Written By Sam Ekstrom
The chants were heard in all four quarters. “Ted-dy! Ted-dy!” Even as he stood on the sideline with an injured ankle as the clock wound down, the 21-year-old rookie from Louisville heard the familiar refrain from the 52,173 in attendance.
Teddy Bridgewater played three and a half quarters of near-perfect football and brought the Vikings back from a fourth quarter deficit to win their second game of the season 41-28.
“I felt pretty good,” said Bridgewater, who threw for 317 yards, rushed for a touchdown and tossed zero interceptions. “Any time you’re over 500 yards of total offense, that’s going to be a great feeling.”
The Vikings tallied 558 yards of offense in sum and got career days from wide receiver Jarius Wright and rookie running back Jerick McKinnon. Wright caught eight balls for a career-high 132 yards, while McKinnon – the former college quarterback – racked up 135 yards on the ground. Running back Matt Asiata also contributed 78 yards and three short touchdown runs, each followed by an emphatic endzone spike.
With the Vikings trailing 28-27 in the fourth quarter, Bridgewater injured his left ankle on a scramble that put the ball at the 1-yard line. The quarterback stayed in the game to conclude the Vikings’ go-ahead touchdown drive before exiting the field on a cart. Back-up quarterback Christian Ponder entered the game and engineered two field goal drives on the Vikings’ final two possessions without throwing a single pass.
Bridgewater was non-committal about his playing status against Green Bay on Thursday but said he felt like he could have re-entered Sunday’s game if he had been needed.
Injury concerns aside, the TCF Bank Stadium crowd’s chants for Bridgewater were rightly deserved after the rookie’s performance. Bridgewater led the Vikings to midfield or beyond on each drive he was at the helm. Minnesota also scored on five of its first six drives with the only failure being a Blair Walsh missed field goal in the second quarter.
Though Bridgewater did not throw a touchdown pass, he scored one with his feet on a 13-yard scramble late in the second quarter, then threw a critical 2-point conversion — two plays after he’d sprained his ankle – to tight end Rhett Ellison that made it a 35-28 game.
The 558 total yards, all but 33 yards of which were earned with Bridgewater in the game, were the most yards a Vikings team has tallied since October 17, 2004 when they defeated the Saints 38-31.
“I think we did a great job calling plays today,” said head coach Mike Zimmer. “Teddy obviously did a fantastic job. He put the ball in the right place, he made good decisions … We were down a few guys offensively, too, and for those guys to come out and perform like that, it’s impressive.”
WRIGHT AND McKINNON SHINE
Considering that Jarius Wright and Jerick McKinnon had combined for 58 yards going into action on Sunday, their 284-yard output was a bit of a shock.
McKinnon was asked after the game what he would have said if somebody told him he’d rush for 135 yards.
“I probably wouldn’t know what to say to them,” said McKinnon. “Things definitely went well today. I can’t thank the offensive line, receivers, Jerome [Felton] enough for just opening up gaps.”
McKinnon averaged 7.5 yards per carry on 18 attempts, the biggest workload of his career by far. The speedy rookie was initially credited with his first-ever touchdown late in the second quarter, but replay showed his knee and elbow touched down inside the 1-yard line.
On the receiving end, Wright wreaked havoc on the Falcons’ secondary, proving himself as a valuable third target behind Cordarrelle Patterson and Greg Jennings.
“It took me three years to finally get this game,” said Wright, who was targeted 10 times. “It was real big for me. Personally, I knew I had it in me.”
One of the two misses Bridgewater had in Wright’s direction was a deep ball down the left sideline that would have likely resulted in a touchdown had it been caught. Bridgewater overthrew the wide open wide-out by several yards. Nonetheless, Wright felt like his repeated reps with Bridgewater in practice translated to Teddy’s first career start.
“Me and Bridgewater got a lot of reps early in the year with Cassel being the starter, Bridgewater being the second team, and I was also on the second team,” said Wright. “A lot of practice reps; also pre-season reps.”
A FEW DEFICIENCIES
It’s easy to overlook flaws after a win, but the Vikings exhibited more glaring issues on the defensive side of the ball: failure to get off the field on third down, inability to pressure the quarterback and struggles bringing down ball carriers.
The Falcons finished 10 of 15 converting on third down, QB Matt Ryan was only sacked once, and both WR Devin Hester and RB Antone Smith converted long touchdowns after breaking tackles in the third quarter.
“Defensively we had a few bonehead things that we’ve got to fix,” said Zimmer after the game.
One conspicuous error was a lapse in coverage when Atlanta faced 3rd-and-20 and wound up converting a 21-yard pass play to continue an eventual scoring drive in the second quarter. Two of the Falcons’ touchdowns also came in 3rd-and-7 situations. The Vikings have now allowed 19 of 28 third down conversions in their last two games.
Cornerback Captain Munnerlyn weighed in on the third down deficiencies after the game.
“We have to learn how to get off the field on third down,” said Munnerlyn. “Third down is the money down, and I always say that to the guys.”
The Vikings were only able to rattle Ryan late in the game when “Matty Ice,” as Munnerlyn referred to him this week, was placed in obvious passing situations. Linebacker Anthony Barr recorded the team’s lone sack, and Harrison Smith and Josh Robinson iced the game with fourth quarter interceptions.
Timeout management also came into play with the Vikings using all three of their timeouts relatively early in the second half. They also passed the ball curiously on a 2nd-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 13 seconds left in the first half and a timeout in their possession. Zimmer said that the play was supposed to be a run.
NEXT UP
The Vikings have a short week, which gives Bridgewater’s ankle only three full days to heal. The Purple travel to Green Bay for a Thursday night border battle against the 2-2 Packers.
Sam Ekstrom is a staff writer for Cold Omaha at 105 The Ticket. He has previously served as a play-by-play broadcaster in Iowa and South Dakota and has covered Minnesota sports since 2012. Follow him on Twitter @SamEkstrom for further insights.