5 takeaways from Vikings’ 26-3 preseason win over Eagles

The Minnesota Vikings finished the preseason undefeated for the first time since 2016 with Saturday’s 26-3 win over the Philadelphia Eagles.

With NFL teams having to trim their rosters to 53 players by Tuesday afternoon, it was obviously a big game for several guys fighting for roster spots, and a handful stood out.

Here are five quick takeaways from the Vikings’ preseason finale.

Incredible insight from KOC

Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell joined the Vikings broadcast for the entire third quarter of Saturday’s game and offered incredible insight for viewers.

Fans got to see how quickly coaches have to make decisions in the moment, as O’Connell described the play-calling process and also displayed his quick decision-making in challenging a call that resulted in an Eagles turnover on downs.

Additionally, he also shared his thoughts on certain play-calls and situations, offered some sneak peeks of play calls, highlighted what he looks for at different parts of the game and was candid with officials a couple times.

For obvious reasons, we won’t get to see that during the regular season, but it was an awesome experiment that provided huge value for fans on Saturday. Sign me up for more of that.

Good showings from several bubble players

Several guys fighting for some of the final few Vikings roster spots had good showings on Saturday. Here are some brief thoughts on a few:

• QB Jaren Hall led five drives for the Vikings, all getting into the red zone and resulting in points. He finished 17/25 for 189 yards and two touchdowns, adding two first-down scrambles for 11 yards.
• RB Myles Gaskin tallied 13 carries for 61 yards, including a long of 20, and two carries for six yards, showing really nice ability as a potential backup, including in pass protection a couple of times.
• WRs Lucky Jackson (4 catches, 53 yards), Trent Sherfield Sr. (3 catches, 20 yards) and Trishton Jackson (2 catches, 15 yards, 1 TD) all were really solid in varying levels of action, all making strong final cases for a roster spot.
• LBs Brian Asamoah II and Dallas Gant led the team in tackles with seven and six, respectively.
• ED Andre Carter II had two sacks and a forced fumble among six tackles.
• DTs Jalen Redmond and James Lynch each had a couple of tackles and a fumble recovery, and Redmond also deflected a pass. Taki Taimani, Jaquelin Roy, Levi Drake Rodriguez and EDs Owen Porter and Bo Richter all got a tackle and Drake Rodriguez also deflected a pass.
• DBs Jay Ward and Dwight McGlothern each had three tackles. McGlothern had one for loss and a pass deflection, as well as a near-sack while Ward added three pass deflections and an interception.

There were some negatives for each, such as Hall failing to finish three drives with touchdowns, floating an interception that was wiped away by penalty and tossing another near-interception into the endzone in the second half; Drake Rodriguez was flagged for hitting the quarterback’s facemask; McGlothern couldn’t get the quarterback down on a fourth-down sack; Lucky Jackson had a couple sideline catches he couldn’t haul in inbounds.

However, overall, it was a pretty solid showing by several guys.

Matt Corral struggles

Corral got a little more time than planned after Hall took a big hit on the opening drive of the second half but didn’t look great.

It’s hard to expect a lot out of a guy who just joined the team eight days ago but if there was any question over whether he could push Hall for the third-string spot, that didn’t happen.

Corral, of course, could still be someone the Vikings have interest in for the practice squad, but he didn’t have a ton of success in the preseason finale.

Special teams solid

Kicker Will Reichard was only challenged with one long kick — a 57-yarder with just over 2 minutes to play — but still made all four of his field goal attempts and both extra points.

Punter Ryan Wright, who officially won the punting job this week with Seth Vernon being waived, booted four punts for 163 yards, including a long of 50 and one inside the 20. The Vikings probably would’ve like to see a little better kicks on a couple of them but he was solid overall.

Can they carry it into the regular season and finally provide some stability at the spots?

We’ve almost made it!

With the preseason now complete, we’re just two weeks away from regular-season Vikings football.

NFL teams have to trim their rosters to 53 by Tuesday afternoon, and the Vikings will have some very difficult decisions that we’ll be watching. However, the roster is mostly set and the new season is almost here.

The next game for the purple and gold will be the Sept. 8 opener at the New York Giants.