Winners –
Receivers: they all stood out and looked great today
Justin Forsett: Played good, ran hard, and with Ducket’s fumbles he went a long way to securing a roster spot
David Hawthorne: Ya it was against the second team, but those plays will stand out on the tape.

Losers -
TJ Duckett: Not that his performance wouldn’t get him cut on any other team, but this REALLY won’t fly with Holmgren.
Josh Wilson: Couple balls caught against him, Hobb’s played well.
Owen Schmitt: Looked lost a few times on run blocking assignments.

Player of the Game: I’ll defer to you, but there were a lot of stand out players. Seneca, Hawthorne, LoJack, and Valos (for his yeomans work) get honorable mentions.

Winners – Backup Safteys – Adams and Hawthorne both looked good to me.
– Mike Whale – Awesome to see a LG that can really pull block again.

Losers – Duckett and Coutu

Winners:

Us…Seattle won.

Owen Schmitt, he will be a decent backup.

Seneca Wallace, yeah he needed that.

MoMo, don’t trade him if Duckett is useless.

Losers:

Duckett, yeah.

The Vikings

Player of the Game: Howard Green

He was only responsible for kickoffs, and other than the first one, he pinned them back behind the 5 yard line every time.. is that bad? Did I miss something? The golden boy, Josh Brown, would regularly leave the ball at the 15 yard line..

It’s not Coutu’s fault that we missed tackles and gave them decent starting position.. Give him a break..

Hasselbeck. In total control of what looks like an improved up-tempo offense.

Tim Ruskell. Scoring potential FA steals in Adams and Hawthorne.

Mo Mo. Hit it like a fucking man.

Schmitt. As in, Tyler. You see a botched snap? Me neither.

Jordan Kent. Dropped one, but showed nice ball skills on the TD catch and beat coverage on a couple of deep routes. The coaches took a long look tonight, seemingly hoping he can step into DJ Hackett’s shoes.

Seneca Wallace. Time to stop wishing this guy became Slash II. He’s turned into a legit QB and solid backup option.

The PNW. For getting to hear Kevin Calabro do a Hawks game.

Any QB not wearing #8 or #15. Frye really, really, really reallllllly sucks.

Duckett. Coach would rather you NOT put that on the carpet, please.

Kick Coverage. Look like they’re starting from scratch.

Chris Spencer. A yeoman’s performance by Vallos but we’re screwed If Spencer doesn’t get healthy. Warm up the waiver-wire miracle, Tim.

Vikings v. Zebras. Hawks got every call, 30 months late.

NFL Network. Culver City’s finest a bunch of fags for sticking with Vike’s broadcast for the whole game. Craptastic editing as well.

hass and seneca looked really sharp, like midseason sharp. charlie fry was not in the same league as those 2.

oline was much improved most of the time but still inconsistent, especially on short yardage. they will be only average if vallos is going to play, he’s not remotely ready to be a regular contributor. one play at the beginning of the game when momo gashed the vikes for a big run he did it in spite of vallos getting pushed back 5 yards into the handoff. it wasn’t the only time vallos was abused.

running backs looked good overall. didn’t see much good run blocking from the fullbacks, but there was a lot of good pass blocking and they all had great hands. julius blowing up the blitzer to give seneca time to throw a td (i think) was a fabulous play. duckett looks like crap, and slow crap at that. forsett is fun to watch and scrappy as hell. momo played great.

receivers were overall very good, all the way down the depth chart. kent has a long way to go before he’s an actual football player. nice td though. bumpus played well but will have to keep doing that just to get a ticket to the practice squad.

defensive line was up against a very good oline, so it didn’t surprise me that they didn’t generate any pressure. i would have been nice to see tapp do something, he was invisible. mckinnie is an elite tackle but tapp should be able to make a play somewhere, some time, somehow if he is a legit starter. the line played very well against the run, especially that goal line stand where they almost stoned the vikes 3 times in a row. lojack is the real deal, he was chasing plays 25 yards down field multiple times. one player that showed well against the scrubs was jason babin. he recovered 2 fumbles, was always around the ball and made a long list of good plays against the run and the pass.

hawthorne can really lay the lumber. it’s early but i’d bet he’s going to make the final 53. dd played very heady, solid football, which was expected and appreciated.

trufant phoned it in. he was toasted by berrian a couple times, had a brutal p.i. in the endzone, the hitch to wade was the worst tackle i’ve seen him attempt in years and he bit so hard on the vikes first td he looked like boulware. not a good night for a probowler. hobbs made a couple nice plays. backup safeties looked nice, they all have some pop when they come up to make a tackle. josh wilson had some good plays, some bad. i think with regular playing time he’d grow into his role nicely. his closing speed is the best of the db’s.

coverage and returns were horrible. it looked like no one wanted to run downfield or take any contact in the first half. everyone was jogging around like a bunch of pansies, hence the outrageous return average for the vikes. schmitt looked money on snaps and gets down field in a hurry on punts. he’s going to be a special teams mainstay for a while.

defense player of the game = lojack. solid with many good plays and great hustle.
offense player of the game = locklear. i’m not sure he was ever beat.