Kansas City vs. MINNESOTA Selection

ProInfoSports · 08-12-2005, 02:53 PM

Kansas City vs. MINNESOTA Selection

UNDER 43

Minnesota begins life without Randy Moss on the field Friday night, when they host Kansas City in both teams’ preseason opener. Quarterback Daunte Culpepper will be looking for new targets, although top draft choice Troy Williamson is not expected to be in the starting lineup due to a foot injury. Also gone from Minnesota this season is offensive coordinator Scott Linehan, who is now the OC in Miami. Steve Loney, who formerly coached the Viking offensive line, will guide the offense in 2005.

In addition to the shifts on offense, the Vikings will be looking for a change for the better on the defensive side of the football, where they were 26th in the league in scoring defense last year. To that end, the Vikings signed several defensive free agents in the offseason, as well as selecting defensive end Erasmus James with the 18th selection of the first round.

Kansas City will take to the field with a revamped defense of their own. They also acquired some new help for the stop unit through free agency and the draft. In 2005, the Chiefs will be trying to turn around a defensive unit that gave up 27.2 points per game last year, good for 29th in the NFL.

Several key players for both offenses are not expected to suit up, especially on the lines. Minnesota coach Mike Tice wants the team to be more physical this season, so look for them to concentrate on smash-mouth football, which means running the pigskin. They are certainly confident in Daunte Culpepper’s ability to pass the ball. Preseason is for working on weaknesses.

Defense was the glaring weakness for both teams, so that is where each team is putting the most emphasis here. The Chiefs have been talking a lot in their Wisconsin training camp about how they must develop a new more demanding, aggressive, turnover-forcing, almost violent approach if they are ever to turn around their sorry defense of recent years, while Vikings DC, Ted Cottrell, said of his defense after the team's first intra-squad scrimmage, "We're ready to kick some butt."

It all adds up to a low-scoring game with both defenses trying to get some confidence against offenses that should be very vanilla for this game. In addition, we note that KC has played their last SEVEN dome games UNDER the posted total in preseason, and we look for that trend to continue here.