Gameday Grades: Seahawks versus Vikings
By Andy Larkin
The Seahawks defeated the Vikings at CenturyLink Field on Friday night by a score of 20-13.
The second week of preseason saw a slight rep increase for starters and served as another audition for young guys to make their mark. Here are my scores in this week’s edition of “Game Day Grades”.
Defensive grades
Defensive Line: (B)
It was another solid outing for the D-Line on Friday night. The group controlled the line of scrimmage fairly well throughout and only surrendered 71 yards on the ground to the Vikings. With the exception of a few big runs by Dalvin Cook, the Seahawks defensive line did a fantastic job of blotting out the sun (solar eclipse joke).
However, their performance was far from perfect. I would’ve liked to see a little more pressure on passing downs. One sack isn’t enough. The Viking quarterbacks often had too much time to throw and it led to some big plays downfield.
Linebackers: (B+)
The linebackers did their job as tackling was fairly clean on Friday. I think it’s easy as Seahawks fans to get a little spoiled with this group as they are very sound in their technique. The linebacking corps was noticeably missing one of its mainstays in K.J. Wright, but that seems to be of little significance as he is projected to be ready by week one.
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Defensive Backs: (B-)
There are definitely some kinks to work out among the secondary as they played decently, but not at the level I expect from them. There was some confusion out there, which has caused problems in the past. The lack of sound communication led to a few big plays that could’ve been avoided if everyone was confident in knowing their assignments. I’m not terribly worried about the secondary as I believe things will come together for them by the time week one rolls around. However, miscommunication in the secondary has definitely come back to bite this team at times in the last two seasons. So let’s hope everyone gets on the same page soon.