Week 2 Preseason Report Card

By Joe Grinwis

Minnesota Vikings 37, NY Jets 20

It was a horrible game. Not much to say except for that so lets get this started:

Quarterback – D
Pennington – 7-10, 40 yards, 2 INT
Clemens – 6-9, 56 yards, TD, INT
Tuiasosoppo – 5-10, 64 yards, TD

An ugly game for Pennington as he threw two touchdown passes for the Vikings in the 1st quarter. First Darren Sharper right in the middle of the field, then Chad Greenway near the Vikings sideline. The best Quarterback of the night was Marques Tuiasosoppo and the only reason this position receives a D is because of Tui and Clemens’ play.

Running Back – B
Washington – 11 carries, 52 yards
Ware – 11 carries, 45 yards

For how the Offensive Line played last night, Washington and Ware definitely deserve a B. Both looked ready for the regular season and it is apparent that Danny Ware has the 3rd running back position locked after Alvin Banks didn’t even carry the ball once last night.

Wide Receivers – C-
McCareins – 3 receptions, 52 yards, TD
Coles – 2 receptions, 23 yards

Didn’t see much from the receivers tonight as the quarterbacks seemed to be throwing the ball to the other team instead. McCareins had a 2nd straight solid Preseason game and its starting to look like the 28 year old isn’t going anywhere.

Tight End – C
Posciak – 3 receptions, 35 yards, TD
Ryan – 4 receptions, 34 yards

There was more action from the tight ends than there was from the receivers, but there were dropped balls in the red zone and that cannot happen when the games matter.

Offensive Line – D

D’Brickashaw Ferguson was beaten a few times, Pete Kendall gave the Vikings a touchdown on his botched snap over Kellen Clemens’ head and Adrien Clarke, for the night, didn’t exactly look like the answer at Left Guard.

Defensive Line – C

Aside from Shaun Ellis (3 tackles, 2 sacks, forced fumble), the Defensive Line was fairly quiet. There was a C.J. Mosley (3 tackles) sighting at the Meadowlands on Friday and Kenyon Coleman (2 tackles) played fairly well.

Linebackers – C

Eric Barton, for the most part, had another solid game but aside from him there wasn’t much. Bryan Thomas was nowhere to be found and once again, Jonathan Vilma couldn’t get off of his blocks.

Secondary – B+

David Barrett, Andre Dyson, Hank Poteat and Manny Collins all had solid games as the secondary limited the Vikings to just 72 yards passing. Then again, Minnesota did run the ball a lot, but nonetheless, the secondary was the best unit of the night, besides Special Teams.

Special Teams – A-

The Nuge went 2-2 in field goal attemps, but his kickoffs didn’t land as far back as hoped. However, as always, the coverage unit made up for Nuge’s subpar night and smacked the Vikings in the mouth fairly soon. Benny Graham punted the ball well as usual. The only reason this is an A- is because you would like to see Nuge hit them in the endzone and the Jets didn’t really have an electrifying return all night.

Coaching – B

I liked the gameplan, for the most part, but a little bit too much running at some points. You cannot put the coaching staff to blame for the horrible plays made by Chad Pennington and Pete Kendall.

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