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MNF - Vikings vs Seahawks


League_Champion
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Unfortunately my preseason predictions were spot on about the Vikings.  That the O line would be our nemesis, once again for the 3rd consecutive year, and that Cousins was not worth a big contract.  Cousins has never won big games, he rarely if ever "wins" a game for you.  Mobility is average to below average, not creative, poor pocket awareness at times and gets the ball stripped at an alarming rate.  Defillipo may have a short tenure.  Our coach and GM's seats may be heating up as well.  The GM is who I especially fault, no excuse not to upgrade that line year after year and the Cousins signing was a poor move. Defillipo's play calling has not been good.  

Edited by purplemonster
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5 hours ago, purplemonster said:

Unfortunately my preseason predictions were spot on about the Vikings.  That the O line would be our nemesis, once again for the 3rd consecutive year, and that Cousins was not worth a big contract.  Cousins has never won big games, he rarely if ever "wins" a game for you.  Mobility is average to below average, not creative, poor pocket awareness at times and gets the ball stripped at an alarming rate.  Defillipo may have a short tenure.  Our coach and GM's seats may be heating up as well.  The GM is who I especially fault, no excuse not to upgrade that line year after year and the Cousins signing was a poor move. Defillipo's play calling has not been good.  

 

And I was totally wrong. I thought John DiFillipo was a nice hire and that Cousins would put them over the top. He just cannot win a big game. I don't know what it is. 

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1 hour ago, League_Champion said:

 

And I was totally wrong. I thought John DiFillipo was a nice hire and that Cousins would put them over the top. He just cannot win a big game. I don't know what it is

I think the thing that's confusing about cousins is he can make some very good plays and look very good doing it. But he makes catastrophic errors for your team. In particular fumbling. And I think he's afraid to throw the ball downfield at times and take chances.  He's not particularly great at scrambling or throwing on the run either. He never runs so defenses don't account for him.  Deflippo's play calling has seemed to be pretty bad to me, but I understand he isn't being helped by a terrible offensive line and a quarterback who isn't willing or can't scramble that well or sense pressure.

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49 minutes ago, purplemonster said:

I think the thing that's confusing about cousins is he can make some very good plays and look very good doing it. But he makes catastrophic errors for your team. In particular fumbling. And I think he's afraid to throw the ball downfield at times and take chances.  He's not particularly great at scrambling or throwing on the run either. He never runs so defenses don't account for him.  Deflippo's play calling has seemed to be pretty bad to me, but I understand he isn't being helped by a terrible offensive line and a quarterback who isn't willing or can't scramble that well or sense pressure.

 

Your right. Cousin's is hard to figure out. I expected a lot more from him. 

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2 hours ago, purplemonster said:

I think the thing that's confusing about cousins is he can make some very good plays and look very good doing it. But he makes catastrophic errors for your team. In particular fumbling. And I think he's afraid to throw the ball downfield at times and take chances.  He's not particularly great at scrambling or throwing on the run either. He never runs so defenses don't account for him.  Deflippo's play calling has seemed to be pretty bad to me, but I understand he isn't being helped by a terrible offensive line and a quarterback who isn't willing or can't scramble that well or sense pressure.

I think your Cousins analysis is spot on. I'm not sure if he has bad awareness in the pocket, or what, but he fumbles all the time. Like you said, it's alarming. He also seems to get his passes batted down by the D-line at a significantly higher rate than I've ever seen in the NFL. It happens several times a game. 

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Hindsight is 20/20.  It's easy to say that Cousins was a bad signing, but the bottom line is that the Vikings weren't winning a SB with Case Keenum.  And, when pretty much all of the other pieces are in place to do so, you can't really put a price tag on upgrading the most important position on the field.  The quarterback.  Cousins has been Pro Bowl caliber at times, and shaky at other times.  People seem to be quick to forget how the first half of this season unfolded for the Vikes.  Cousins repeatedly put the Vikings in a position to win games... and they either did (win), should have won (but the defense let them down), or they tied/lost because the kicker(s) couldn't make a stinking chip shot FG.  Even the Buffalo game (which, let's face it, is the one game that was really costly and outright embarrassing) I blame mostly on the defense.  Buffalo has a decent defense, and it was not a surprise that their pass rush bothered Cousins all game.  But, that is a game in which the defense needed to step up and win a defensive battle for them, and they simply couldn't stop what has otherwise been an anemic Buffalo offense.  They made a rookie QB, who has mostly looked mediocre to poor the rest of the season, look like Steve Young.  

 

All of that said, I don't think you can blame one piece for the position the Vikings are in.  The defense sucked the first half of the year.  Plain and simple.  The last half, the offense has struggled, due to play-calling, lack of a consistent running game, inability to pick up what should be easy first downs (3rd and 1, 4th and 1, etc.), among other things.  Meanwhile, all season, Zimmer just sort of shrugs his shoulders in post-game press conferences and says that they should be doing better.  At some point, the lack of doing better needs to fall on the shoulders of the head coach.  And part of me can't help but wonder if he's not just one of those guys who is a really good coordinator, but not such a great head coach.  

 

Ultimately, I remember thinking months ago that the Vikings would have little room for error this season, due to their schedule. With most of their tough non-divisional games being on the road (NE, PHI, SEA, LAR), I felt that the league certainly didn't do them any favors.  It put them in a position where they needed to take care of business in games they should win... home games against Buffalo and even the Saints were games they needed in order to win the division.  They didn't do that, and now they're looking at a wild card berth at best.  I expect that they'll probably beat MIA and DET, and then lose twice to CHI.  Shore up the offensive line in the off-season, and give Zimmer and company one more year.  Whether or not the OC is a part of that plan, I'm not sure.  But, I do think an improved O-Line would make his play-calling look better, for sure.  

