Welcome to the first edition of “Motorola Coach’s Corner,” a weekly feature sponsored by Motorola that will get into the minds of the Vikings coaching staff. Each week, vikings.com will speak with a different Vikings coach to gain a perspective on the team that might not otherwise be available.
One week “Motorola Coach’s Corner” might speak with running backs coach Eric Bieniemy about the skill of pass protection out of the backfield, while another week the discussion might be with linebackers coach Fred Pagac about the role of the middle linebacker in the Cover 2 defensive scheme.
This week, Vikings Head Coach Brad Childress will step into the “Motorola Coach’s Corner” and discuss the 2008 preseason, which concluded last week in Dallas.
Recently in one of his press conferences, Coach Childress was asked what his team had accomplished during the preseason. In his response, Coach Childress addressed four areas: injures offense, defense and special teams. Here’s an area-by-area breakdown of his thoughts…
Coach Childress: “Reasonable health, knock on wood. We lost the two kids with the knee injuries there in that first game.”
Translation: Heath Farwell and Jayme Mitchell both suffered season-ending knee injuries in the preseason opener against Seattle. There were other injures throughout the rest of the preseason as well, including Tarvaris Jackson’ knee injury, but by-and-large the Vikings came out okay after four preseason games.
Coach Childress: “The first game I think the defense had 12 snaps. They were up to, I think, 36 last week (8/16 Baltimore). In the Ravens game the offense got 36, so obviously there is a give-and-take there. You’d like them both to be even, but they’re not going to be. I thought offensively we did some good things. In those first couple of games, I thought we showed some consistency when Tarvaris (Jackson) was in there with the pass game. I thought that took a step forward. I didn’t think we stepped back at all when Gus (Frerotte) was in there.”
Translation: The Vikings clearly wanted to improve their air attack heading into 2008, and if the preseason is any indication, it looks like the team has improved in that area. Jackson looked sharp during his preseason work, completing 15 of 22 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns, with zero interceptions. Then, when backup Gus Frerotte stepped in, the offense didn’t miss a beat. Frerotte completed 21 of 35 passes for 262 yards with one interception and one touchdown.
Coach Childress: “Defensively, we kind of got up to speed in the [Baltimore] game.”
Translation: Coming two dominant seasons against the run, the Vikings first-team defense “struggled” a bit against Seattle and Baltimore. Seattle put up 17 first-quarter points (much of the blame goes to the Vikings offense for turning the ball over in Minnesota territory) and then Baltimore was able to notch a touchdown against the Vikings first-team defensive unit a week later. But the unit looked stout in the third game, stopping Pittsburgh’s running game cold and constantly applying pressure to quarterback Ben Roethlisberger with the front four lineman.
Coach Childress: “I shouldn’t stop without talking about the special teams. I thought that our coverage teams have elevated. I think our guys understand better conceptually what we’re trying to get done with the return game and with the coverage game. We probably had better athletes doing both.”
Translation: Special teams is one-third of the equation in the NFL, and even though the casual fan might not give it the appropriate amount of attention, the special teams unit certainly bears the consideration of Coach Childress. It’s important to find players who can play special teams and play well while they’re in there. Executing properly in the return game can set up nice field position for the offense, and executing properly in the coverage game can give the defense an advantage against the opposing offense.