Giving Cousins more influence could help turn Vikings offense around

I think if you want the biggest reason why Flip is gone, it's right here:

“Your identity can adapt based on your opponent, based on the situation you’re put in,” Cousins said. “I don’t think you just, in the NFL, say this is what we do, we’re going to line up and be better than our opponent. The nature of the salary cap and the nature of teams these days is there’s a lot of parity and so you have to, week to week, be able to adjust and find what works that week against that opponent.”

Honestly, its all talk and horseshit unless things improve from an offensive production standpoint these last 3 games. If they look like garbage, its just hot air and the problem is larger than who is calling the plays. IMO, I just don't see how things can improve dramatically from this change to Stefanski. 

I think the last 3 games are going to be the team we wished they've been the past 13. Nothing more than an educated guess/gut feel. I don't rely on hope for those types of prognostications anymore lol! 

@"MaroonBells" said: I think if you want the biggest reason why Flip is gone, it's right here:

“Your identity can adapt based on your opponent, based on the situation you’re put in,” Cousins said. “I don’t think you just, in the NFL, say this is what we do, we’re going to line up and be better than our opponent. The nature of the salary cap and the nature of teams these days is there’s a lot of parity and so you have to, week to week, be able to adjust and find what works that week against that opponent.”

And then when you have Kyle Rudolph going on Sirius XM and talking about the frustrations with the offense and he's saying the biggest thing is we "didn't have an identity" and Pat Elflein is saying they just want to be a "balanced offense"...
It's the exact same things I've been saying for weeks.  Most fans want to complain about the offensive line and blame all our issues on that...  the line has some problems, but the biggest issue was DeFelippo and his inability to manufacture a balanced offense.

@"Wetlander" said:

@"MaroonBells" said: I think if you want the biggest reason why Flip is gone, it's right here:

“Your identity can adapt based on your opponent, based on the situation you’re put in,” Cousins said. “I don’t think you just, in the NFL, say this is what we do, we’re going to line up and be better than our opponent. The nature of the salary cap and the nature of teams these days is there’s a lot of parity and so you have to, week to week, be able to adjust and find what works that week against that opponent.”

And then when you have Kyle Rudolph going on Sirius XM and talking about the frustrations with the offense and he's saying the biggest thing is we "didn't have an identity" and Pat Elflein is saying they just want to be a "balanced offense"...
It's the exact same things I've been saying for weeks.  Most fans want to complain about the offensive line and blame all our issues on that...  the line has some problems, but the biggest issue was DeFelippo and his inability to manufacture a balanced offense.

@"MaroonBells" said:

@"Wetlander" said:

@"MaroonBells" said: I think if you want the biggest reason why Flip is gone, it's right here:

“Your identity can adapt based on your opponent, based on the situation you’re put in,” Cousins said. “I don’t think you just, in the NFL, say this is what we do, we’re going to line up and be better than our opponent. The nature of the salary cap and the nature of teams these days is there’s a lot of parity and so you have to, week to week, be able to adjust and find what works that week against that opponent.”

And then when you have Kyle Rudolph going on Sirius XM and talking about the frustrations with the offense and he's saying the biggest thing is we "didn't have an identity" and Pat Elflein is saying they just want to be a "balanced offense"...
It's the exact same things I've been saying for weeks.  Most fans want to complain about the offensive line and blame all our issues on that...  the line has some problems, but the biggest issue was DeFelippo and his inability to manufacture a balanced offense.

Balance is great, and necessary. But you need more than just matching up the rush attempts to the pass attempts. You need to be able to adjust to what each defense is doing. I think defenses caught on to the fact that we were NOT adjusting at all, that we would run plays A, B and C when in formation X, and so we became very very easy to defend. 

I don't know this for certain, but it's been my hunch for the last several weeks and to hear Cousins come out and pretty much say that, it sort of confirms it in my mind. 

Kirk has had the option to change calls at the line though hasn't he?  He's the $84M man.  Make it work.

