Lol. Didn't they say the Vikings hung on too long when they were here?
I guess we'll find out if they develop into something elsewhere. All I know is, when we hired Sparano I was not impressed. He had no track record indicating that he ever took an oline and made it great. It's clear the line has gone nowhere with him in charge. I guess the injuries are the excuse at this point.
Quote: @comet52 said:
I guess we'll find out if they develop into something elsewhere. All I know is, when we hired Sparano I was not impressed. He had no track record indicating that he ever took an oline and made it great. It's clear the line has gone nowhere with him in charge. I guess the injuries are the excuse at this point.
Although I agree that Sporano was a questionable hire, it really is a combination of poor scouting, lack of talent, and little to no player development from our coaches that are contributing to the futility over the past several years. What is the one common denominator in all of it? Spielman. Way too many bad draft choices under his tenure until this year with Elflein and Isadora who looks to have potential.
I really hope this line can perform, and the chemistry we saw with Elflein and Easton vs. Seattle continues during the regular season. If we can't score more points per game than what we have been doing the past two seasons, we are dead in the water.
regarding sparano... isnt it a bit early to tell with him? I mean last year has to be a throw away, with the ridiculous amount of injuries that his unit faced, to determine his success, or lack of, as an OL coach with the Vikes. granted he has a history to go off of, but as far as what hes done here to date IMO its to early to say for sure.
Quote: @JimmyinSD said:
regarding sparano... isnt it a bit early to tell with him? I mean last year has to be a throw away, with the ridiculous amount of injuries that his unit faced, to determine his success, or lack of, as an OL coach with the Vikes. granted he has a history to go off of, but as far as what hes done here to date IMO its to early to say for sure.
That's a fair point. It's not just Sporano, it's the entire offensive coaching staff led by Shurmur. They need to figure out how to be less predictable, more explosive, and average more than 17 points per game like they did after the bye week. I threw out the Bears game as the one outlier since it was the last game of the season and neither team had anything to play for.
Quote: @TBro said:
@ JimmyinSD said:
regarding sparano... isnt it a bit early to tell with him? I mean last year has to be a throw away, with the ridiculous amount of injuries that his unit faced, to determine his success, or lack of, as an OL coach with the Vikes. granted he has a history to go off of, but as far as what hes done here to date IMO its to early to say for sure.
That's a fair point. It's not just Sporano, it's the entire offensive coaching staff led by Shurmur. They need to figure out how to be less predictable, more explosive, and average more than 17 points per game like they did after the bye week. I threw out the Bears game as the one outlier since it was the last game of the season and neither team had anything to play for.
i certainly cant hold Shurmur accountable either, he was handed the job and told to call plays from another mans play book, pretty much a different style and philosophy and no OL to work with.
it will be better, historically speaking it cant really get worse can it?
Quote: @TBro said:
Both of them shouldn't have been drafted in the first place. It's bad enough that Spielman doesn't like to draft Olineman early, but when you consistently whiff on mid to late round lineman who are long term projects, you
have to overpay for marginal free agents to fill in for those failures. Look at his picks after the 2012 draft where Kalil was the only lineman taken.
2013 Jeff Baca 6th Round
2013 Travis Bond 7th Round
2014 David Yankey 5th Round
2015 TJ Clemmings 4th Round
2015 Tyrus Thompson 6th Round
2015 Austin Shepherd 7th Round
2016 Willie Beavers 4th Round
If you include Kalil, not one of those lineman remain with the Vikings. That's 5 years in a row before 2017 that we have nothing to show for with the Olineman Spielman selected. If any of us performed like that in our jobs, we would have all been fired by now.
Hopefully Elflein and Isadora pan out. Ricky has to get lucky at some point.
How has Ricky been this bad? Is it all him? Does it fall on Tony? Zim? The scouts? The only consistent factor is Ricky. But how can he truly not get one guy to pan out over all this time? As was mentioned, SOMEONE has to pan out sooner or later!!!
Grabbing beavers was just stupid, Clemmings was all potential and was a risk but was hyped up too, the rest were late rounders but you think one at least sticks eventually.