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9 hours ago, purplemonster said:

Unfortunately my preseason predictions were spot on about the Vikings.  That the O line would be our nemesis, once again for the 3rd consecutive year, and that Cousins was not worth a big contract.  Cousins has never won big games, he rarely if ever "wins" a game for you.  Mobility is average to below average, not creative, poor pocket awareness at times and gets the ball stripped at an alarming rate.  Defillipo may have a short tenure.  Our coach and GM's seats may be heating up as well.  The GM is who I especially fault, no excuse not to upgrade that line year after year and the Cousins signing was a poor move. Defillipo's play calling has not been good.  

 

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42 minutes ago, Gopher said:

Hindsight is 20/20.  It's easy to say that Cousins was a bad signing, but the bottom line is that the Vikings weren't winning a SB with Case Keenum.  And, when pretty much all of the other pieces are in place to do so, you can't really put a price tag on upgrading the most important position on the field.  The quarterback.  Cousins has been Pro Bowl caliber at times, and shaky at other times.  People seem to be quick to forget how the first half of this season unfolded for the Vikes.  Cousins repeatedly put the Vikings in a position to win games... and they either did (win), should have won (but the defense let them down), or they tied/lost because the kicker(s) couldn't make a stinking chip shot FG.  Even the Buffalo game (which, let's face it, is the one game that was really costly and outright embarrassing) I blame mostly on the defense.  Buffalo has a decent defense, and it was not a surprise that their pass rush bothered Cousins all game.  But, that is a game in which the defense needed to step up and win a defensive battle for them, and they simply couldn't stop what has otherwise been an anemic Buffalo offense.  They made a rookie QB, who has mostly looked mediocre to poor the rest of the season, look like Steve Young.  

 

All of that said, I don't think you can blame one piece for the position the Vikings are in.  The defense sucked the first half of the year.  Plain and simple.  The last half, the offense has struggled, due to play-calling, lack of a consistent running game, inability to pick up what should be easy first downs (3rd and 1, 4th and 1, etc.), among other things.  Meanwhile, all season, Zimmer just sort of shrugs his shoulders in post-game press conferences and says that they should be doing better.  At some point, the lack of doing better needs to fall on the shoulders of the head coach.  And part of me can't help but wonder if he's not just one of those guys who is a really good coordinator, but not such a great head coach.  

 

Ultimately, I remember thinking months ago that the Vikings would have little room for error this season, due to their schedule. With most of their tough non-divisional games being on the road (NE, PHI, SEA, LAR), I felt that the league certainly didn't do them any favors.  It put them in a position where they needed to take care of business in games they should win... home games against Buffalo and even the Saints were games they needed in order to win the division.  They didn't do that, and now they're looking at a wild card berth at best.  I expect that they'll probably beat MIA and DET, and then lose twice to CHI.  Shore up the offensive line in the off-season, and give Zimmer and company one more year.  Whether or not the OC is a part of that plan, I'm not sure.  But, I do think an improved O-Line would make his play-calling look better, for sure.  

 

Good analysis, the play calling is definitely bad, there was a 3rd and 1 after Cousins ran a sneak on short yardage where they tried to get a big play instead of just getting the first down. Dumb call, struggling offense in a close low scoring game, get the 1st down keep the drive going. 

 

Some of what you say about Zimmer reminds me of Hue Jackson, it was always "we should have done better" sometimes he'd even say things like "we should have run the ball more" then have the same problem the next game, even when he was in charge of the offense. I agree some guys just aren't cut out to be head coach, for whatever reasons. 

 

ETA  Hmm so Flip was fired after the game, well maybe he isn't that hot young offensive guru people think he is. 

Edited by stevegrab
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No, Cousins is not definitely the reason the Vikings are bad. The reason they aren't that good is mostly the OL.  Cousins is pretty avg. Elite thrower at times but does many other things poorly. Keenum last year was kind of the opposite.  Intangibles were great but not a terrific thrower.  For our broken OL he's likely better, the same, or very close.  

 

The issue is you are never one player away.  That leads you into poor decisions, paying too much.  That same ethos is what led the Vikes to one of the worst sports trades of all time, Herschel Walker.  The prevailing opinion at that time was Herschel was going to win us a Super Bowl bc all other pieces were in place.  Nope, and we lost top draft picks for many years afterwards fueling the Dallas dynasty. 

 

Much to the Vikings chagrin they found out this year that they weren't one player away, they were 5-6 players away bc they didn't have depth and talent at certain positions and were just scraping by before. 

 

Anyhow, it's more complicated than that and we still haven't talked HC or OC. And I agree Zim should be a DC, not a HC. But that"s plenty.

Edited by purplemonster
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This season can still be salvaged. There is still a ton of talent on this team and some fresh play-calling will help. Cook is starting to look like pre-injury Cook. So their path in the playoffs will be as a wild card but they're still in the hunt. It could be worse. Consider the Packers. 

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1 hour ago, Tripleshot said:

This season can still be salvaged. There is still a ton of talent on this team and some fresh play-calling will help. Cook is starting to look like pre-injury Cook. So their path in the playoffs will be as a wild card but they're still in the hunt. It could be worse. Consider the Packers. 

 

I think the Vikings still get the Wildcard. The NFC is pretty mediocre. 

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