Takeaways from Vikings' postgame locker room
From Darrisaw's return to Rodgers' ridiculous performance to Wentz's control over the offense
By Matthew Coller
MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Vikings walked away from Sunday’s game with one of the largest margins of victory in team history.
As you might expect, the locker room had a lot of interesting comments about the win. Let’s dive in…
Christian Darrisaw was thrilled to be back
The Vikings’ top-notch left tackle has been sorely missed to start the season as he recovered from an ACL tear suffered last year. In Sunday’s win, he played a large percentage of snaps and effectively protected quarterback Carson Wentz’s blindside.
“Oh man it felt great,” Darrisaw said. “It’s been 332 days since my last game. It’s a surreal feeling, especially how we got the W today as a team, there’s no better feeling than this. Grateful to everybody in this organization. It was a long time coming.”
Darrisaw revealed that his original diagnosis for the injury had been longer than those 332 days but he had never revealed that publicly as fans and media wondered when he would come back.
“Twelve months,” Darrisaw said. “A lot of people didn’t know that. Hearing all the noise, ‘when is he going to play, when is he going to play.’ I’m ahead of schedule. No one thought I would be here right now being able to play at the level I’m playing at.”
So how did it feel to be back on the field?
“Oh my goodness, getting those first two drives out of the way, after my false start I’m like, ‘OK here we are, locked in,’” Darrisaw said. “To go against a different defense in live action was amazing.”
It probably felt just as good for Kevin O’Connell to have one of his franchise players back in the mix after two weeks of struggles with pass protection.
“I thought Christian Darrisaw’s snaps were absolutely outstanding, and he could have continued as well [to play more snaps], but we had a mindset on kind of what we got from Christian today from a snap standpoint, and hopefully this is a big stepping stone for the future,” O’Connell said.
KOC said that he knew earlier in the week that getting CD back was a possibility and noted that the team felt his presence immediately.
“He was the first guy to every drill, first guy in the huddle, just a juice that quite honestly elevated our entire team,” O’Connell said. “I told him, ‘if there's ever a question of what a franchise left tackle means to an organization, think we felt it today. I think we felt it throughout the week. I think the confidence level that his teammates had, our quarterback had, was felt.”
Carson Wentz playing ‘point guard’
In Carson Wentz’s first start as a Viking, he went 14-for-20 with 173 yards and two touchdowns.
O’Connell gave his analysis of what worked for the veteran QB.
“Played point guard for us, ran the show,” the head coach said. “Was efficient. He made great decisions. He got through his progressions and did a lot of things to help the Minnesota Vikings win today.”
The passing game struggled in the first two games of the season to get the ball into the hands of playmakers but on Sunday Justin Jefferson and TJ Hockenson finished with five receptions each and Jalen Nailor added three more.
“I think he's learning with the type of people in that huddle with him, if he just takes the right footwork, does his job, runs the show, there's going to be people to throw the ball to,” O’Connell said.
KOC added that Wentz has an “understanding of who he is as a player at this point,” which showed at times when the former Eagle/Colt/Commander/Chief/Ram did not try to do too much with the ball. He did not put it in harm’s way often in his 20 attempts.
“At one point he said, ‘coach, the reason why I came here is this system and you guys and our players and the guys I get to be in the huddle with, so you fire away and let's rock,’” O’Connell said. “At that point, I knew the trust was there. We clearly trusted him to go play football and he did so many good things.”
As far as JJ McCarthy goes, O’Connell did not have a specific timeline for his first-round quarterback.
“He's responded well to the early part of the treatment, but for a young player, I want to make sure that he's healthy, especially a guy with the movement skills that he has and has clearly shown in his first two opportunities….we're going to do right by him,” O’Connell said.
It is unclear how the Vikings will approach the QB situation when McCarthy is healthy. He would be returning to a lineup that is significantly better with Darrisaw and Jordan Addison coming back but O’Connell’s emphatic praise for Wentz “playing point guard” would seem to indicate that he liked the way the veteran operated the offense.
