09-30-2019, 04:33 PM
Just some miscellaneous thoughts:
- Noun versus verb. I have been thinking a lot about the word "scheme." Zimmer has his defensive scheme that he has used his entire career. The Vikes are now adopting the zone blocking scheme that dates back to the Broncos glory years. Both schemes are successful. My problem is that the Vikes seem so happy with their schemes, that the Vikings never seem to scheme for the other team. It basically is the view that if we execute our scheme, we should win. The Vikes don't morph to meet the challenges of the opposition. They may stress some elements of their schemes over others, but they stay true to their scheme. For instance, in this game, the Vikes played soft, gave the Bears receivers a lot of cushion, and were burned by it. The really good teams have enough flexibility in their scheme to properly game plan for the opposition. Think about this, the Bears played on Monday night and they still had a better game plan than the Vikings -- even with a bunch of unexpected missing starters. This gets to something I readily admit stealing from Twitter: since Zimmer became coach, including playoffs, the Vikings are 13-28 against teams that had a winning record coming into the game.
- Game Performance. As I have never watched a Vikings practice, this is total speculation, but I feel the coaching staff totally overvalues how players perform in practice over how they perform in games. Also, when a coaching staff has been around for a number of years, it tends to feel loyalty for certain players and those players may get preferential treatment. The exception is the Patriots who seem always to get rid a player maybe a year early than a year late. I guess what I am saying is I am losing confidence in this regime properly judging player talent.
- Chase Daniel. This is a typical problem with the Vikings dating back for years -- when they face a backup or rookie quarterback, they struggle. They seem to take a sigh of relief when Trubisky went out and then Daniels marched the Bears down the field for a touchdown. This really is troubling and it shows a sign of lack of winning character. When Daniel came in, the Vikes should have turned up the pressure rather than let him get comfortable. Not a killer instinct but a conservative instinct oor even an over confidence. Whatever it is, it originates from the coaching staff.
- Quarterback of the future. As I look back at the last few drafts, I wish every draft pick used on a special teams specialist (kicker, punter, long snapper) was used instead on taking a flyer on a quarterback.
