Quote: @pumpf said:
Blame Cousins all you want... but the difference between last season and the season before it... had nothing to do with the QB. The defense regressed noticeably. But, yeah: blame the QB for that (re: wins and losses).
Good Point. Its not just cousins that needs to play up to his contract, I can think of only one of the High paid Defensive Players who met his contract expectations last year ( Danielle Hunter).
Quote: @kmillard said:
@ pumpf said:
Blame Cousins all you want... but the difference between last season and the season before it... had nothing to do with the QB. The defense regressed noticeably. But, yeah: blame the QB for that (re: wins and losses).
Good Point. Its not just cousins that needs to play up to his contract, I can think of only one of the High paid Defensive Players who met his contract expectations last year ( Danielle Hunter).
Yeah, plus the "Rhodes were open" so much that Zimmer called him out a few weeks back. I know he played through injury, but he needs to learn when to "tag out" and get the rest to heal.
This is a dumb article. I generally do agree with the idea of building
around an elite QB or a cheap QB, but I don’t think that our situation
generally fits into that scenario. We
had a well constructed roster and we were entering into our SB window with our
without a QB. We had a ton of big
contracts, none of whom were restricted by Cousins signing. Our biggest risk is not being able to win
with this roster, before we lose talent to age, injuries, poaching. I think going the cheap QB route is a lot
riskier (purely in terms of winning a SB) than people are making it out to
be. Does it really do you any good to
have a Lamar Jackson or a Trubisky at QB?
If you need to run a rookie contract QB, you need a stacked roster to
win a SB. Getting a stacked roster is much harder than just getting a rookie QB and bringing in some FAs.
I really like PFF’s take on the matter. I think for most teams, you just need to keep
drafting QBs until you find an elite one.
It needs to be part of your culture so that a Stafford/Cousins type guy
doesn’t get butt-hurt when you bring in another guy every 2 years. I also think you need have a strong
development plan for your QBs. Your
ultimate goal needs to be in developing your QBs into elite QBs. Looking at our team, we’ve had a very good
defensive development strategy, but not the same level of coaching competency
on offense. Hopefully we can keep Kubiak
for a while and retain a high level coach for a long time, even if Stefanski
gets poached after a year or two. Having
that top level coach for multiple years opposite of your HC is huge.
Quote: @Jor-El said:
@ ArizonaViking said:
Another point was during the 2018 draft, the Vikings were set to start adding pieces to better the offensive line. But we all seen the run on offensive linemen in that first round of the draft. For the Vikings, picking in the 30th spot left the cupboards bare. With the except of O'Neil taken in the second run, but was still considered a project at the time.
Good point, and another is that we lost our 2017 first-round pick in trading for Sam Bradford, taking away another chance to improve the OL. That trade might be remembered for sinking this Viking era as badly as the Herschel trade did the Burns period.
I really want to join the optimism bandwagon that's fueled by Kubiak/Stefanski/outside zone scheme - but here's what I keep remembering: Mike Zimmer has had a new offensive scheme or coordinator/guru EVERY SEASON since 2015. Why is this one real?
We won't know if it's real until we see it work. I'm not sure why anyone has to actually say that. We all know that. But what has me optimistic is that for the first time in I don't know how long, the pieces fit together on offense. And not just on offense, but how the kind of offense we'll run fits the kind of defense we play.
Last year, there was some optimism about JDF, but only because he was considered a bright young mind in the NFL. Our biggest concern was "can he call plays." The most optimistic among us expressed that concern many times. I know I did. It was a legit concern and the job proved too big for him. And there was zero connection between the line coaches and the OC, between the offense and what the QB did well (other than play action, but if you don't run the ball, what's the point in play action?). All that has changed.
This year we have another bright young mind at the helm. But this time he's being mentored by a proven offensive mind who's been successful running the ball everywhere he's been. That syncs with what Zimmer wants to do. Ball control syncs with a team who plays good defense.
