Time to seriously start talking about Zimmer.

@"comet52" said:

@"njvike" said:

@"Bolstad79" said:

@"MaroonBells" said:

@"pumpf" said: I'm prepared to wait a bit longer to see how this plays out.  2-2 (even though the 2 Ws came against cream-puff teams) is too early to make a decision.  Besides, we SHOULD have beaten GB (on the road) if only KS hadn't called for a play-action pass... and Cousins hadn't then thrown an INT.  If we had just run the ball, we (probably?) had won that game.  Or, if Cousins hadn't thrown that INT.  Either way, we are almost 3-1... with our only loss coming at a place that we never win.  

But what I saw on Sunday certainly does make it worth discussing, whether or not we're a Super Bowl team... or a pretender that gets past bad teams but can't win vs. good teams.  

What, you don't want to dismantle the entire organization after one crap game? 

The biggest problem is Kirk Cousins. Fix that. If he's not permanently damaged. The next biggest problem is pass protection. That is what it is but I expect it to improve as Bradbury matures and Stefanski figures out different ways to mitigate that weakness. Still, Cousins plays well and we're likely 4-0. 

Zimmer talk is crazy. I have big problems with his game prep, but he's still among the best 6 to 10 coaches in the league IMO. Be stupid to jettison him unless you were to stumble upon an obvious "upgrade" hiding under a rock. And even then, be careful what you wish for.

Spielman talk is BATSHIT crazy. Jersey-level stupid. There's probably not a person in the org more responsible for giving this team the talent it has. Keep in mind, THAT'S why we're all frustrated. If this team sucked and we played like that, it would be one thing. But this is one of the more talented rosters in the NFL. We expect more precisely becaue we're talented--because we have Thielen and Diggs and Cook and Hunter and Griffen and Kendricks and Barr and Rhodes and Harry. This team hasn't been this stacked in its entire existence. 

Chicago had BACK UPS in the lineup everywhere and still kicked our asses. That isn't Spielman's fault. Fix the PROBLEM. Don't fix what ain't broken. 

It's more than 1 game, it's his body of work.

Exactly. This SHOULD be about an overall performance.

Jesus H. Christ, I think it’s OK to judge a man in 2019 if he’s been on the job since 2006, isn’t it? 

13+ seasons with 3 HC’s and God knows how many OC’s, DC’s, QB’s, K’s, P’s, executive secretaries, etc.

I think that 13 seasons and a grand total of TWO playoff wins, EIGHT YEARS apart by the way, constitutes a body of work that sucks donkey balls.....or MoronBalls, tomaytow/tomahtah.

 Anyone that considers THAT production anything other than SHIT is just a maroonbell tingling d-bag.

FACT : There has NEVER been a more abysmal 14 year playoff stretch in the Vikings entire history than what we are currently experiencing. Don’t take my word for it, pull up the Vikings’ history yourself and check it out.

FACT:  Any team that WINS a Super Bowl must win at LEAST 3 CONSECUTIVE playoff games (at least 1 on the road) , or FOUR CONSECUTIVE playoff games as a wildcard, meaning all 4 on the road (typically)  

FACT : The last time ANY Vikings team has managed at least TWO consecutive playoff wins? Burnsie and his 1987 squad. Every single so called “great” Vikings team since then, 32 fucking years ago, has FAILED to match that accomplishment. So much for this bullshit narrative that the Vikings are a “great” championship organization. You  CAN NOT claim to be a great team when your single playoff wins occur 8 YEARS apart. 

FACT : This urban legend of the Vikings having the most talented roster being dragged down by coaching (and I’ve been reading this horse-hockey for the past 4 years at least) is 100% BULLSHIT.  How much team NON -Success in the postseason does it take for fans to reach this obvious conclusion? 

I’m happy to give you multiple examples of pretty mediocre HC’s who have at least MADE it to a Super Bowl, and sometimes WON a Super Bowl : Jim Fassel, BOTH Harbaugh Brothers, Dan Quinn, Barry Switzer, Jon Gruden, Brian Billick, Mike Tomlin, Bobby Ross. That’s just off the top of my head. I’ll pull up more mediocre names that have accomplished more with less. All of these coaches at least WON a Conference Championship. Did ALL of these HC’s have the “bestest” rosters? Uhhh, NO.

