Advertisement

Vikings have an Edge Department onslaught with six sacks at Miami

chris tomasson, pioneer press
·3 min read
1

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Call it a meeting of the Edge Department.

After the Vikings defeated the Miami Dolphins 24-16 on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium, edge rushers Za’Darius Smith, Danielle Hunter and Patrick Jones II lined up and held an interview session together.

The Vikings had six sacks in the game, five by players who dub themselves members of the Edge Department. Smith and Jones each had two and Hunter one, with linebacker Jordan Hicks getting the other sack.

“It feels great,” Smith said. “We’re 5-1. We harped all week about getting pressure on the quarterback. We’d been lacking a little bit on that, but (Sunday) we brought pressure and, as you can see, the world saw it.”

The onslaught started after Skylar Thompson started at quarterback for the Dolphins. The Dolphins’ third-stringer, he got the start with Tua Tagovailoa out with a concussion and backup Teddy Bridgewater, who suffered a concussion Oct. 9 against the New York Jets, unable to practice much during the week.

After Thompson was sacked once, he was lost for the game early in the second quarter with a thumb injury. In came Bridgewater, who played for the Vikings from 2014-17, and he was dumped five times.

“The Edge Department, they came through,” linebacker Eric Kendricks said. “They handled their business and got some pressure and got some sacks. That was huge for us.”

Smith and Hunter are usually the guys dropping quarterbacks for the Edge Department. But on Sunday, Jones joined the party. With D.J. Wonnum out because of an illness, Jones, a second-year pro, got more playing time than usual — and he delivered with the first two sacks of his career.

“(Jones) had a look in his eye this whole trip,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said. “It’s hard to explain. But I remember seeing him (Saturday) night, came down in the elevator with him today at the hotel, and he was just a man on a mission.”

With Wonnum out, Jones was fired up to take on a bigger role.

“It feels good to go out there and get some sacks,” Jones said. “We were able to (feed) off each other. … D.J. was gone, so I knew it was my turn to go out there and step it up. And I knew that with (Hunter) and (Smith) out there, I was going to go out there and eat with them boys.”

Hunter said it was about “rushing together as a unit.” He said it helped having some familiarity with Bridgewater, who was his teammate with the Vikings from 2015-17.

“We knew he likes deep balls,” Hunter said of the rushers getting more time to go after Bridgewater.

Bridgewater, who completed 23 of 34 passes for 329 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, didn’t deny it was a frustrating loss.

“Things just didn’t work out for us,” he said.

When Smith signed with the Vikings as a free agent in March, he said he wanted the pass rushers to resurrect the motto of “Meet at the Quarterback,” a slogan the Vikings’ Purple People Eaters used from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. He said that Sunday’s performance helps in that regard.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “But we’ve got to do some more work. We’ve still got a long way to go as a football team and as an Edge Department, and we’re going to keep chopping the wood and getting better every day.”

Related Articles