Bears @ Vikings

[Zanary]

There is no doubt he will not even be nominated for the HOF and highly likely he will not even win another playoff game. He had 6 years with very good talent. He is just an average QB. He is not better than Tommy Kramer, Brad Johnson, Jeff George, Jim McMahon. or Rich Gannon who played in a Superbowl.

When real tangibles slap your "subjective" (laughably slanted) considerations around, it'll keep being reality > your obvious Kirko issues.

You talk about the talent, which is fair...as is a hateful head coach, multiple consecutive years with defenses rated in the 30s, an interior o-line rated near those defenses, and an unfortunate injury when he was in the top 2 in the NFL in TDs/Yards.

That's not "average", and claiming otherwise is swimming in a lake of bulls**t.

[FLVike]

When real tangibles slap your "subjective" (laughably slanted) considerations around, it'll keep being reality > your obvious Kirko issues.

You talk about the talent, which is fair...as is a hateful head coach, multiple consecutive years with defenses rated in the 30s, an interior o-line rated near those defenses, and an unfortunate injury when he was in the top 2 in the NFL in TDs/Yards.

That's not "average", and claiming otherwise is swimming in a lake of bulls**t.

Where would you rank him?

[Zanary]

I'd rank him anywhere from 3-5, because getting to the NFCC game means nothing if you put up a 41-0 loss...after already being every bit as disastrous as impressive. I pulled hard for Daunte early on, but the fumbles, picks, and decisions seemed to get worse...right up to his injury.

Warren Moon was amazing, solid team around him, but they practically defined our "get to the playoffs and choke" history.

Tommy always had sort of incomplete teams around him, but he also had a huge drinking issue that was no secret.

Fran is Fran, obviously. Joe Kapp really wasn't a great QB by most standards, but he defined toughness.

Brad Johnson didn't play in a Superbowl for US, so...I dismiss that. He played for us twice, I don't hand out awards for his best efforts going elsewhere.

All that said..."average" is still a complete BS statement. 3rd overall in passing yards in team history, despite all the line/coaching issues...that's f**ktons above average.

2nd overall in passing TDs.

"Average"? Nope.

He's not best, but inarguably top 5.

[purplefaithful]

The massive special teams breakdown that handed Bears All-Pro Devin Duvernay a 56-yard kickoff return to set up Chicago’s walk-off 48-yard field goal in Sunday’s 19-17 Vikings loss is something Vikings special teams coordinator Matt Daniels had been warning his players about.

“All week, we talked about Duvernay catching the ball in that corner [to the right] and going to the wide side of the field [on the left],” said special-teamer Tavierre Thomas, the widest defender to the left of the kick-coverage formation. “All I can say is guys got to do their job and trust the coaching.”

Three Vikings — Ivan Pace Jr. and rookies Austin Keys and Tai Felton — abandoned their lanes on the far left side of the front line and over-pursued to the right as Duvernay cut hard the other way and slipped through a big gap between rookie Tyler Batty to the inside and Thomas to the outside.

“There’s supposed to be two guys between me and Tavierre,” Batty said. “We just need everyone staying in their lanes and netting the field the way we should.”

Eric Wilson did a nice job chasing Duvernay down at the Vikings’ 40, but it didn’t matter with 42 seconds left and the Bears already in field goal range.

“That return,” said linebacker Blake Cashman, “was soul-crushing.”

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Another 16 incompletions in 32 attempts dropped McCarthy’s completion percentage to 52.9. Ponder’s was 54.3 his rookie season in 2011.

However bad McCarthy was, the defense can’t or shouldn’t point fingers. Cashman didn’t when asked if the defense played well enough to win.

“Short answer, no,” Cashman said. “I would like to see us start taking the ball away. I know offenses are coming out big and running on us and not putting the ball in harm’s way a whole lot, but by any means necessary we need to create takeaways.”

The Vikings lost the turnover battle (2-0) for the sixth time this season. For the fifth time, they didn’t have a takeaway. The team that led the NFL with 24 interceptions a year ago came into Week 11 ranked 28th with three picks. 

The Vikings’ nine takeaways — five of which came in one game — ranked 22nd heading into Week 11. 

Williams wasn’t exactly stellar for the Bears with 16 incompletions himself, but he was supported by two interceptions — the Bears’ league-leading 21st and 22nd takeaways.

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The good news is the Vikings had only two penalties for 15 yards a week after having 13 for 102 yards, including eight false starts in a home loss to Baltimore.

The bad news is they still had a damaging false start, called on left tackle Christian Darrisaw on third-and-2 during the Vikings’ first drive of the second half. 

One of McCarthy’s worst throws of the day — and that’s saying something — came one snap later when the jittery young QB threw maybe 20 feet high on a short out route to Justin Jefferson to force a punt while trailing 13-3.

Coach Kevin O’Connell described the changes he had to make to McCarthy’s cadence after the Ravens game: “We were on a smooth, quick cadence, which in a lot of ways is essentially walking up to the line of scrimmage and saying, ‘set-hut’ — not to give all of our information out there,” he said.

“It looked like we were navigating our way through the day without any of them after the work that we put in. So that one was very frustrating.”

[purplefaithful]

PFF grades yesterday:

Will Fries … 77.8.
Blake Brandel … 76.8.
Donovan Jackson … 73.7.