2015 Week 1 Post Game Thread: Vikings @ Niners MNF

[MHSL82]

Positives
Offensive MVP: Carlos Hyde, obviously.
Defensive MVP: Aaron Lynch - Big sack early, tackle for loss before halftime, and game clincher.
Honorable Mention: Germaine Brock - Big INT to help put the game away.
Honorable Mention 2: Antoine Bathea - Stopped 4th Down Conversion and big sack on first drive of second quarter.

Big Plays Not Mentioned Above
Vance McDonald tackle on the blocked FG.
LJ McCray big punt return coverage tackle.
Minnesota's Clemons friendly fire on the first drive of the second half sack.
Negative - Hayne's muffed punt and the blocked FG.

Thoughts
Great coaching job by now 2-0 Tomsula.
Great running by Hyde and obviously, the 3 points defense.
Thought Kaepernick played well, will open up more next week as the Steelers' defense isn't as good as it used to be.

[ChrisPozz]

Matt Barrows:

Tomsula says the 49ers don't think Reggie Bush's calf strain was "real serious" at this point.

[Hangman_52]

Devey played great. He looked really good tonight. Had one hold. But other than that was rock solid. We gave up a 7th string TE for him. Killed NE in that trade. He was knocking back DT all over the place.

Pears played well too. Better than anyone thought he would.

[Tomikcon1971]

Davis should be suiting up, not Hayne.

[arich35]

I was surprised. After the 1st drive of the game we played sloppy on offense and special teams but we seemed to clean it up in the 2nd half. The Oline played better then I anticipated but need to get the holding penalties under control. Defense also played really well, props to them. Carlos Hyde is going to be a top running back in the league this year and I am excited to watch him play. Besides the fumble, Hayne played well for being sprung into back up RB duties pretty quickly.

Kaepernick showed a lot tonight IMO. He made some great reads and was going through progressions well. I also loved most of the plays that were set up for him, he is a lot better out of the pocket and in an up tempo offense.

[arich35]

Davis should be suiting up, not Hayne.

I think both will be next week with Bush probably being out.

[Tomikcon1971]

Love the up tempo, no silly timeouts, no silly challenges, no baby tantrums (hated that part of Harbs), Kaep seemed more confident.

Our D is so anonymous but effective. Worried about depth. We stay healthy we can be a tough team as the season proceeds.

[arich35]

Here is a post by a Vikings fan on some other sucky forum

"That. Was. Pathetic.

I haven't seen a team collectively **** themselves that badly in an opener in years. I've never seen that kind of domination against a team that talent wise, The Vikings clearly are superior to.

I've never seen anything like this. Bad offense, bad defense, bad special teams, bad coaching.

It's one game, but that is just a beatdown that should have never, ever happened."

[Tomikcon1971]

Delusional.....

[Tomikcon1971]

Kaep is even much more interesting in press conferences.

[Tomikcon1971]

I'll be interested to see the snap breakdown....

Did Dontae Johnson play much, if at all?

[Jikkle]

Some issues that need to be cleaned up but was pretty pleased with what I saw.

Offensively all I have to say is FINALLY! And what I mean was that the coaches played to the strengths of the players and tried to minimize the weaknesses. No time clock issues, moved the throwing platform for Kap to help the O line, had short passes to set up more manageable downs and distances, and overall it was just a better looking offense as a whole.

Kap looked like he's progressed as a passer and aside from a couple of bad throws there really wasn't anything to complain about. Moved around well in the pocket, kept eyes downfield when scrambling, had touch to his throws, and just made good decisions. But on the flip side he didn't need to do much with Hyde killing it out there but he did make the plays he needed to especially in the second half.

Defensive I enjoyed what I saw as well. My biggest gripe with Fangio was his schemes were too vanilla and he relied too much on the talent to make plays. So when it came to the better and smarter QBs in the league they seemed to have little trouble dissecting and picking apart the defense from a mental standpoint. With Mangini that doesn't seem like that will be an issue as there were a lot of moving parts to throw off QBs and that was one reason I thought Bridgewater struggled. Not to mention the players just played well too.

Overall a good win and a needed one because the deck is stacked against the Steelers so they needed a win here to avoid a potential 0-2 start.

[McKenna]

The Aussie influx should be fun. I'm quietly excited seeing Hayne get some burn.

Looks like I found my team to follow finally [WHITE SMILING FACE]

[CalamityX12]

Well we needed that season/home opener win, that's for sure.

start with the positives:
- Kap looked "better" in the pocket and kept his eyes downfield and looking through his options
- OL looked better this time around than preseason
- Defense was kicking it, hope they bring that intensity and execution every week
- Hyde will be great and opposing defenses are going to stack the box again thus opening it up for the pass

Negs:
- Kap looks better but still has ways to improve. His accuracy is off but that could be fix.
- If Bowman goes down, our defense goes down. We got to keep him healthy for a full season.
- STs, wtf.... looking at that blocked FG and its baffling. They better fix that little crack cuz it makes a world of difference.
- I want more football!

A win is a win, i'll take it. Game started ugly but got things going and the ball was moving so that to me is a good sign. I'm not anointing us anything til we play the more talented and focuses teams on our schedule.

Pitt next week is a good barometer this early into the season.

[Ease_Ur_Storm]

Haven't looked at the Viking blogs but from what I was hearing here they're probably all going crazy right now. Their main problem is that their QB isn't all that good, and our untalented OL destroyed their defense. Maybe they're still on vacation, but that team didn't look like a playoff caliber team at all.

[arich35]

I'll be interested to see the snap breakdown....

Did Dontae Johnson play much, if at all?

Yes he did.

It was really hard to see the numbers on the players with the far away camera angle but I felt like I saw Johnson play quite a bit

[CalamityX12]

yea, I didn't fault berman for confusing Celek with McDonald based on jersey #s... I couldn't read sh*t... lol...

[tallglassowater]

The biggest difference was the offense. Defense played well, but the offense with the new coaching staff looked much better. Need to clean up the drive stalling penalties but overall they actually stuck with the run with was great. Hard to tell how the passing game would have looked if they were in a more consistent rhythm with those penalties killing a few drives before they could really get going.

[CalamityX12]

I know I need Kap to improve much more in regards to throwing to his WRs. I feel he did target them but he didn't deliver the ball if it went beyond a certain distance consistently.

[oaktownwarriors87]

Kapernick is officially a poor mans Alex Smith (with more physical tools).