Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 24, Minnesota Vikings 20
Rhett Davis: The Bucks are a nice young team and they appear to be progressing a little, but the Vikings are just in a slump. If you look around the league, this is the year of the QuarterBack. Neither McNabb or Freeman had a really impressive day as the RBs scored the TD’s and had a decent amount of yards. The Vikings had a big lead, but they threw it all away after halftime.
Grey Scherl: Minnesota continues to look decent in their rebuilding year, but Donovan McNabb needs to step his game up. Adrian Peterson can run wild all he wants, but they need to score in the air if they want to win games. Especially against teams like Tampa Bay, who aren’t pushovers to start with. McNabb’s best years are behind him, but he should still be able to do better than this. Josh Freeman, on the other hand, needs to work on getting the ball to his receivers, as going one for one TD’s and Int’s two weeks in a row is not an impressive start for a guy who almost made the playoffs last year. LeGarrette Blount did look impressive though, not as many yards as Adrian, but the same two TD’s. Tampa Bay needs to start scoring more, and Minnesota…well, they’re just developing Christian Ponder for next year.
Daniels: Tough game for the Vikings. If you can’t win a game where your premiere back gives you 120 yards and 2 touchdowns it’s going to be a long season.
Glazer: Josh Freeman seems like he’s going to be a huge deal, but I genuinely am confused about how Minnesota gave up this lead when Tampa could not at all stop Adrian Peterson. McNabb looked better than he did last week, but, well, I guess this team really isn’t going to be effective. Still, they’ve hung tough two weeks, so whether they can against the Lions will be telling. I still think Tampa looks good as often as they do bad this season, before getting it together next year. It’s time for a step back before a step forward and their schedule is tough, but they’ll beat who they should.
