Week 9 Thoughts

First of all, the Minnesota Vikings defeated the St. Louis Rams 21-18 in overtime.

Second of all, Jeff Fisher, Gregg Williams, and Lamarcus Joyner are jackasses.

A Joyner elbow to the helmet of a sliding Teddy Bridgewater early in the fourth quarter resulted in a concussion for the Vikings quarterback. It was a cheap shot. Simple as that.

Rams coach Jeff Fisher is a member of the NFL's Competition Committee. He's tasked with keeping the game safe. Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams is best known for going out of his way to make the game unsafe. Williams has no business coaching football at any level. And Fisher keeps hiring him.

With Teddy Bridgewater in the locker room with a concussion thanks to Joyner's cheap shot the Vikings passing offense didn't do much with backup Shaun Hill leading the way. Fortunately the defense did what they had to do to keep the Rams offense from doing what they needed to do.

The Vikings did get some nice running from Adrian Peterson. Unfortunately, he didn't get enough of those nice runs to ice the game before overtime.

The Rams only offensive production in the second half came on their final two possessions of regulation. They did nothing prior to that. Well, they punted a few times.

The first of those final two possessions ended in a missed 48-yard field goal attempt by Greg Zuerlein.

Greg Zuerlein was the player of the game for the Rams. That 48-yard miss was his only miss. It's a damn shame that it wasn't his last attempt.

That miss gave the Vikings the ball on their own 38-yard line with 1:42 to play. If they could gain a single first down they could drain the Rams timeouts and all of the clock. A single first down. If he could do it all over again, Vikings offensive coordinator Norv Turner might make a different call on first down. The call that he called didn't work. It didn't work at all. Instead of handing the ball to Peterson, Turner called for a short pass to the tight end off of a little bootleg for Hill. Rams linebacker Akeem Ayers ruined the play and safety Maurice Alexander collected a sack when Hill fell into a fetal position. The Vikings were now sitting at 2nd-and-21. One can see Turner's thinking with the play that he chose. A short, safe pass for Hill when the defense was expecting a Peterson run. The Rams just made a great defensive play. It put the Vikings in a tough spot and got the ball back for their offense. And another chance for Zuerlein. The scariest Rams player on the field yesterday.

The Rams offense managed to move the ball to the Vikings 35-yard line and Zuerlein hit the 53-yard game-tying field goal with 17 seconds play. We had overtime.

Zuerlein hit on field goals from 61!, 45, and 35 in the first half. There was a very strong wind all game. It was moving in the direction that favored the Rams in the second and fourth quarters. The very same quarters in which Zuerlein had his fun. He sure liked kicking with the wind.

The wind was enough of a factor that Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer took the wind rather than the ball when his team won the coin toss for overtime. He gave the Rams the ball to start the extra period. He trusted his defense to keep the Rams out of the endzone. And he didn't want to give Zuerlein any more wind.

The Vikings defense stuffed the only three plays that the Rams offense ran in overtime.
Todd Gurley for -6 yards.
Tavon Austin for 0 yards on a short pass.
Incomplete to Steadman Bailey.
Punt.

Marcus Sherels returned Johnny Hekker's 63-yard punt 26 yards to midfield. 21 yards of Adrian Peterson runs, a short safe pass to tight end Rhett Ellison, and a short Matt Asiata run and the Vikings were on the Rams 22-yard line. Blair Walsh hit the game winning 40-yard field goal.

It was Walsh's second consecutive game-winning kick. It looks like he's out of that early season slump.

With the Green Bay Packers loss to the still-undefeated Carolina Panthers, the Vikings are tied with the Packers for first in the NFC North at 6-2.

Players of the Game:
Vikings: Linval Joseph, defensive tackle
Rams: Greg Zuerlein, kicker

Joseph is having a fantastic season. All-Pro-, Pro Bowl-fantastic season. He was in the Rams backfield a bunch. He had seven tackles and was credited with half of a sack on a play in which he made Rams quarterback Nick Foles just disappeared from view. One moment Foles was there. Next moment he was buried somewhere underneath that big #98. Joseph was huge all day.

All the chatter leading up to this game centered on the running backs. Adrian Peterson for the Vikings. Todd Gurley for the Rams. The old guy passing the torch to the young guy. I don't think that Peterson is ready to pass that torch.
Peterson: 29 carries for 125 yards and a TD.
Gurley: 24 carries 89 yards and a TD.

Peterson's game would have been even better if he hadn't put the ball on the ground twice. The Vikings kept the ball each time but both hurt and cut short potential yardage/first downs.

Despite being kept mostly in control for four quarters for the first time in his short NFL career, Gurley looks like he's going to be a great one. He was close to breaking a couple runs. His touchdown run, all 1-yard of it, was terrific. It showed his, power, drive, and want-to. The run before it was great too. Those two runs might have been more impressive than his runs of 10+ yards.