This Gibbs/Shanahan/Kubiak system has turned mediocre and undrafted backs like Alfred Morris, Olandis Gary, Arian Foster, Mike Anderson and Justin Forsett into 1,000 yard backs. All of those backs had their best years running in this offense and I think, to a man, have largely disappeared outside of it. There's even a rumor that the reason Clinton Portis was traded to the Redskins way back when was because the Broncos were confident they could make just about any back who could move laterally successful in this system. They didn't NEED a guy like Portis. They just needed a runner who could move laterally and in one cut, turn it up field when the lane opens. Remember Darren McFadden's terrible year? That was because he was downhill runner--a holdover on the Raiders' power team--who struggled mightily when the Raiders switched to a zone. Vikings have the perfect zone runner in Dalvin Cook. They added another in Alexander Mattison.
And the syncing doesn't stop there. This is the WCO/ZBS offense that Kirk Cousins ran in Washington for Kyle Shanahan. He knows it well and he's a perfect for it. It's why Kyle Shanahan was reportedly "in mourning" that he was unable to get Cousins in San Francisco and had to settle for Jimmy G. What's more, the Vikings replaced their center with the best outside zone center in the draft. With the Kubiak and Dennison-advised additions of Bradbury, Samia, and Udoh the line is well on its way to becoming much more of a ZBS line. O'Neill and Collins are suberb fits as well.
Yeah, might take some time to adjust and gel, and some of our current linemen aren't great zone fits, so who knows what will shake out in the end, but I'm excited the focused direction. The clarity.
MB, nice post, and I so admire your faith and optimism. It's been robbed and beaten out of me these past couple few years. Hope your vision for this season all comes our way as you see it. It'd be awesome! B)
Quote: @HappyViking said:
MB, nice post, and I so admire your faith and optimism. It's been robbed and beaten out of me these past couple few years. Hope your vision for this season all comes our way as you see it. It'd be awesome! B)
I feel pretty confident that it will. For the offense.
Of course, as you well know, with this team, it's more a game of whack-a-mole than anything else. Team enters its window with a great young nucleus on both sides of the ball....and Teddy's leg nearly falls off. We trade for Bradford, and while he plays very well, suddenly the defense can't stop anyone. WTF? We fix the defense, then Bradford gets hurt and we play an entire season playing good football on both sides of the ball, but all the while waiting for bad Keenum to show up. And of course he eventually does. Worse, Mike Zimmer proves the coaching staff isn't immune from stumbling as he gets out-coached big time by the Eagles in the NFCC. So we steal the Eagles OC and upgrade Keenum to Cousins and we suffer two major injuries on an already weak offensive line. Not to mention the death of its coach. We fix that....yeah, well...you get the picture.
I'm not making any promises because who knows where the mole will pop up this year, but yeah, I feel pretty damn confident that the OFFENSE at least will be a lot better this year. :-)
Quote: @kmillard said:
@ pumpf said:
Blame Cousins all you want... but the difference between last season and the season before it... had nothing to do with the QB. The defense regressed noticeably. But, yeah: blame the QB for that (re: wins and losses).
Good Point. Its not just cousins that needs to play up to his contract, I can think of only one of the High paid Defensive Players who met his contract expectations last year ( Danielle Hunter).
Is it so significant that we had to pay a QB? The Vikings are one of 14 teams with $25-$31M cap space at QB this year, so it's not like this is an outlier within the NFL. Cousins costs about $5M more than Derek Carr or Eli Manning - would that extra $5M make that much difference?
The real trap for the Vikings, in terms of salary, is that they have bucked the NFL trend by believing they should spend heavily on defense in an era when the NFL is legislating away the impact of defense. We have 52.73% of our 2019 cap space allocated to defensive players, highest percentage in the NFL. That's not just due to 1 player, it's a series of decisions - 10 defensive players on our squad add up to $80M in cap space. If Cousins was a mistake or was just getting more than a smart team allocates for QB, he'll be gone after 2020; the commitment to the defense will be a longer-lived "trap" if it was a bad strategy.
Quote: @Jor-El said:
@ kmillard said:
@ pumpf said:
Blame Cousins all you want... but the difference between last season and the season before it... had nothing to do with the QB. The defense regressed noticeably. But, yeah: blame the QB for that (re: wins and losses).
