Baroo! Vikes Survive Lions!!! - Game Ball?

I only saw the game in chunks as I was travelling, so I need to re-watch the game and form some opinions... yeah, I'm happy they won and I'm not shocked the Lions found a way to blow the game, but this team looked flat for a second week. I think this tweet sums up my thoughts on the offense:



It feels like we're back to Flip-Flop's pass-first offense that puts too much pressure on Kirk to perform, and suddenly we're back to not running the ball enough despite the mismatches up front, and another game failing to get the ball to Jefferson. It feels like one of the wacky 50-50 games from last year that went our direction because the Lions stink, but we should be easily putting up 30+ on this defense. Weren't we talking about top 10, even top 5 offense? There's plenty of time to get there and my expectations for O'Connell were not to see immediate results... it's just that we shouldn't need to be able to beat the Lions on a botched coverage play at home.

Defensively, my concerns have been realized - the run defense was not fixed over the offseason, and the whole pass rush being Hunter and Smith is not a formula that can beat good O-lines. I will give them credit for buckling down in the 2nd half and holding firm on 3rd downs, but this feels very similar to Zimmer's 2020/2021 defenses. The middle of the defense is weak - how is Josh Reynolds putting up 96 yards on these guys? How did Goff drop back 43 times and not get sacked once? And it's not like the defense is going to get much healthier from here on out, their injury luck has been great so far. They're lucky the schedule is full of mediocre offenses...

All this being said, I criticize because I want this team to be competitive in the playoffs, not just to back into a playoff spot because the NFC is weak. This team has a long ways to go and there is plenty of time to get there, and they are in fine position compared to many other teams at this point. A win is a win, now go out there and win again next week!