Vikings Notebook: Preseason Game 3

Another preseason game, another win for the Minnesota Vikings. Here’s some news and notes from the game.

On a day when the Minnesota Vikings‘ first units weren’t impressive, the second and third stringers came through delivering a 32-31 victory over the San Francisco 49ers.

With 2:56 left in the game, Rodney Adams returned a punt for 32 yards giving the Vikings great field position from their own 37-yard line. From there, Taylor Heinicke led the team down the field 63 yards for a touchdown before finishing off the 49ers with a 2-yard rush on the two-point conversion. On the play, Heinicke saw that San Francisco covered a screen to Stacy Coley perfectly, so he took off to his right beating a couple defenders to the corner of the end zone.

While Heinicke came through in the clutch, backup quarterback Case Keenum led the Vikings to two scoring drives in the second half. One, a 9-yard screen pass to Rodney Adams, the other, a 16-yard throw to Kyle Carter. Jerick McKinnon scored the other Vikings touchdown on a 108-yard kick return.

The victory was impressive considering the Vikings were down 14-0 at halftime. Sam Bradford and the first string offense were held scoreless on six drives, while the first string defense allowed two touchdowns on the 49ers first two drives. Overall, not a great showing from the first units.

Nevertheless, the Vikings came out with their second victory of the preseason and play their final preseason game Thursday against the Miami Dolphins. In the meantime, let’s look into other news and notes from the Vikings third preseason game.