Good Point. Its not just cousins that needs to play up to his contract, I can think of only one of the High paid Defensive Players who met his contract expectations last year ( Danielle Hunter).
Is it so significant that we had to pay a QB? The Vikings are one of 14 teams with $25-$31M cap space at QB this year, so it's not like this is an outlier within the NFL. Cousins costs about $5M more than Derek Carr or Eli Manning - would that extra $5M make that much difference?
The real trap for the Vikings, in terms of salary, is that they have bucked the NFL trend by believing they should spend heavily on defense in an era when the NFL is legislating away the impact of defense. We have 52.73% of our 2019 cap space allocated to defensive players, highest percentage in the NFL. That's not just due to 1 player, it's a series of decisions - 10 defensive players on our squad add up to $80M in cap space. If Cousins was a mistake or was just getting more than a smart team allocates for QB, he'll be gone after 2020; the commitment to the defense will be a longer-lived "trap" if it was a bad strategy.
would those other teams spend more on their defense if they had the likes of Rhodes, Barr, Kendricks, Hunter, Smith and the rest to pay? We used a lot of high picks on defense and if we wanted to keep them we would have to spend. Maybe those teams will be closer in line with the Vikes if their rosters were constructed the way the Vikes is... 1 game away from the super bowl is kind of hard to argue to hard against.
Quote: @Jor-El said:
@ kmillard said:
@ pumpf said:
Blame Cousins all you want... but the difference between last season and the season before it... had nothing to do with the QB. The defense regressed noticeably. But, yeah: blame the QB for that (re: wins and losses).
Good Point. Its not just cousins that needs to play up to his contract, I can think of only one of the High paid Defensive Players who met his contract expectations last year ( Danielle Hunter).
Is it so significant that we had to pay a QB? The Vikings are one of 14 teams with $25-$31M cap space at QB this year, so it's not like this is an outlier within the NFL. Cousins costs about $5M more than Derek Carr or Eli Manning - would that extra $5M make that much difference?
The real trap for the Vikings, in terms of salary, is that they have bucked the NFL trend by believing they should spend heavily on defense in an era when the NFL is legislating away the impact of defense. We have 52.73% of our 2019 cap space allocated to defensive players, highest percentage in the NFL. That's not just due to 1 player, it's a series of decisions - 10 defensive players on our squad add up to $80M in cap space. If Cousins was a mistake or was just getting more than a smart team allocates for QB, he'll be gone after 2020; the commitment to the defense will be a longer-lived "trap" if it was a bad strategy.
That is one big if. I would say when you are that heavily vested in a unit that unit should dictate big game outcomes. We've been very good but we haven't dictated our way through the playoffs yet. I would say I agree with your opinion here.
Quote: @Jor-El said:
@ kmillard said:
@ pumpf said:
Blame Cousins all you want... but the difference between last season and the season before it... had nothing to do with the QB. The defense regressed noticeably. But, yeah: blame the QB for that (re: wins and losses).
Good Point. Its not just cousins that needs to play up to his contract, I can think of only one of the High paid Defensive Players who met his contract expectations last year ( Danielle Hunter).
Is it so significant that we had to pay a QB? The Vikings are one of 14 teams with $25-$31M cap space at QB this year, so it's not like this is an outlier within the NFL. Cousins costs about $5M more than Derek Carr or Eli Manning - would that extra $5M make that much difference?
The real trap for the Vikings, in terms of salary, is that they have bucked the NFL trend by believing they should spend heavily on defense in an era when the NFL is legislating away the impact of defense. We have 52.73% of our 2019 cap space allocated to defensive players, highest percentage in the NFL. That's not just due to 1 player, it's a series of decisions - 10 defensive players on our squad add up to $80M in cap space. If Cousins was a mistake or was just getting more than a smart team allocates for QB, he'll be gone after 2020; the commitment to the defense will be a longer-lived "trap" if it was a bad strategy.
I wasn't calling him out. I agree with your assessment, I was more pointing to the fact that the high paid defense took much of the year off in 2018.
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