Could we see McCarthy back as soon as he’s healthy with Wentz waiting in the wings if he struggles or did Sunday’s game make the job Wentz’s to lose in the coming weeks?
Harrison Smith made an impact right away
On the second drive of Harrison Smith’s first game of the year, he tipped a ball to Isaiah Rodgers that ended up being returned for a touchdown.
“It was planned, we practice the tip drill and I knew he was back there,” Smith joked. “Fortunately it worked out. It was fortunate that I couldn’t catch it because I wouldn’t have scored. [Rodgers] is like the fastest guy on the defense.”
Smith was on a snap count after missing the first two games of the year. He said that he felt good physically.
“We had a plan for me individually as far as a rep count and it worked out well,” Smith said. “I felt like I moved around well and felt like myself. It was great. It’s quite a luxury to have a safety room like we do where Theo is a starter, Jay Ward is a really, really good player. We have a lot of depth at my position.”
The other safeties were excited for him to return. NFLNextGen had the statistic last week that Josh Metellus had played only 12% of his snaps at a traditional safety position last year but was playing 64% with Smith out. The return of the Pro Bowl veteran allowed Metellus to play all over the field again.
“Just the confidence and poise throughout the room was special,” Metellus said. “You have game-changing players, you can never have enough of those guys on the field, so you bring a guy like 22 back with the atmosphere we have here at home…it was great to hear the crowd jump when they called his name and for him to get back into action… I can never say enough great things about him.”
Smith is now playing alongside a player who he has praised repeatedly over the past couple years in Theo Jackson.
“Oh man, that’s my dawg,” Jackson said. “He’s the leader of the group. When he’s on the field, he always knows what to do. He’s seen everything so he keeps us all calm back there. He means everything to us.”
The entire defense benefitted from Smith’s signature deception. On multiple occasions, he lined up at the line of scrimmage and dropped back into coverage, causing disarray for Bengals QB Jake Browning.
“If you’re a quarterback and you don’t know where he is, that’s a problem,” Jackson said. “Having him on the field creates a lot of confusion in the quarterback’s head so we get to do different things with other people because there’s a focus on 22.”
Isaiah Rodgers’ legendary day
You may never see another performance like the one from Isaiah Rodgers again in your lifetime. In one half, he forced two fumbles and scored two touchdowns. No player has ever done that before in a game.
“Insane, man, I’m still at a loss for words,” Metellus said. “I don’t even know what I saw for sure. I kept thinking it was like practice. No way he was touching the ball this much. He was scoring touchdowns and there was no whistle, it was crazy. But every clip they’ve shown us of Isaiah Rodgers of the stuff he’s done in the league, it’s all him making plays. He’s a guy that if you put him in a position, he’s going to find a way to make a play.”
All the players on defense were in disbelief, even if they knew that Rodgers had a reputation in the past as being a playmaker.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Greenard said. “I knew he had that playmaking ability since he was with Indy and Philly. I was in Houston so I saw him when we played against him in Indy, so I’m not surprised at all. I’m just ready for him to just build off of it. When you put a performance like that, they want to see it every time. That’s the standard now.”
The person who is least surprised that Rodgers did something special is defensive coordinator Brian Flores. During the owner’s meetings in Florida, O’Connell revealed that Flores had been adamant about signing Rodgers. He mentioned that again after the win on Sunday.
“I think it's a matter of Flo's impact and his ability to have vision for players like we've seen here with two free agencies now, where there's been an immediate impact on our team from some of these guys that show up and end up being great Minnesota Vikings for us,” O’Connell said.
The head coach said that Rodgers’ impact goes beyond his spectacular playmaking, which graded by PFF a 99.9 — the highest grade for a single game that they have ever given out.
“We wanted to pair him that with a big physical body like Jeff Okudah, who did a lot of good things today as well, and then that allows [Byron Murphy Jr.] to really be what we need Murph to be: incredibly impactful inside, outside, the flex of all that,” O’Connell said.
The peanut punches
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Purple Insider to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.