Okay, finished my first game versus the Vikings, and it was somewhat of an interesting game. Some things I liked, some things I hated.
First all of, I probably played my worse game in a long time in the passing game, but I am using Shaun Hill, not Sam Bradford. I also have to give the Vikings' D credit, because there was some pressure that caused me to get rid of the ball quite a few times, and the DBs were not letting my WRs get open. The DBs and a LB here or there also had some swats for breakups.
With Hill I threw quite a few errant passes as I went deep, and I have no doubt this happened because his DAC is only 66. There were plenty of overthrows and wide-sailing balls when I chose to hit a WR deep. So that explains all the incompletions. That, and having just not starting off with the run, like I should have. Momentum was not in my favor in that aspect.
What did keep me in the game though was a better 2nd half running the ball with Zac Stacy, and 2 blown coverages by the Vikings, one leading to a deep passing TD on a deep corner route, and the other giving me the field position needed to drive down the field a bit, and get a short TD run with Stacy.
As I expected, the Vikings came out running first, and running hard and fast. I've played the Vikings as the Rams before, and had Adrian Peterson gash me left and right, and this time was no different. I was able to stuff the run up the middle most times (he still had a few good runs up the middle), but when he went off-tackle and busted it out wide and got into the backfield, his speed was too much for my defenders, as well as some of his tackle-breaking moves for plenty extra yardage. The key to slowing down Peterson is actually sustaining drives on offense, keeping him on the bench, but I wasn't able to sustain any long, clock-chewing drives in this game. I blame that on my QB-play and a slow first half running the ball, which ultimately came from my bad playcalling in the first half.
As I've always said the CPU will always take what you give them. If they have success running the ball or dinking and dunking on short passes, and if you can't stop it, they won't stop either. If you stop the underneath routes and running game they will definitely start passing more, with varied routes. I couldn't stop the run, so they kept it up, and relied very little on passing the ball, rather Matt Cassel managed the game instead, with great efficiency on short to intermediate routes. He did throw 3 long balls though in this game (one which resulted in a pick), which was actually nice to see.
The one thing I really hated, and was hoping not to see was a overall sack total problem. They got 2 sacks on me. No biggie. BUT, I had 9 on Cassel... some were actually legitimate sacks, with quick penetration that gave Cassel basically no time to get the ball out, but there were still too many sacks, overall. Before this game, in my pre-season games, I actually had normal sack totals, but this was just too much. Due to this, I am going to raise CPU pass blocking further (don't know if it will help, but it can't hurt), which I will detail in a post after this one, since I made some other changes as well that I want to highlight. EA, in my opinion, needs to tweak the amount of sacks taken some more. There is no doubt about that. Elite D-lines or not... I can expect a player like Robert Quinn to pull off 3 sacks in a single game, as he did this last year twice in real life, but Aaron Donald (very good rookie DT) shouldn't have 5 sacks in a single game.
Also, I plan to bench Shaun Hill after this first game (Hill was actually benched IRL last weekend for a rookie) after comparing and contrasting what kind of throw accuracy Case Keenum has to Hill. After looking it over, I think this move will be better for the rest of the season, until I draft a quality QB in the upcoming draft. I will move up in the draft if I have to, to find a quality QB.
For reference, Shaun Hill has
79 THP, 86 SAC, MAC 79, DAC 66. Case Keenum has
83 THP, SAC 81, MAC 76, DAC 88. You can see where Keenum has the edge with the 88 deep throw accuracy over Hill's 66. Many errant passes were thrown on intermediate to deep routes to WRs with Hill. That just won't work for the rest of the season.
With all that said, here is the full box score for the game for you to overlook, if you so wish to.
EDIT: There is one mistake in the box score. LOLB Alec Ogletree had 0 tackles, but one interception on Cassel. He is not listed in the box score. Sorry for the mistake, I'll make sure that won't happen in future box scores.
