The Vikings. Now I know why I quick caring 25 years ago

Queenswake, that was close to my exact statement on this forum and to my friends when we were QB shopping. Fix the real problem first. Get a real O line established, then a great QB will WANT to play here!

I’ll never forget the pit in my stomach as I watched the news coverage of Cousins and his family getting off of Wilf’s private plane when he came here to sign. It was like royalty or coverage of the president. That’s not how you build a team.

Hindsight. It has a perfect record.

Not a lot of noise coming out of vikings organization,
Hindsight allows management to weigh past failures and choose future decisions.

Great coaches aren’t insecure. It will be interesting to see who Zimmer hires to be his OC. I’m beginning to think he has a complex. Pelesaro is reporting both Stepanski & the D-Coordinator are going to get head coaching interviews.

does that open the dooor for Marvin Lewis to be Zimmers D-Coordinator?

Marvin Lewis has been stealing money for 10 years. I don’t think he will coach again unless it’s a head coaching job.

queenswake wrote:

The Vikes could’ve taken Case or Bridgewater or Bradford and just gave it a shot this year without the overt goal of heading to the SB.

Surely you must be joking with Bradford. He’s never made it through an NFL season without injury. The Cardinals made the mistake of signing him and I think he lasted two games.

Ben Rodgers wrote:

Well “Cousins” is not horrible. However with that 84 million we gave him, we should have spent it on o-line help. U could have Rodgers, Brady, Brees and they would still get killed behind this horrible line. Should have Given Keemun like a 1-2 year deal and then boast that o-line. Cousins needs talented players and time to make throws. He is 2-24 against teams with winning records. Front office better be smart come draft time and get some good offensive linemen instead of yet another defensive player or a WR bust

Case most likely will not be starting any place next year and if he does it will be short stint. We got the best we could of done. I love Teddy but the unknown with his knee is what you can’t look past. Case would not of been any better last year just worked out and now he had the season he usually has. Case was not the answer.

I think it’s pretty amazing what Cousins did this year given the offensive line. I know that the pieces ‘didn’t fall right’ in the draft, and the Elflein/Easton injuries to start the year didn’t help, but that’s just no excuse to not beef up the offensive line somehow.

What happens when your offensive line can’t even get a guy like Dalvin Cook enough room to pickup 3-4 yards? Well you are forced to pass.

What happens when the defense knows you are forced to pass? They tee off on your offensive line.

What happens when the defense tees off on your terrible O-line? They consistently get pressure with a 3 or 4 man rush.

What happens when the defense gets consistent pressure with a 3 or 4 man rush and knows they will get to the QB in less than 2 seconds?
The offense is forced to run quick developing pass plays so your QB can throw the ball immediately.

What happens when the offense is forced to run quick developing pass plays so your QB can throw the ball immediately?
The defense can double team guys like Thielen/Diggs or sit and poach those quick slants/sideline routes, making the QB take a sack, or force an INT.

Unfortunately, Cousins is a really good pocket passer(4000 yards, 70% completion), but he can’t escape the rush like Keenum was able to do. I also get the sense Cousins isn’t a ‘take the hit to get the pass off’ QB like Favre was. I can’t fault him for that, but he seemed to get more and more nervous as the season went on, and wasn’t comfortable standing in there and taking a shot to give his WRs an extra half second to get open.

Our defense actually played admirably given we had a lot of missed time/regression from Griffen/Sendejo/Kendricks/Rhodes/Hughes.

I honestly believe the O-line is 90% of the problem here, there’s just no way a team with so much skill on offense gets shut down like we did the last 5 games of the year. Cousins/Thielen/Diggs/Cook is probably a top 3 combo of skill players in the league.