 If Micky and Dicky are truly SOOOOO much better than their competitors, I would expect more tangible results with such a “loaded” roster. Vikings fans can’t pull their usual “heads I win, tails you lose” approach” in explaining away the 80% failure rate to win a playoff  for ol’ Micky  (1 for 5, soon to be 1 for 6) or the 85% failure rate for Dicky (2 for 13, soon to be 2 for 14). 

And if the Vikings truly had the best roster, they would NOT shit the bed in big games as consistently as they have. Racking up stats against bottom-feeder teams during victories and padding bull shit stats in the 4th qtr of a loss are 2 totally different animals. . 

FACT : A “Comeback” is when a team comes back from a significant deficit, and then WINS. If a team manages to struggle to make the final point differential shrink from double digits to single digits? There IS a term for that outcome.....it’s called a LOSS.

FACT :  A 31 point blowout, humiliating, atrocious loss in a Conference Championship game is NOT 1 game away from a SB.....it’s 32 fucking points away from a Super Bowl. PERIOD.

I have to admit, the fact that a 2-2 start to this season is making Vikings fans question the BIG picture (i.e., who is the LONE common denominator since the Wilfs bought the team) is making me laugh.

This dude, or should I say “Saint”, should have been out the door with Childress in 2010. I have been consistent in this opinion since then. What would be the worst outcome if Schpielman went back to the media on 2010?  We would have been deprived of that lone home miracle playoff win 8 years later. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. 

Would  things have been different in those years? Sure, all it would take is zero playoff wins to be worse, 1 to tie an 2 to exceed it. NOT  THAT difficult.

P.S.  If the reference from a previous poster about “hating” Dicky was directed at me? Wrong. Never said I hated  the dude, simply pointed out his teams’ undeniable mediocrity. I guess facts like Dicky’s actual W/L record causes discomfort to Ryckophants! 

PEACE

The lone common denominator is not "Dicky", it is the idiot Zygmunt Wilf.  And he isn't going anywhere.

I am never about firing a coach before a season ends. Especially when you consider a couple times when we did  we hired the interim coach with equally, no worse results. Let him finish out the season.
Then fire his ass!!!

Coach Z should be feeling heat to plan/adapt far better than he's done this season.  Winning teams still beat us, we've possibly "footstepped" another QB (in the ongoing series), and while I know that Zimmer would love real grind-it-out football, the opponents are under no obligation to play our way.

Cousins gets a huge amount of flack, much of it deserved...but musical-OCs and a system that largely marginalizes the passing game is doing the team no favors...especially those named Cousins, Diggs, and Theilen.

@"suncoastvike" said: I am never about firing a coach before a season ends. Especially when you consider a couple times when we did  we hired the interim coach with equally, no worse results. Let him finish out the season. Then fire his ass!!!

Man, the PTSD from Les Frazier is long-lasting, because every defender of Zimmer turns into, "Without Zimmer we might have a bad defense!!" Sure, miss the playoffs 3 out of 5 seasons, run an offense that would put Woody Hayes to sleep, but we can be so proud of those low yardage defensive stats!!

I also know fans who say Zimmer is a mirror image of Denny Green - good offense with Green, good defense with Zimmer. BULL EFFING SHIT. Green coached the Vikings for 9 full seasons and made the playoffs 8 of those. Zimmer is 2 for 5 - he can match Denny's rate only if he gets us in for the next 22 consecutive seasons. I would have loved more playoff wins during the Green years, but don't compare him to a coach who doesn't even consistently get to the playoffs.

Great marketing by the Wilfs, really: subject fans to a few years of Frazier and now most of you praise them just for consistent mediocrity.

bump?

@"greediron" said: bump?

Jay Gruden's available. 

@"MaroonBells" said: Jay Gruden's available. 

@"StickyBun" said:

@"greediron" said: bump?

