Ridiculous stat

The historical rate is about 80% for all NFL teams over the decades.  Vikings at 90% under KOC is a little above the norm but it's a small sample, the stat itself should regress a bit over time to the league average.  Assuming he keeps his job ;)

Give Darnold a potent run game and his turnovers should magically go down. Same for JJM. An improved defense along with a game managing QB should give them at least 8 wins considering the talent on offense.

In all fairness, I think every NFL head coach would benefit from looking at their records through the prism of winning the TO battle. Fans conveniently forget sometimes so their narratives stay intact, how influential turnovers are to winning and losing games (not talking about you here, MB).

KOC is an excellent gameplanner. He's got good coaches surrounding him. I have zero doubt he's capable of winning a Superbowl in Minnesota. But he needs a QB that can flourish in his offense and basically be an appendage: that could be McCarthy. But its not going to happen overnight with JJM, he's a young kid. Patience is required.

Last year the first 4-5 games looked like preseason. Vikings were making tons of mistakes, learning Flores's scheme. It would be nice to see them start strong this year.. tough schedule coming out of the gate.

hogjowlsjohnny wrote:
Give Darnold a potent run game and his turnovers should magically go down. Same for JJM. An improved defense along with a game managing QB should give them at least 8 wins considering the talent on offense.

I guess I don't really predict that we're going to have much of a "potent run game".  KOC has shown a strong reluctance to call run plays at all, we haven't really improved our run blocking line from last year, and we have the same RB group, except we swapped out a plodder for an oldish guy who's probably going to be injured a chunk of the season.  I feel like any improvement in our run game is going to come purely from Jones, but I wouldn't bet my house on him hitting 1000 yards rushing this year.

"Game Managing" is not KOC's style. If Darnold performs well I think it's going to come more from his plethora of weapons getting wide open.

In other words, with Darnold at QB, we're screwed.

medaille wrote:

I guess I don't really predict that we're going to have much of a "potent run game".  KOC has shown a strong reluctance to call run plays at all, we haven't really improved our run blocking line from last year, and we have the same RB group, except we swapped out a plodder for an oldish guy who's probably going to be injured a chunk of the season.  I feel like any improvement in our run game is going to come purely from Jones, but I wouldn't bet my house on him hitting 1000 yards rushing this year.

"Game Managing" is not KOC's style.  If Darnold performs well I think it's going to come more from his plethora of weapons getting wide open.

I wouldn't call it potent, but the run game can improve incrementally if the Vikings commit to it (especially on 2nd down), Bradbury stays healthy, Brandel and Ingram beat out Risner, Chandler continues to improve and Aaron Jones stay healthy.

I'm optimistic, but I'm also admittedly really curious about what we're going to get in Darnold, as well as what 2 years of a real DC will do with the defense. If Sam can respond to this career-best situation and Flores can build on the improvements that were showing last season...the Vikings could be a very happy surprise for us...!

RS_Express wrote:

In other words, with Darnold at QB, we're screwed.

Not sure about screwed, this a one year band aid until the keys get tossed to McCarthy. Regardless what is said from the mountaintop in Eagan, this is all about 2025. But there seems some low level optimism about Darnold, at least from KOC, but that could be CoachSpeak and I'll believe it when I see it. Its the most talented team that Sam has been on, so lets watch how it plays out. He has thrown bad INTs in the past, that's his history.