@"Wetlander" said:

@"MaroonBells" said: I think if you want the biggest reason why Flip is gone, it's right here:

“Your identity can adapt based on your opponent, based on the situation you’re put in,” Cousins said. “I don’t think you just, in the NFL, say this is what we do, we’re going to line up and be better than our opponent. The nature of the salary cap and the nature of teams these days is there’s a lot of parity and so you have to, week to week, be able to adjust and find what works that week against that opponent.”

And then when you have Kyle Rudolph going on Sirius XM and talking about the frustrations with the offense and he's saying the biggest thing is we "didn't have an identity" and Pat Elflein is saying they just want to be a "balanced offense"...
It's the exact same things I've been saying for weeks.  Most fans want to complain about the offensive line and blame all our issues on that...  the line has some problems, but the biggest issue was DeFelippo and his inability to manufacture a balanced offense.

@"AGRforever" said: Kirk has had the option to change calls at the line though hasn't he?  He's the $84M man.  Make it work.

he has to have time to change those plays,  and often all he had time to do was get everybody lined up and snap the ball,  the play clock was more of a challenge than it should have been to often.  also he may not have had anymore flex than to switch to a pre designed run which may not have been any more likely to succeed against what the D was showing.

Sounds like the Childress's "KAO", or Tice's "Randy Ratio", must be a fine line between executing a plan and playing to your strengths on game day.

There was a definite disconnect with DeFilippo and the Vikings.  Not saying Stafanski is going to automatically make them that much better but this change definitely needed to happen.

@"MaroonBells" said: Balance is great, and necessary. But you need more than just matching up the rush attempts to the pass attempts. You need to be able to adjust to what each defense is doing. I think defenses caught on to the fact that we were NOT adjusting at all, that we would run plays A, B and C when in formation X, and so we became very very easy to defend. 

I don't know this for certain, but it's been my hunch for the last several weeks and to hear Cousins come out and pretty much say that, it sort of confirms it in my mind. 

Balance doesn't mean going 50/50 pass to run...  I don't think even the run-heaviest teams in the league are doing that this season.  It means being close to league average, which this season I think the average pass to run ratio for the current playoff teams is right around 60/40.  The Vikings this season are at 71/29 from what I read recently...  that's way out of whack.
I brought this issue up a couple weeks ago and here was my post from November 21st about this issue:
"If you want a quick summary, we average 48 pass attempts and 13 rushing attempts in our losses (and tie).  That's a 78/22 passing to rushing split."
"In our wins, we average 34 pass attempts and 23.4 rushing attempts.  That's a 59/41 passing to rushing split.  Much more balanced, but still no where close to the 54% and 51% splits we had in 2017 (13-3) and 2015 (11-5)."
The Vikings need to run the ball more if they want to win...  we don't need to swing the pendulum in the complete opposite direction and run the majority of the time on 1st and 2nd down... but we do need to mix in the run more.
This actually seems like a pretty good trend if you factor in the last 3 games since I put this together.  We beat the Packers and ran the ball 23 times if you take out the 6 rushing attempts by Cousins (since none of those were designed runs).
In our last two losses, we had 13 rushing attempts against the Patriots and 20 rushing attempts against the Seahawks (I counted 2 of Cousins runs since they were QB sneaks instead of him scrambling on a pass play).
 

I read on another site that Stefanski was the brain child behind the Shurmur play designs last year. I really hope that is true and we will see if that's the case on Sunday. Flip didn't seem like a control freak, but as the offense was struggling when defenses figured out his schemes and predictable playcalling, maybe the rope around his neck kept getting tighter and tighter and he was unwilling or unable to change his approach or listen to others. When things were really going bad that past several weeks, you could see the frustration in his body language when his play selection kept blowing up in his face. 

@"Wetlander" said:

@"MaroonBells" said: Balance is great, and necessary. But you need more than just matching up the rush attempts to the pass attempts. You need to be able to adjust to what each defense is doing. I think defenses caught on to the fact that we were NOT adjusting at all, that we would run plays A, B and C when in formation X, and so we became very very easy to defend. 

