Seahawks better hope the Vikings keep forgetting to run Dalvin Cook
The Seahawks face a scary air attack from the Vikings. Hopefully Minnesota continues to forget they have a great weapon in their backfield, Dalvin Cook.
The Seattle Seahawks certainly have enough to contend with tonight in their big matchup versus the Minnesota Vikings. The guys in purple feature two of the league’s premiere wide receivers in Stephon Diggs and Adam Thielen. Triggerman Kirk Cousins is a pretty good quarterback, too. I mean, he’s no Mark Sanchize, but he’s pretty good. Yet the Vikings have a terrific weapon that they’ve basically kept under wraps for most of the season. That weapon is Dalvin Cook.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Okay, I know you have, but I’m telling the story anyway. A team drafts a stud running back, and the expectations are sky-high for the kid. He gets hurt in his rookie season after a few big games, and everyone just mutters about what might have been. There’s a lot of anticipation for this year, and fans are chomping at the bit.
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2018 begins. The budding star gets off to a bit of a slow start, but that’s alright. The coaches know it’s just a matter of shaking off the rust, getting used to game conditions. There are a couple bumps in the road from injuries, but things are looking solid now. He’s never had more than 16 carries, though, and that was in his first game. Since then, he hasn’t seen more than 10 in any single game. The head coach says he wants to see more carries. The offensive coordinator says he wants more carries for his star. Yet somehow, week after week he gets nine or ten carries.
Okay, I lied. You only heard the first few lines of that story before. That was the beginning of the season for Chris Carson. Despite all the big talk about how great he looked in preseason, Carson had just 13 carries after the first two games combined. 12s thought the Seattle coaching staff had lost their collective minds, and so did I. Happily, they suddenly remembered they wanted Carson to get the ball, and they fixed the problem immediately. He had 32 carries in the very next game, and has been the Seahawks undisputed lead back ever since.
So, the story is really about the Vikings Dalvin Cook. Despite dozens of reports that both head coach Mike Zimmer and OC John DeFilippo want the ball in Cook’s hands more often, it hasn’t happened. I am as befuddled by their incompetence as I was by the Seahawks inability to call Carson’s number. I hope that for at least one more game, the strange amnesia regarding number 33 on the Minnesota sideline continues.
Final injury report for Seahawks vs Vikings. dark. Next
Cook has not been consistent at all, so there’s some hope. But when you only get 9 or 10 carries, can you really build any consistency? Who knows if that 11th carry was the one that was going to break big? He has four games with a rushing average below 3.0 yards per carry. On the flip side, Cook has twice averaged 8.9 yards or better. In every case, it’s just 9 or 10 carries. I sincerely hope the Seahawks don’t find out what Cook can do on that 11th carry tonight. Keep on handcuffing your guy, Vikes!