it was so much fun to watch. Would be curiius if we were actually in the hunt, if he would have called anything differently or not but the offense was so bad, thankfully the defense was a TON of fun to watch.
Also will the thrill is a STUD
also also KOC realllllly didnt help his udfa qb out but also also also brosmer didnt help himself or ANYONE else out.
He had a chance to give the coaches something to think about in keeping him around for next year. ..after last njght I cant imagine he will ever be promoted from practice squad tier ever again
Interesting listening to KOCs presser after the game….he basically said these last few games Flores has really let Hitman call any adjustments he wants pre-snap.
Yes, Flores deserves a ton of credit (and a head coaching job), but apparently Hitman is playing a large role in calling the defense.
Perhaps hitman has a job waiting for him with the vikes when he retires, similar to….that one Bengals guy we had for a couple years as he was in his last years playing
Loved having that guy in the defensive backfield.
Whatever his name was.
Someone younger than me will remember it.
Terrence Newman
Thank you.
Brosmer had zero help from out make shift oline. He rarely had time to get set. I do think he scrambled to the outsude well in order to throw the ball away, insyead of panicing into a bad pass attempt that turns into an int.
He was never suppose to ne anything but a developmental qb3. I can cut him some slack
Yes you are correct, makeshift online didnt help him
I really dont want to see him in purple again. Hopefully this season has been a wakeup call to the front office to get legit backups at qb
I think Brosmer got more completions in a game to Jefferson than the highly touted QB1 we drafted.
Saw this…
“The Vikings became the third team in the past 40 seasons to finish with fewer than 10 net passing yards in a victory, riding a stellar performance from their defense and place-kicker Will Reichard in a 23-10 decision over the Detroit Lions.
With rookie quarterback Max Brosmer making his second career start and three starting offensive linemen sidelined by injury, the Vikings managed 3 net passing yards. Their total stood at minus-7 net passing yards until Brosmer and wide receiver Justin Jefferson connected for 10 yards on the Vikings’ final throw of the night.”
It was tough to watch that offense.
But QB wins is a real stat…
Well, looked like Goeff was getting paid to lose the game.
He has a $70M cap hit next year too. That will definitely have to be restructured.
My so hot take it is probably BS is Detroit threw that game. Maybe they want better draft position, maybe they want the 4th place schedule. Also, early on they called a false start on the DET center on a 4th and 1 that looked like an invisible FS to my myopic eyes.
Detroit got screwed on that call for sure.
The NFL figured that Minn needed some help to stay competitive at that point.
Selling commercials/Merch is what they all about.
And I do not believe Detroit threw the game.
Didn’t Detroit turn the ball over eight times and that is a team averaging 30 points a game. Center and QB exchanges?
For sure they didn’t throw the game, but this is strange as hell.
Goff had 5 turnovers.
And lost.
So yeah, the QB that sucks the least, usually wins.
QB wins are real stat.
Laughing… that is as stupid as it gets. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Last night, after bombing ISIS in Nigeria Trump says
“……Merry Christmas to all, including the dead terrorists”
that’s awesome.
I got a text on Christmas eve from one of my SOCOM buddies that simply said “I’m working tomorrow. It’s gonna be a good Christmas.”
Thats so mean!!! What a jerk
I knew someone would pipe up and throw that in there…..let me assure you that language (and action) is going to win independence not lose them…
*independent voters
“But..but he hurt the ‘dead terrorists’ feelings.”
Woke
I also love it that he is blowing all of the drug boats out of the water.
“But…but those boats are not even headed to the US and they aren’t carrying Fentanyl and those poor Narco Drug Runners”
Woke
Hell of a victory, that defense was INSANE. Hope Flores comes back next year.
To me, being a great coordinator doesn’t automatically mean you will be a great head coach. Knowing football, and schemes, and sets, etc is a foundational requirement but then there is the next level of administration, management, support staff selection, and of course media engagement. You have to be a great leader, and a great manager. You have to be smart and incredibly well organized. Lastly you have to have the ability to inspire your players and make them believe in you.
Lots of things there you need to be exceptional at.
The game yesterday was pretty amazing to watch. The offense would get the ball, falter, then punt it back to the Lions. Then we were all thinking “can the defense stop them again?” We all thought that sooner or later the defense would tire, and the Lions offense would take flight and score. Somehow the defense was stout the whole game though, and made life easy for the offense with 6 turnovers.
One of the best defensive efforts I’ve ever seen.
I felt like we had a better chance of scoring when the defense was on the field.
Haha yes. Especially getting a turnover in Lions territory and hoping the offense didn’t move backwards so Will the Thrill could kick one through.
Our new offensive strategy!
Reminded me if the old Purple People Eaters. You and i remember those days
I remember them.
But I didn’t get to watch them often growing up in SoCal with no InterWeb or Cable TV. I did get to watch them beat the local Rams who was my older brothers favorite team. Those games are what made me a Viking Fan.
I kept expecting a Loins score and no answer from us until Addisons run.
Even then I was ‘hoping for the best but expecting the worst’.
Yep, you and everyone else… grin.
Happy Boxing Day!!
Still Smiling over the game yesterday.
A win next week vs FTP would be as glorious a way to end the season as possible.
They will be focused on getting ready for the playoffs and resting people so a win is certainly possible if the Defense shows up like they did yesterday.
As always ‘Hope for the best but expect the worst’. We got both yesterday, the best defense and about the worst offense.
We didn’t have a boxing team at our school.
Laughing… I didn’t know about Boxing Day until I was stationed in the U.K. in 1980. I immediately thought it had something to do with boxing of course. My landlord told me it was a tradition that went back to before feudal times when servants were given the day off after Christmas to see their families and celebrate. Often they were given boxes of gifts and money to share with their families for their service.
My ex father in law was Canadian, never heard of Boxing day until the first time I went to NoDak for Christmas.
Never got a decent explanation for it until now, thanks.
My favorite sack of the night:
I see the Lions were missing their left tackle as well….This just in, good Left Tackles are very important.
Good morning, SKOL!
FTP!
Victory Friday!
GM!
FTP!
SKOL!
FIRST!
Did not really watch much of the game, since the offense is so hard to watch. Great to see the defense playing well lately.
On to FTP next week. I expect fewer passing attempts if Brosmer is playing.
FTP Auto Rec.
Morning Surly… Rec for first and FTP