I don't know this for certain, but it's been my hunch for the last several weeks and to hear Cousins come out and pretty much say that, it sort of confirms it in my mind. 

Balance doesn't mean going 50/50 pass to run...  I don't think even the run-heaviest teams in the league are doing that this season.  It means being close to league average, which this season I think the average pass to run ratio for the current playoff teams is right around 60/40.  The Vikings this season are at 71/29 from what I read recently...  that's way out of whack.
I brought this issue up a couple weeks ago and here was my post from November 21st about this issue:
"If you want a quick summary, we average 48 pass attempts and 13 rushing attempts in our losses (and tie).  That's a 78/22 passing to rushing split."
"In our wins, we average 34 pass attempts and 23.4 rushing attempts.  That's a 59/41 passing to rushing split.  Much more balanced, but still no where close to the 54% and 51% splits we had in 2017 (13-3) and 2015 (11-5)."
The Vikings need to run the ball more if they want to win...  we don't need to swing the pendulum in the complete opposite direction and run the majority of the time on 1st and 2nd down... but we do need to mix in the run more.
This actually seems like a pretty good trend if you factor in the last 3 games since I put this together.  We beat the Packers and ran the ball 23 times if you take out the 6 rushing attempts by Cousins (since none of those were designed runs).
In our last two losses, we had 13 rushing attempts against the Patriots and 20 rushing attempts against the Seahawks (I counted 2 of Cousins runs since they were QB sneaks instead of him scrambling on a pass play).
 

@"MarkSP18" said:

@"Wetlander" said:

@"MaroonBells" said: Balance is great, and necessary. But you need more than just matching up the rush attempts to the pass attempts. You need to be able to adjust to what each defense is doing. I think defenses caught on to the fact that we were NOT adjusting at all, that we would run plays A, B and C when in formation X, and so we became very very easy to defend. 

I don't know this for certain, but it's been my hunch for the last several weeks and to hear Cousins come out and pretty much say that, it sort of confirms it in my mind. 

Balance doesn't mean going 50/50 pass to run...  I don't think even the run-heaviest teams in the league are doing that this season.  It means being close to league average, which this season I think the average pass to run ratio for the current playoff teams is right around 60/40.  The Vikings this season are at 71/29 from what I read recently...  that's way out of whack.
I brought this issue up a couple weeks ago and here was my post from November 21st about this issue:
"If you want a quick summary, we average 48 pass attempts and 13 rushing attempts in our losses (and tie).  That's a 78/22 passing to rushing split."
"In our wins, we average 34 pass attempts and 23.4 rushing attempts.  That's a 59/41 passing to rushing split.  Much more balanced, but still no where close to the 54% and 51% splits we had in 2017 (13-3) and 2015 (11-5)."
The Vikings need to run the ball more if they want to win...  we don't need to swing the pendulum in the complete opposite direction and run the majority of the time on 1st and 2nd down... but we do need to mix in the run more.
This actually seems like a pretty good trend if you factor in the last 3 games since I put this together.  We beat the Packers and ran the ball 23 times if you take out the 6 rushing attempts by Cousins (since none of those were designed runs).
In our last two losses, we had 13 rushing attempts against the Patriots and 20 rushing attempts against the Seahawks (I counted 2 of Cousins runs since they were QB sneaks instead of him scrambling on a pass play).
 

The stats are true but they do not mention who they were against.
The Vikings have lost to  5 probable playoff teams.
In the end, the offensive players can talk all they want.
They are the ones who could barely score against the Seahawks.
Talk is cheap.

@"TBro" said: I read on another site that Stefanski was the brain child behind the Shurmur play designs last year. I really hope that is true and we will see if that's the case on Sunday. Flip didn't seem like a control freak, but as the offense was struggling when defenses figured out his schemes and predictable playcalling, maybe the rope around his neck kept getting tighter and tighter and he was unwilling or unable to change his approach or listen to others. When things were really going bad that past several weeks, you could see the frustration in his body language when his play selection kept blowing up in his face. 

Perhaps Flip was on his own mission to be a head coach and cared more about making himself look like a genius.