Was the Vikings game as bad as the preseason?

Boswell seems to think so (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091200074.html), but I would say no. I understand Saunders wasn't showing his A-game in the preseason, but we could barely get a first down in the preseason. Our offense wasn't beautiful on Monday night, but it gave us a shot to win if our defense had locked them down at least a little bit.

What does concern me, if Boswell is accurately portraying the locker room, is if the team doesn't see that they have a lot of work to do. The Portis quote was troublesome ("The only thing we messed up tonight was our perfect season," Clinton Portis said after rushing for 39 yards.).

Absoulutely not. The inclusion of Antwaan Randle El and the amount of plays he made and is capable of making was the difference. No turnovers and no fumbles from the QB was refreshing. The ability to move the ball into the redzone is more a success than even last year around this time. I feel we have more upside than we have seen in four seasons. I can't wait to see Brandon Lloyd included into the scheme of things. We know all of the inconsistencies so there's no need to continue to mention them in this thread.

Not even close.

We were a play or two away from putting up 20+ points.

If one of those redzone trips could have been turned into 6 instead of 3 it would have been a completely different game.

I don't think we have major problems right now, just some fine tuning that needs to be done.

I agree - despite the bad play on defense and the letdown on offense at the end of the game, we had a chance to win this thing. Also, I didn't mean to imply that we needed an overhaul - just that the execution needs to be much better next week, and that's going to take some work during practice.

It was better -- but we NEED to score some TDs. Our defense, unfortunately, may struggle, especially in pass coverage this year. Archeletta isn't good in coverage, and Rogers is young and still figuring thing out. But really, Troy Williamson dropped some BIG balls for the Vikings that were very catchable.

Our defense probably cost us the game, but the amount of times the defense kept us in a game or won games for us the last couple years, I can give them a let down from time to time. I heard an interview with Chester Taylor on NFL radio, he said the most shocking thing from the skins was lack of blitzing. Said he saw them blitz every other play in the preseason and then they only brought it on 3rd down pretty much. Maybe we need to get back to that crazy attack defense GW normally runs.

No Springs = not much blitzing.

GW doesn't want to leave guys like Wright and Rumph exposed in coverage.

No Springs = not much blitzing.

GW doesn't want to leave guys like Wright and Rumph exposed in coverage.

good point...we need him back asap.

Shit, if Springs doesn't play this week and I were Dallas I would line TO up and throw that 8 yd slant all day long. No way Rogers covers that more than 20% of the time on TO. I sure hope he can play or we are in for a long day.

It was a hell of a lot worse because it counted!

Why not put Kenny Wright on T.O., Carlos on Glenn and Mike Rumph at the Nickel. Sean Taylor can back Rodgers up as he did last year and we know what Glenn did after getting hit with the wood. Archuleta has to play better than what I have seen. And where in the hell is Andre Carter with the pass rush? Just think we could have picked up John Abraham.