| Minnesota Vikings at St. Louis Rams |
| Sep 11, 2014 | 1ST | 2ND | 3RD | 4TH | SCORE |
| Minnesota Vikings (0-0) | 7 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 21 |
| St. Louis Rams (0-0) | 3 | 3 | 8 | 14 | 28 |
| Team Stats Comparison |
| MIN | STL |
| Total Offense | 330 | 315 |
| Rushing Yards | 207 | 111 |
| Passing Yards | 123 | 204 |
| First Downs | 17 | 16 |
| Punt Return Yards | 28 | 39 |
| Kick Return Yards | 27 | 149 |
| Total Yards | 385 | 503 |
| Turnovers | 2 (0) | 2 (0) |
| 3rd Down Converstion | 4-14 (28%) | 6-17 (35%) |
| 4th Down Conversion | 0-1 (0%) | 1-1 (100%) |
| 2-Point Conversion | 0-0 (0%) | 1-1 (100%) |
| Red Zone Touchdowns/Field Goals | 2/0 | 2/0 |
| Penalties | 2-10 | 2-16 |
| Posession Time | 33:14 | 26:46 |
| Scoring Summary |
| FIRST QUARTER SCORING | MIN | STL |
| 12:48 | (STL) G. Zuerlein, 41 Yd FG | 0 | 3 |
| 11:25 | (MIN) A. Peterson, 39 Yd run (B.Walsh kick) | 7 | 3 |
| SECOND QUARTER SCORING | MIN | STL |
| 14:46 | (STL) G. Zuerlein, 49 Yd FG | 7 | 6 |
| 3:38 | (MIN) J. Simpson 4 Yd pass from M. Cassel (B. Walsh kick) | 14 | 6 |
| THIRD QUARTER SCORING | MIN | STL |
| 7:59 | (STL) B. Quick 57 Yd pass from S. Hill (2pt) | 14 | 14 |
| FOURTH QUARTER SCORING | MIN | STL |
| 13:38 | (STL) K. Britt 12 Yd pass from S. Hill (G. Zuerlein kick) | 14 | 21 |
| 7:54 | (STL) Z. Stacy, 5 Yd run (G. Zuerlein kick) | 14 | 28 |
| 4:21 | (MIN) A. Peterson, 3 Yd run (B. Walsh kick) | 21 | 28 |
| Minnesota Vikings | | PASSING | C/A | YDS | TD | INT | | M. Cassel | 21/28 | 184 | 1 | 2 | | RUSHING | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | | A. Peterson | 26 | 189 | 7.2 | 2 | | J. Baynard | 3 | 17 | 5.6 | 0 | | M. Cassel | 1 | 1 | 1.0 | 0 | | RECEIVING | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | | K. Rudolph | 7 | 56 | 8.0 | 0 | | J. Simpson | 5 | 43 | 8.6 | 1 | | C. Patterson | 3 | 36 | 12.0 | 0 | | J. Wright | 2 | 21 | 10.5 | 0 | | G. Jennings | 2 | 15 | 7.5 | 0 | | A. Peterson | 2 | 13 | 6.5 | 0 | | BLOCKING | PANCAKE | SACK | | J. Felton | 4 | 0 | | B. Fusco | 3 | 1 | | P. Loadholt | 1 | 0 | | M. Kalil | 1 | 3 | | J. Sullivan | 1 | 1 | | DEFENSE | TACK | SACK | INT | TD | | R. Blanton | 7 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | C. Munnerlyn | 7 | 0.0 | 1 | 0 | | C. Greenway | 6 | 2.0 | 0 | 0 | | G. Hodges | 4 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | L. Joseph | 4 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | S, Floyd | 4 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | S. Prater | 3 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | H. Smith | 2 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | J. Brinkley | 2 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | B. Watts | 2 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | J. Robinson | 2 | 0.0 | 1 | 0 | | J. Mouton | 1 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | B. Robison | 1 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | M. Raymond | 1 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | X. Rhodes | 1 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | KICKING | FG | XP | PTS | LONG | | B. Walsh | 0/0 | 3/3 | 3 | 0 | | PUNTING | NO | YDS | AVG | IN20 | | D. Butler | 9 | 437 | 48.5 | 1 | | KICK RETURN | RET | YDS | AVG | TD | | C. Patterson | 1 | 27 | 27.0 | 0 | | PUNT RETURN | RET | YDS | AVG | TD | | C. Patterson | 3 | 28 | 9.3 | 0 |
| | St. Louis Rams | | PASSING | C/A | YDS | TD | INT | | S. Hill | 17/40 | 215 | 2 | 2 | | C. Keenum | 1/2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | | RUSHING | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | | Z. Stacy | 24 | 108 | 4.5 | 1 | | T. Mason | 2 | 9 | 4.5 | 0 | | S. Hill | 3 | -6 | -2.0 | 0 | | RECEIVING | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | | K. Britt | 6 | 67 | 11.1 | 1 | | T. Austin | 3 | 23 | 7.6 | 0 | | J. Cook | 3 | 42 | 14.0 | 0 | | B. Quick | 3 | 78 | 26.0 | 1 | | Z. Stacy | 2 | 5 | 2.5 | 0 | | C. Givens | 1 | 4 | 4.0 | 0 | | BLOCKING | PANCAKE | SACK | | G. Robinson | 2 | 0 | | J. Long | 2 | 1 | | J. Barksdale | 1 | 0 | | S. Wells | 1 | 1 | | DEFENSE | TACK | SACK | INT | TD | | J. Laurinaitis | 13 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | R. Quinn | 8 | 3.0 | 0 | 0 | | A. Donald | 6 | 5.0 | 0 | 0 | | J. Dunbar | 5 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | M. Roberson | 4 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | E. Gaines | 4 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | | T. McDonald | 4 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | L. Joyner | 4 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | J, Jenkins | 3 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | M. Brockers | 2 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | T. Johnson | 1 | 0.0 | 1 | 0 | | C. Long | 1 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | W. Hayes | 1 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | A. Bayer | 1 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | T. Mason | 1 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | | KICKING | FG | XP | PTS | LONG | | G. Zuerlein | 2/2 | 2/2 | 8 | 50 | | PUNTING | NO | YDS | AVG | IN20 | | J. Hekker | 7 | 339 | 48.4 | 2 | | KICK RETURN | RET | YDS | AVG | TD | | C. Givens | 4 | 149 | 37.2 | 0 | | PUNT RETURN | RET | YDS | AVG | TD | | T. Austin | 3 | 39 | 13.0 | 0 |
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