The Rams combination of Gurley and receiver Tavon Austin are going to be a nightmare for defenses for a long time. Ausitn did most of his damage against the Vikings as a runner. He had 8 carries for 66 yards. He added 4 catches for another 15 yards. He's a scary football player any time that he has the ball in his hands.

This was a tough, big win for the Vikings. It was their first win against a team with a winning record at the time that they played them. The talking heads like to point to things like that. It was a big win against an opponent that should be in the playoff chase all season. It's also a big win in a game that was tainted by that ridiculous cheap shot from Lamarcus Joyner. Concussions are a serious issue in the game and here's a player that from all appearances tried to cause one. A player that plays for a coach that has a history of that sort of shit. There's no room for it. Gregg Williams has to go. Clown.

I just hope that Teddy Bridgewater doesn't miss any games. If he does, I wouldn't be surprised if Mike Zimmer pays a visit to Jeff Fisher.

There were some other games yesterday.

The New England Patriots remained undefeated. It looked like they were just toying with the Washington Redskins. Patriots won 27-10.

The Carolina Panthers remained undefeated as well. They jumped all over the Green Bay Packers and held on to win 37-29. The Packers had a shot to tie it at the end but Aaron Rodgers threw an interception on fourth down inside the Panthers 10-yard line. It's been a tough two weeks for the Packers. Only a week ago they were 6-0. Now they are 6-2 and tied with the Vikings for the division lead.

The New Orleans Saints might be in the hunt for a new defensive coordinator at the end of the season. Rob Ryan's boys can't seem to stop anybody. The New York Giants scored 49 against them last week. Fortunately for the Saints their offense scored 52. A struggling Tennessee Titans team that just fired their head coach scored 34 yesterday. The Titans win this Saints shootout 34-28 in overtime.

The New York Jets rebounded from two consecutive losses with a win over the Jacksonville Jaguars 28-23. For a prideful, talented Jets defense allowing 23 points to the Jaguars has to sting.

The Oakland Raiders have been playing great but they lost a thriller to the Pittsburgh Steelers. 38-35.

San Francisco 49ers fans must hate seeing Michael Crabtree playing like the receiver that they thought they had drafted for the Oakland Raiders. He's right there across the bay catching passes, scoring touchdowns, showing some heart. Showing heart that he never had, let alone lost, in San Francisco.

Steelers receiver Antonio Brown went nuts. 17 catches for 284 yards. He also tossed in 22 rushing yards. And he did some of that with Landry Jones throwing the ball after Ben Roethlisberger was hurt again. Incredible. Antonio Brown is good. Really good.

NFL Network and NFL.com have been making a big deal about Raiders receiver Amari Cooper outperforming the other five receivers taken in the first round combined. Cooper has been outstanding but all five of his fellow first round receivers have been injured for most if not all of the season. Vikings rookie receiver Stefon Diggs has probably outperformed those five first round receivers as well. And he was drafted in the fifth round.

How about that. The Blaine Gabbert era in San Francisco started on a positive note. The 49ers scored 17 points in the second quarter and held on for the win 17-16. The 49ers completely stufffed the Falcons running game. 14 carries for 17 yards. Falcons running back Devonta Freeman had been running wild all season. He only managed 12 yards on 12 carries against the 49ers.

The return of quarterback Tyrod Taylor brought the offensive explosion back to the Buffalo Bills offense. They had two 100-yard rushers in LeSean McCoy (112) and Karlos Williams (110). Receiver Sammy Watkins also returned to the Bills offense. In a big way. 8 catches for 168 yards and a TD. A 44-yard TD. The Bills cruised by the Miami Dolphins 33-17.

The New York Giants rebounded from their 52-49 shootout loss to the Saints with an easier 32-18 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This game was a little closer than the two-score win indicates. It's a little odd to see a team score 81 points over two games and win only one of them.

Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans had a very productive day. 8 receptions for 152 yards. It could have been even much more productive. He was targeted 19 times. He had six drops. Nearly matching his catches. No receiver, not even Terrell Owens, has dropped the ball that many times in a single game in the last 10 years.

The Denver Broncos were the only team that entered week nine without a loss to leave it with one. The Indianapolis Colts finally started a game with some life. They usually wait until the end of the game. They led the Broncos 17-7 at the half and held on to win 27-24.

Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is now three yards shy of breaking Brett Favre's career passing yardage record. He also remains a win short of breaking Favre's record of most career regular-season wins by a quarterback (186).

In the nightcap, the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Dallas Cowboys in overtime.

The Cowboys offense, and quarterback Matt Cassel in particular, played much better than last week, not difficult to do, but they still lost their sixth game in a row. They have yet to win a game without Tony Romo.

Three teams will be entering week ten undefeated. New England, Cincinnati, and Carolina. The NFL has never seen three teams at 8-0 at the same time. The Patriots visit the Giants. The Bengals host the Texans on Monday Night. Panthers visit the Titans. The Bengals appear to have the easier road to 9-0 but who really knows.

The Vikings visit the Raiders. I'll be there!