The 49ers starting offense had its best showing of the preseason on Sunday night as Brian Hoyer threw a pair of touchdowns on the team’s first two possessions.
Those drives covered 167 yards in 15 plays and left members of the Vikings defense reaching for negative descriptions of their effort. Safety Harrison Smith went with “terrible” while defensive end Everson Griffen opted for “garbage.”
“There were a lot of mental errors on the field,” Griffen said, via the Pioneer Press. “We just need to correct it. Thank God it’s preseason.”
The Vikings forced punts on the final three 49ers possessions of the first half, but the offense’s failure to score points in the first two quarters underscored the danger of starting games so slowly on the defensive side of the ball. While the Vikings hope their offense will be better than it was last season, there’s little question that they’re going to need their defense to be stronger than it was on Sunday if they’re going to improve on last year’s record.