For Ricky to last this long you'd think he'd be doing something spectacular, and he has done well on the DL, but has struggled at QB (although Teddy's knee wasn't his fault and he was developing, but the rest of the time he's been here hasn't been special) and OL (which has just simply been garbage for a decade), two of the primary positions to build a contender.
Quote: @Neptizzle said:
@ TBro said:
Both of them shouldn't have been drafted in the first place. It's bad enough that Spielman doesn't like to draft Olineman early, but when you consistently whiff on mid to late round lineman who are long term projects, you
have to overpay for marginal free agents to fill in for those failures. Look at his picks after the 2012 draft where Kalil was the only lineman taken.
2013 Jeff Baca 6th Round
2013 Travis Bond 7th Round
2014 David Yankey 5th Round
2015 TJ Clemmings 4th Round
2015 Tyrus Thompson 6th Round
2015 Austin Shepherd 7th Round
2016 Willie Beavers 4th Round
If you include Kalil, not one of those lineman remain with the Vikings. That's 5 years in a row before 2017 that we have nothing to show for with the Olineman Spielman selected. If any of us performed like that in our jobs, we would have all been fired by now.
Hopefully Elflein and Isadora pan out. Ricky has to get lucky at some point.
How has Ricky been this bad? Is it all him? Does it fall on Tony? Zim? The scouts? The only consistent factor is Ricky. But how can he truly not get one guy to pan out over all this time? As was mentioned, SOMEONE has to pan out sooner or later!!!
Grabbing beavers was just stupid, Clemmings was all potential and was a risk but was hyped up too, the rest were late rounders but you think one at least sticks eventually.
For Ricky to last this long you'd think he'd be doing something spectacular, and he has done well on the DL, but has struggled at QB (although Teddy's knee wasn't his fault and he was developing, but the rest of the time he's been here hasn't been special) and OL (which has just simply been garbage for a decade), two of the primary positions to build a contender.
so Rick was 50/50 with his QB picks Ponder was a failure but Teddy was looking promising. cant really ding him to hard on that one IMO. as far as OL... thats a different matter IMO as far as Ricks concernced, but Tony certainly shouldnt be held accountable for OL drafting under RS, except for maybe the Beavers pick, but who knows who called that one. Zim is Zim, he will learn to be more of a well rounded coach with time, but in todays footall everybody (including coaches) are so specialized so early that how many players and coaches really know much about anything outside of their area of expertise until they become head coaches.
Quote: @JimmyinSD said:
so Rick was 50/50 with his QB picks Ponder was a failure but Teddy was looking promising. cant really ding him to hard on that one IMO. as far as OL... thats a different matter IMO as far as Ricks concernced, but Tony certainly shouldnt be held accountable for OL drafting under RS, except for maybe the Beavers pick, but who knows who called that one. Zim is Zim, he will learn to be more of a well rounded coach with time, but in todays footall everybody (including coaches) are so specialized so early that how many players and coaches really know much about anything outside of their area of expertise until they become head coaches.
Re Spielman's drafts, I think his grade is really hanging on his last 3 #1 picks: Barr, Waynes, and Treadwell. Not one of those currently looks like an unqualified success, and a lot of people would argue that all 3 are entering very critical seasons. He will look much better if 2 or 3 of those take big steps forward - but look awful if a couple bomb.
As for your comment about Zimmer - I don't know if I buy that. Sure, there is specialization, but ambitious young coaches who aspire to head coaching jobs are definitely building their network and planning potential staffing BEFORE they get hired somewhere. He was an NFL assistant for 20 years on 3 teams, and a Coordinator for 13 years - but he never looked across the field and thought, "Hey, so-and-so always has that OL tuned up," or, "My DBs have trouble with WRs coached by whatsisname, he sure knows how to teach route skills", and planned that they could be good coaches to have on his own staff?? It's also hard for me to buy that he did, but his favorites just happened to include Jeff Davidson and George Stewart, and that's why he left so much of Leslie Frazier's staff in place.
That's my biggest worry about Zimmer: he might be a pure defensive specialist. Sometimes I get the impression he would be happier being a DC, too.
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