SKOL from the Sofa

2024 Week 16 – Vikings at Seahawks

 

So I’ll begin this with a confession my knowledge of NFL stems mainly from my playing the original Madden on a Sega Mega drive when I was growing up so please don’t expect an in depth review of who played well in the secondary or how well the centre took the snap.

That said I’ve been a Vikings fan from the day my Uncle brought me a purple hat with yellow horns on back from his holiday in the US in about 1979 so I do watch the games with in a constant source of worry and dread that probably isn’t good for my health of liver……..

And so to Sundays game and a win on the road against a good Seahawks team who were playing to continue their own season into the play offs and my take on the game.

 

Typical Vikings?

Once I’d been through my usual faff of working out what colour shirt to wear and donned my latest ‘lucky’ baseball cap the Vikings delivered another nail biting win where for periods of the game it looked like it would slip away. Giving up a 10 point lead is never a good sign but with big performances from all parts of the team starting with an excellent run from Aaron Jones to Theo Jackson getting a game finishing interception at the end with what seems to have be the usual highs and lows in the middle to the Vikings kept us on the edge of our seats until the early hours.

 

Special Teams

A solid performance from the special team caught everything, gave us good distance with punts and returns. And how good is it to have a kicker like Will Reichard who has just been excellent this season!? He just adds a bit of a safety blanket when we need the 3 points to keep the scoreboard ticking over

 

Defense

I was worried when I saw no Harrison Smith for the first time this season. And for a lot of the game I felt this was justified as there were periods of the game where we couldn’t seem to get anywhere near Geno Smith and he had the freedom of the park to throw to whoever he wanted resulting in a least 2 of the Seahawks touchdowns.

However, when they were needed to, the defense delivered another immense performance. Excellent performance from Van Ginkel (the man looks like a Viking) and with the rest of the D getting 3 interceptions, they saved us from a really nervous last 2 minutes.

 

Offense

I’ll be honest at the start of the season I has absolutely no idea who Sam Darnold was and would have struggled to tell you anything about him (apologies to the purists and naysayers), but in this game I thought he was exceptional. To go this game with no turnovers and to get up after some of the hits he took and deliver the passes to JJ, TJ, and Jordan Addison at key moments in the game was incredible. It was good to see Jones get a few yards rushing as I do worry our running game isn’t as strong as it needs to be.

KOC

Nuff said – seems to an exceptional coach and I must confess I do look forward to his victory speeches and the team seems to respond well to him.

 

My final thoughts

So that’s my view from behind the sofa which is where I’ll be watching the rest of this season! Another victory and yes we will probably have to be better in the playoffs but we have won 13 games this season, and we are in the playoffs – which as a long time Vikings fan is a rarity.

And I know that it’s the hope that kills you in the end (A massive thanks to those on the Facebook messenger pages whose constant pessimism is source of misery to me) but it’s Xmas, and we seem to have a good team in a strong position. As they say on a Miracle In 34th Street ‘I BELIEVE’ (potential merch line in badges there)

Merry Xmas and here’s to an exceptional 2025 – SKOL

By Andy Gough