Beating the Giants is nice, its a road win....but its expected. Vikings need to beat a winning team. Then you can bump a thread and it have meaning. For me, it doesn't change anything about where the team is at. 

@"greediron" said:

@"StickyBun" said:

@"greediron" said: bump?

Beating the Giants is nice, its a road win....but its expected. Vikings need to beat a winning team. Then you can bump a thread and it have meaning. For me, it doesn't change anything about where the team is at. 

Understand it is the giants.  But a dominant win on the road.  And funny thing about stats.  If we had lost, that number would have went on the negative stat for Kirk (5-28) versus teams with winning records.  So a win in the NFL is a win.  On the road and we played well.  So I am gonna say, yeah Zimmer is a good coach.

@"StickyBun" said:

@"MaroonBells" said: Jay Gruden's available. 

...called him in at 5 am to fire him. Class organization. 

Great, they dominated a poor team, Zimmer's supporters feel totally justified. I guess that shows how low the bar has been set.
Now impress me and dominate the Eagles. In fact, truly impress me with a dominant SEASON. That has been the expectation since they were 11-5 and ascending in 2015. But since then it has been one strong season that seemed more due to Pat Shurmur and lucky breaks, surrounded by mediocrity.
Zimmer fans act like he is in his second year after inheriting Mike Tice's depleted roster. He has had control for 5 seasons and for the past 4, every NFL pundit says his roster is of Super Bowl contending talent level. Pretty sad that beating a team that was 5-11 last year is seen as a vindication.

Believe it or not, the Eagles come in w/ the No.1 run defense, this week should be much more telling on what our offense is capable of...

@"Kentis" said: Believe it or not, the Eagles come in w/ the No.1 run defense, this week should be much more telling on what our offense is capable of...

@"MaroonBells" said:

@"Kentis" said: Believe it or not, the Eagles come in w/ the No.1 run defense, this week should be much more telling on what our offense is capable of...

A lot of that is who they've played. They did shut down Aaron Jones, but the rest of their schedule: Redskins, Falcons, Lions, Jets. 

@"Kentis" said: Believe it or not, the Eagles come in w/ the No.1 run defense, this week should be much more telling on what our offense is capable of...

@"Jor-El" said: Great, they dominated a poor team, Zimmer's supporters feel totally justified. I guess that shows how low the bar has been set. Now impress me and dominate the Eagles. In fact, truly impress me with a dominant SEASON. That has been the expectation since they were 11-5 and ascending in 2015. But since then it has been one strong season that seemed more due to Pat Shurmur and lucky breaks, surrounded by mediocrity. Zimmer fans act like he is in his second year after inheriting Mike Tice's depleted roster. He has had control for 5 seasons and for the past 4, every NFL pundit says his roster is of Super Bowl contending talent level. Pretty sad that beating a team that was 5-11 last year is seen as a vindication.

I just bumped this thread so the unhappy lot would have a reason to post this week. 

@"MaroonBells" said:

@"Kentis" said: Believe it or not, the Eagles come in w/ the No.1 run defense, this week should be much more telling on what our offense is capable of...

A lot of that is who they've played. They did shut down Aaron Jones, but the rest of their schedule: Redskins, Falcons, Lions, Jets. 

@"Wetlander" said:

@"MaroonBells" said:

@"Kentis" said: Believe it or not, the Eagles come in w/ the No.1 run defense, this week should be much more telling on what our offense is capable of...

A lot of that is who they've played. They did shut down Aaron Jones, but the rest of their schedule: Redskins, Falcons, Lions, Jets. 

If I recall correctly, the Eagles have been pretty stout against the run the past couple seasons.  I think they were the #1 run defense (just ahead of us) in 2017 and top 10 last year.

I do think this year's ranking is skewed a bit by who they've played, but that front 7 is loaded.  The back end of that defense is piss poor...  hopefully Stefanski comes out with a similar game plan as this past week...  get Cousins going early with some designed roll outs and easy passes to get him comfortable.  Then mix in the screen game with Dalvin, Rudy, etc. and start running the football.

We need to control the clock and keep that defense guessing so they can't pin their ears back on 3rd and long.