Minnesota made some timely defensive stops to get the upset win Sunday over Green Bay.
But it wasn’t all sacks on Aaron Rodgers. The Vikings made their share of mistakes in Week 8, like when Gladney gave up the outside to Davante Adams for the Packers’ first touchdown.
Minnesota coach Mike Zimmer talked about that play in particular with reporters recently:
“The first touchdown on Gladney: 17 (Adams) is a guy we’re obviously paying a whole bunch of attention to,” Zimmer said, via Vikings team reporter Eric Smith. “He’s lined up on the outside shoulder of him. He’s got Anthony Harris on the inside. The ball is snapped, [Adams] gives him a little shake, [Gladney] looks inside and then he gets beat to the outside, where that’s where he should’ve been all the way. There’s a lot of little things like that I’m trying so hard to get these young kids to understand not only about their position, but the guy they’re playing against, where their help is, you know, it just makes it tough.”
It should be pointed out that Gladney made his share of nice plays during the game, especially when he kept Robert Tonyan in bounds to run time off the clock in the fourth quarter. It was somewhat due to the Packers not being set to spike the ball, that play ended up running a lot of time off the clock. He showed his physicality and game awareness there. Now he just needs to put it all together.