Ryan Longwell on Dan Bailey

[Vikergirl]

[Guest]

Well, we don't have much hope elsewhere. He had been quite good for the year and a half prior to this 2 week meltdown. Hopefully he snaps out of his funk.

[Guest]

@PurpleCrush said:
Well, we don't have much hope elsewhere. He had been quite good for the year and a half prior to this 2 week meltdown. Hopefully he snaps out of his funk.

Yeah I hope he can turn it around. But there is still the common denominator of kicker problems under Zimmer. This is not new. Hoping for the best.

[Guest]

@Vikergirl said:

@PurpleCrush said:
Well, we don't have much hope elsewhere. He had been quite good for the year and a half prior to this 2 week meltdown. Hopefully he snaps out of his funk.

Yeah I hope he can turn it around. But there is still the common denominator of kicker problems under Zimmer. This is not new. Hoping for the best.

It's pretty odd. I have no idea what it is exactly. At the end of the day, these guys are paid to make kicks. It's not like it's related to scheme or anything like that. I mean, is Zimmer whispering in their ears what kind of evil shit he's going to do to them or something?

[Guest]

The 'Zimmer is the Death God to kickers' is so overplayed. Are the other coaches massaging their feet and feeding them Nacho cheese Doritos on the sideline before every kick? Making the heart sign with their hands and pointing to them as the kickers walk onto the field? 

MAKE. THE. KICK. Its what they all are paid to do.

[Guest]

@PurpleCrush said:

@Vikergirl said:

@PurpleCrush said:
Well, we don't have much hope elsewhere. He had been quite good for the year and a half prior to this 2 week meltdown. Hopefully he snaps out of his funk.

Yeah I hope he can turn it around. But there is still the common denominator of kicker problems under Zimmer. This is not new. Hoping for the best.

It's pretty odd. I have no idea what it is exactly. At the end of the day, these guys are paid to make kicks. It's not like it's related to scheme or anything like that. I mean, is Zimmer whispering in their ears what kind of evil shit he's going to do to them or something?

None of us know. I just know that his public comments are not necessarily helpful. I think it's a combination of things. I doubt Zimmer is going anywhere. I hope for the best for Bailey. 

[Guest]

@StickyBun said:
The 'Zimmer is the Death God to kickers' is so overplayed. Are the other coaches massaging their feet and feeding them Nacho cheese Doritos on the sideline before every kick? Making the heart sign with their hands and pointing to them as the kickers walk onto the field? 

MAKE. THE. KICK. Its what they all are paid to do.

Not sure about this year, but kickers elsewhere were shanking in 2019 as well.  And with the goofiness this year, changing long snappers and such, one has to wonder if that has an effect.

[Guest]

@greediron said:

@StickyBun said:
The 'Zimmer is the Death God to kickers' is so overplayed. Are the other coaches massaging their feet and feeding them Nacho cheese Doritos on the sideline before every kick? Making the heart sign with their hands and pointing to them as the kickers walk onto the field? 

MAKE. THE. KICK. Its what they all are paid to do.

Not sure about this year, but kickers elsewhere were shanking in 2019 as well.  And with the goofiness this year, changing long snappers and such, one has to wonder if that has an effect.

I think this past weekend alone there was a ton of kicks missed in games. Not sure how many exactly, but it was at least double digits.

[Guest]

@StickyBun said:
The 'Zimmer is the Death God to kickers' is so overplayed. Are the other coaches massaging their feet and feeding them Nacho cheese Doritos on the sideline before every kick? Making the heart sign with their hands and pointing to them as the kickers walk onto the field? 

MAKE. THE. KICK. Its what they all are paid to do.

Amen. The only kicker I felt bad for was Carlson, it being like his first or second game and all. The rest brought it upon themselves, being veterans in the league. You get paid for one damn thing, kick the damn ball between the uprights. Shouldn't have to coddle players in football all the damn time.

[Guest]

@StickyBun said:
The 'Zimmer is the Death God to kickers' is so overplayed. Are the other coaches massaging their feet and feeding them Nacho cheese Doritos on the sideline before every kick? Making the heart sign with their hands and pointing to them as the kickers walk onto the field? 

MAKE. THE. KICK. Its what they all are paid to do.

Not sure what you are arguing here. Are you saying kickers everywhere have problems? If the Vikings have had more kicker consistency problems since Zimmer has been here...then what is the common problem? Spielman? Sugarman? Some supernatural curse on the franchise??

I suspect there are Zimmer-related issues, but not necessarily that he is giving kickers the evil eye or failing to give them enough love. I see two possible problems:

1. Zimmer doesn't pick assistant coaches (outside the defense) very well. One of the reported reasons teams didn't hire him as HC is that he didn't have good answers about assembling a staff. Well, he kept a surprising number of Frazier's assistants, notably ST, proving the point. There are a lot of aspects to being a head coach, and getting the right people to take care of each unit is a big one. We have had many poor OL coaches, he kept a WR coach from Frazier's staff (forgot his name) who had been really unproductive, the OC turnover is legendary. Is it so hard to think we have kicking problems because we don't have ST coaching that is any good at identifying good kickers?

2. This is more speculative, but...I think there are some core problems with the attitude on this team, that could have to do with people being blamed, from the HC down. Sometimes we hear it in a press conference but I bet that's the tip of the iceberg and players and coaches get blasted behind closed doors, and maybe certain "favorites" are treated differently and the rest of the team knows who they are.  It shows up when the team is unexpectedly utterly limp for some games (like Atlanta this year), and probably in individual performances, but few of those are as spotlighted as a specialist (and maybe QB).