Both teams looked bad, the difference was the Niners had Hyde rolling, and the refs missed a ton of Niner penalties (while still calling a ton on both teams).
The Niners might not have won had that blatant PI been called and the ball placed at the 1, and conversely on Hyde's first TD run, when he reversed the field Boldin bear hugged the defender that could of stopped him (and the refs missed it). The game is completely different if those things are correctly called. Likely +7 for Vikings and -4 for 49ers, and then the horrible Vikings aren't pressing at the end.
Bridgewater was not seeing the open receivers all day long. He was air mailing passes left and right... but on the Hail Mary threw it about 20-25 yards short. He also was throwing short of the line on 4th down... expecting a guy to run a few more yards.
Their OL looks like a hot mess, letting guys run free all night long on the interior. They couldn't handle the edge rush.. even if it wasn't very fast. This obviously made Bridgewater's night even worse. Mental note: Pressure Bridgewater, he can't handle it.
AP didn't get much room, that he was getting positive yards at all is a testament to how much he still has left. Why they didn't get him more involved, especially with Bridgewater playing like crap and their pass blocking woes occurring is beyond me.
Their defense was getting shredded by Hyde. They couldn't tackle Kaep and he gained a few first downs and got absolutely blow'd up on one run. He still goes head first too often, and one of these times he's going to pay for it.
Both teams were committing a bunch of stupid penalties. Commentary was right when they said this was beginning of the preseason stuff. All those penalties and the refs missed a TON.
Vikings punted the ball, and it was respectably downed at a good spot, and the Vikings chose to re-kick and almost gave up a punt return for a TD (if not for penalties). But the penalties didn't seem to really effect the return since the punt came down quickly and Ellington took it to the sideline and not up the middle. So the Vikings horrible coaching decision got bailed out.
Kaep still looks like crap, but he's always been able to roll out and hit the short pass, and they did that all night long. Vikings D acted like they've never seen a stretch play. Just like the Vikings OL were letting Niners defenders free, the flip side was the Vikings D had huge gaping holes opened up to let Hyde run scot-free through. With a head of steam, good luck bringing Hyde down.
The early reports of Bowman having slowed down are incorrect.
The game was pretty horrible all around, but one bad team had to win. Yeah maybe these guys clean up some of this and improve, but both teams have a long ways to go to even sniff the playoffs.
Here's a interesting thought, the Seahawks are all alone at the bottom of the NFC west.
