The Minnesota Vikings have found a formula for victory after the season-ending injury to Teddy Bridgewater. Can they count on this dominating a performance every week?
The likely answer is no, at least in terms of these gaudy stats: They forced three Tennessee Titans turnovers, two of them returned for touchdowns, and held the Marcus Mariota-led offense to 122 yards in the second half, most of them coming in garbage time.
The Vikings beat the Titans, 25-16, in an important game for Mike Zimmer’s team. Bridegwater is gone, and the coach made the choice to go with Shaun Hill for this one over Sam Bradford, who had eight days to cram just to be the backup after the stunning trade from the Philadelphia Eagles.
Hill was fine — 18-of-33 passing for 236 yards — on a day when Adrian Peterson (19 carries, 31 yards) was bottled up. The Titans were not going to get Peterson, who had a long gain of 9 yards, beat them on this day. Hill couldn’t get it done on third downs, but the defense bailed everyone out for the Vikings.
Don’t sneer at the opponent, either. Mariota had looked excellent in the preseason, but the Vikings kept him off balance most of this game and kept him checking down most of the afternoon (6.9 yards per attempt). That vaunted two-headed RB monster? The Vikings containted DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry to 18 carries and 45 yards rushing.
But it was the big plays on defense that changed the game. The Titans had a 10-6 third-quarter lead and were looking to build on it. After a sack, Mariota hit on 4 of 4 passes on the drive and scrambled for a huge 10 yards on second-and-long. They were well within field-goal range at this point. But Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks, who could be a breakout star this season, jumped Mariota’s pass and ran it back 77 yards for the game-changing score.
That made it 12-10 after Blair Walsh’s missed extra-point try (that’s a whole other issue), and Walsh’s field goal early in the fourth made it 15-10. But on the first play of the Titans’ ensuing possession Mariota was stripped by defensive end Danielle Hunter — another keep-an-eye-on-him guy this season — and run back for a shocking score.
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