Friday, November 8, 2013

A tale of two halves





The Vikings hosted the Washington Redskins on Thursday night football with another chance to show America the team is not as bad as a 1-7 record would indicate.

We got to the dome and one of my first observations was the amount of Redskins fans that made the trip. It was incredible to see that much red. My next observation was of all the Redskins fans I would say 90 percent of them had RG III jerseys on.

The next thrill was to go down early in pregame and get as close to the field as possible and take in the NFL Network pregame. The quality of players and Coach Mariucci on the set is priceless. The price became even higher as Cris Carter made an appearance on the set wearing his Hall of Fame jacket. He was one of my favorites so to see him one more time in person meant the world to me. I took a ton of pictures just to add to the memories.

Carter played a major role in the game. The pregame saw him blow the Gjallhorn signaling the Vikings were coming then ran to the Vikings ship and got on his motorcycle and helped lead the team onto the field. The place was going crazy watching this.

 The defensive players were introduced tonight with the first player being Xavier Rhodes carrying the American flag as he ran onto the field. The last player to be introduced was Jared Allen as he too carried the flag. The American theme was carried out very nicely by the organization.

The fans were involved with the National Anthem as each fan had a colored card in their seats that they were to hold up and look through the slot in their card. We looked around the stadium to a beautiful sight of red white and blue along with the word Thank you Military. What a night of awesomeness and to be a part of this was once again a memory never to be forgotten.

The game finally began and it did with a chorus of boos. The Redskins kicked off avoiding Patterson and that is where the booing began. The game had it fair share of booing. The first drive by the Vikings ended up with the interception thrown by Ponder led to a season high booing sound by the fans.

The Redskins moved the ball at will in the first half. It was so hard to sit in my seat and watch the Redskins run wide open in the middle making for some easy pass completions. I know I remember seeing on the scoreboard the Redskins were completing third downs at an 83 percent clip. It was so embarrassing to watch this. The tackling in the first half was as bad as I have ever seen and it led to several times of booing by the fans.

I still can’t believe as I am writing this how the Redskins scored 15 seconds before the half. I was and still am in shock how 2 Redskins players were standing all alone for maybe the easiest touchdown any team may ever score this season.

The Redskins kickoff to the Vikings and my hope was with 4 seconds left the team just throws the ball as far as possible. It did not happen and with that angry fans booed even more.

The first half was filled with booing but I will say on a positive note that after the Ponder interception he started playing much better. We will see what the second half will offer up.

The halftime fans saw Cris Cater get his Hall of Fame ring. I was so happy for Cris. It seemed each time I saw Carter including pregame his smile just seemed to be getting bigger.

The second half was incredible to watch as the team I love to death showed up in a big way. I was so proud of these guys. It was so fun to watch Kevin Williams get some much needed sacks. The second half was just simply fun to watch.

It is hard to believe the Redskins did not punt the entire first half and score on four possessions and the second half Washington get held to 3 points.

I thought the play of Ponder was as good as I have seen in many games. The run he made in which I thought he scored at first was amazing. The collision at the goal line showed me just how bad he wants to succeed. I know next season he may not be the man but to see a guy who has been through the ringer with fans and media showed me something. The injury came at the worst possible time for Ponder. His quarterback rating was over 100 and he was finally making some very good decisions and throw.

I was impressed with Ponder but some other guys I need to mention were John Carlson and J’Marcus Webb.

It was refreshing to see Carlson have the night he had including his first touchdown as a Vikings. I love the effort to stretch the ball across the goal line.

Webb filling in for Loadholt I thought did a wonderful job of helping keep the quarterbacks clean from hits.

I will add on the defense the Kevin Williams had a fabulous night but also the play of backup safety, Andrew Sendejo who had 16 tackles. This team has a ton of injuries so to see guys like Carlson, Webb and Sendejo come through was a nice sight.

This team has been through so many emotional losses this season so for Thursday night to get a win was huge.

The problem now becomes with fans who want to see a high draft pick in April every win hurts the team. I want a nice high pick too but am very happy to get a W especially at home and on National TV.

I will add in the end the fans played a major part in not such a good way. The amount of paper airplanes coming out of the upper deck was too many to count. The fans would cheer for planes that had a chance to land on the field. We had policemen along with security all second half trying to catch the culprits who threw them. Fans can be kicked out of the game if caught.

The other disappointment was talking to fans next to me and in front of me the price they paid for their tickets. I pay 40.00 per seat. The 7 guys in front of me paid 4.00 per ticket and the 2 guys next to me paid 8.00. My wife said and I can’t disagree is we could go to every game and buy cheaper tickets but sitting in different parts of the stadium. I guess I enjoy knowing I will sit in my same spot and cheer for the purple.

Thursday’s game had a wide variety of emotions but in the end my team came through with a win.

Thanks for reading

Purplestick

 

 

 

 

 

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