{"id":270952,"date":"2025-08-08T06:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/270952\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T06:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:14:10","slug":"causing-vikings-throttle-down-to-gear-up-for-texans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/270952\/","title":{"rendered":"Causing &#038; Attacking Tight Windows; Vikings Throttle Down to Gear Up for Texans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here are three observations presented by <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mneye.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Minnesota Eye Consultants<\/a>, the Proud LASIK Partner of the Minnesota Vikings:<\/p>\n<p>While ample pressure by Minnesota&#8217;s defense has been a theme through training camp practices, it&#8217;s often been backed up by coverage that is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.<\/p>\n<p>That held true Thursday as Vikings defenders quickly clamped down on a handful of accurate passes.<\/p>\n<p>Linebacker Blake Cashman, who intercepted McCarthy on Wednesday, nullified an early target for tight end Josh Oliver during a 7-on-7 period. Oliver&#8217;s tight end buddy T.J. Hockenson settled the score, though.<\/p>\n<p>Cashman was in coverage, again, when McCarthy roped a throw to Hockenson up the right seam. The two-time Pro Bowler&#8217;s hair flipped in the air as he elevated above the rim to make a sweet catch.<\/p>\n<p>In a red zone period, McCarthy put some oomph behind a short, inside throw to Jordan Addison. The receiver reeled it in despite sticky defense by cornerback Jeff Okudah.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after, Harrison Smith made a play that caused onlooking media members to do a double take.<\/p>\n<p>Reacting from his safety alignment in the heart of the end zone, the 36-year-old Smith brisked into a late-developing window and laid out like a 20-something-year-old to bat away a ball intended for Nailor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are three observations presented by Minnesota Eye Consultants, the Proud LASIK Partner of the Minnesota Vikings: While&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[14288,7,221,253,2368,14289,1025,31439,6,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-270952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-3-observations-story","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-texans","12":"tag-houstontexans","13":"tag-news-3-observations","14":"tag-news-index","15":"tag-news-training-camp","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114991678663551987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}