05-03-2023, 04:41 PM
Quote: @"pattersaur" said:
The running game is the chicken vs the egg. Did it suck because of Cook or was it better then it would have been because of Cook?@"MaroonBells" said:
There’s reason for optimism as you laid out, but I am worried about the run game. It wasn’t any good last year and now apparently we’re getting rid of Dalvin. I’m not sure how that fixes anything.@"supafreak84" said:
I think we're doing what every other team in the NFL is doing, which is trying to build the best roster possible with the resources at our disposal. I know you think we should blow it all up so we can be the Commanders for a decade, but a 13-win team who won the North last year with good, young players like JJ, TJH, Darrisaw, O'Neill, Asamoah and Hunter was never a candidate to do that.@"comet52" said:
I was listening to NFL radio this morning with Soloman Wilcots and former Patriot RB James White. The topic was naming their top 5 teams in each conference post draft. When it got to the NFC, they both had the same teams, just in a slightly different order; Eagles, Seahawks, Cowboys, 49ers and Lions. While both liked the Addison selection, neither liked the Vikings offseason. I tend to concur with their projection and would probably throw the Giants in there ahead of the Vikings as well.@"supafreak84" said:
Hard to get a "big" draft out of our weak batch of picks in a really weak draft class . Still, the proclivity for smallish guys is a head scratcher to me and I would not take a WR2 with a first round pick.@"StickyBun" said:
It doesn't get talked about because his roster contributions last season outside of the mid-season Hockenson trade were nonexistent. We got nothing from his draft unless you want to count Ingram, whom at one point of the season was the lowest rated guard in the league. His trades were busts and nobody cares about 13 wins and a north title when we got bounced (and predictably so) at home in the first round of the playoffs. My neighbor Bob, who is a mailman, could have navigated the same type of offseason. For someone who is allegedly some whizz kid and smarter than everyone else, I have yet to see it. That's why I say he needed a big draft to erase some of the stink in his handling of last offseason. Did it happen? I don't know. I thought it was an average draft which will depend a ton on Addison and what kind of impact he can make.@"supafreak84" said:
Let's face it, Kwesi was an outside the box, taking a chance kind of hire in the first place. I'm just not a believer in handing the keys over to a guy who wasn't a former player or has a scouting background and I was not in favor of his hire. His first offseason was an almost total bust between signing guys who made little to no impact on a defense that was one of the worst units in the league from a talent standpoint or making trades that didn't work out (Reagor, Blacklock). Zadarius was good for half a season, got injured which is his M.O., and is on his way out the door here at some point. Kwesi was absolutely fleeced repeatedly in draft value in his first draft and the players he selected made almost zero impact, unless we count Ingram's season of average to below average play. If you want to give him credit for hiring KOC, cool, but you also have to acknowledge the decision to bring in Ed Donatell to run the defense and oversee the total transition to a new scheme was just one of theeee worst decisions ever and completely predictable to be the disaster that it was. I thought Kwesi really needed a big draft to overcome the shit show of last offseason and I was okay with this draft. I would have taken some different players at certain spots, but that doesn't mean I didn't like the players that we did select. The bottom line for me is that I just do not agree with the way they do the business of roster building and I'm not sure what the long-term vision is. Kwesi has an uphill battle in trying to manage the Wilf's expectations while trying to keep the roster talented enough to contend. I don't know. This upcoming year is going to be very telling in where this franchise is headed in the future. I don't think this is the year to tell: next year is the year to know. Still working through some previous cap limitations.
13 wins and a NFCN title: never gets talked about by the KAM naysayers. The stuff some of you focus on is very interesting....I guess that's the nice way to put it, lol.
That said, nothing he's done so far has me thinking we're headed up the on-ramp to a title run. The football-by-committee approach of ownership probably precludes that regardless of who the g.m. is. We're supposed to settle for good but never great and keep the revenue flowing like dutiful fans.
So all this once again leads me to....what are we doing? I don't think the Vikings and Kwesi know what they are doing. We are stuck somewhere between trying to appease the expectations of ownership and blowing up the roster on a reset. It's an awful position to be in and I think we are just trying to stay competitive while shuffling the cap and hoping to catch lightning in a bottle at some point.
I think the Vikings are a better team in '23 with Cousins in year two, TJH a full season, Addison, Oliver, all five OLs returning, and several players on defense we didn't have last year, including Murphy, Davenport, Cine, Booth, and Evans...not to mention Brian Flores.
I also don't think our offseason is done, considering there's about $25M in cap space in potential moves for O'Neill, TJH, Cook, Z, etc. We'll see how it ends up, but it should be a good competition between us and the Lions for the title.
If Addison is an improvement over Thielen that would be a welcome surprise. We definitely have playmakers catching the ball, which is exciting.
Either way, its time to try different things for less money.