All Things 2021 Minnesota Vikings In-Season Thread

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howeda7 said:
Rumors are Zim is fired and Speilman is kicked upstairs. This is probably the best possible outcome, though Spielman should be fired outright.
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"Kicked upstairs"?

Still seems like he could have an important say in important things. Like, who the next GM and/or HC should be, if not player personnel decisions still.

Why do the Wilfs want to hang onto this guy, at all?
 

Saw that Cousins has been activated off the covid list.

So stupid to start him, at all, this final week. Probably throw 7 TD. Great.
 

So Spielman got a cushy retirement job, and Zimmer is completely gone?
 

Spaulding!No! said:
Mayfield misses open receivers by a foot or more all the time. It’s so strange to see a starting nfl qb do that repeatedly.
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You are correct. His stats from 2 years ago are pretty good., 26 TD's and 8 ints. His poor throwing this year, could be due to his shoulder injury. I would take a flyer on him, if you can get him cheap and hope he recovers from his injury.
 



RememberMurray said:
I don't know about you, but there is absolutely no game-playing on my part.

Here is the truth: The over-played assertion that "old school" offense can't win in the modern NFL has simply and utterly been blown out of the water by the Tennessee Titans. The Titans are 27th in the league in passing, and yet they're going to be the #1 playoff seed in the AFC.

As for me, I never made any claim that a strong running attack automatically guarantees a winning season in the NFL. Never said it did. Not once. I merely poked holes in the hackneyed notion that teams must have an excellent passing attack to win in the modern NFL. As I mentioned before, the success of the Titans has shown that argument to be objectively false.

Also, this extremely popular meme that 'old fuddy-duddy' Mike Zimmer's team was done in by having a stone-age offense that over-values the run at the expense of the passing game has been exposed as rubbish as well, since the Vikings actually had a pretty damn good passing attack in 2021, statistically speaking. Unfortunately, all those passing yards didn't help them enough.
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Murray - let me take a crack at this:

You can certainly win with an "old-school" offense. But, in order for that to work, all of the other pieces need to be in place. You need a solid defense, good special-teams play, and a QB who can at least make some throws when you need a big play.

And - to make that happen, the salary cap has to fit.

That is the biggest problem with the Vikes - the pieces don't fit. An expensive QB playing behind a below-average O Line, and a defense that falls apart at the worst possible times.

this is a poorly-constructed team. I don't care how good Dalvin Cook is. He can't make up for all of the other deficiencies.

in the end, the goal is to outscore the other team. if you have a good defense, you can win with an old-school offense. If you don't have a good defense, the only way to win is to put up as many points as possible as fast as possible, and it's hard to do that by running the ball.
 

TruthSeeker said:
So Spielman got a cushy retirement job, and Zimmer is completely gone?
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I don't think Zim would want a cushy retirement job even if it was offered. He's a football coach and will be a DC somewhere if he wants to keep working. Spielman isn't likley to be given the keys to another football operation, so he'll either take a job within the organization or maybe work for his brother in Detroit. That's my guess anyway.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
I don't think Zim would want a cushy retirement job even if it was offered. He's a football coach and will be a DC somewhere if he wants to keep working. Spielman isn't likley to be given the keys to another football operation, so he'll either take a job within the organization or maybe work for his brother in Detroit. That's my guess anyway.
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I think you're exactly right.
 

TruthSeeker said:
So Spielman got a cushy retirement job, and Zimmer is completely gone?
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No tears for Zimmer. He'll get well over $10 Million to not coach the Vikings for the next couple of years.
 



TruthSeeker said:
So Spielman got a cushy retirement job, and Zimmer is completely gone?
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They're both under contract for two more years, so it's more like Speilman has to come to work every day to earn his while Zim will be paid to go away.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Murray - let me take a crack at this:

You can certainly win with an "old-school" offense. But, in order for that to work, all of the other pieces need to be in place. You need a solid defense, good special-teams play, and a QB who can at least make some throws when you need a big play.

And - to make that happen, the salary cap has to fit.

That is the biggest problem with the Vikes - the pieces don't fit. An expensive QB playing behind a below-average O Line, and a defense that falls apart at the worst possible times.

this is a poorly-constructed team. I don't care how good Dalvin Cook is. He can't make up for all of the other deficiencies.

in the end, the goal is to outscore the other team. if you have a good defense, you can win with an old-school offense. If you don't have a good defense, the only way to win is to put up as many points as possible as fast as possible, and it's hard to do that by running the ball.
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Okay. Makes sense. But...

The Vikings right now have the 11th ranked passing offense in the NFL, and back when they had the opportunity, they went out and signed the best (and most expensive) free agent QB available at the time, Kirk Cousins. So, do the Vikings — 11th in the league in passing yards — really have an "old school" offense? I honestly don't know the answer to that.

Let's say we agree the answer is "yes", the Vikings are currently old school. So now they are going to hire a new coach, tasked with switching over to a "new school" offense that is pass-first, and it is designed (as you say) to score a lot of points in order to simply outscore the opposition. Wouldn't that "new school", pass-first offense require a top QB (very, very expensive and hard to find) and a really good offensive line (expensive and hard to build)?
 


short ornery norwegian said:
Murray - let me take a crack at this:

You can certainly win with an "old-school" offense. But, in order for that to work, all of the other pieces need to be in place. You need a solid defense, good special-teams play, and a QB who can at least make some throws when you need a big play.

And - to make that happen, the salary cap has to fit.

That is the biggest problem with the Vikes - the pieces don't fit. An expensive QB playing behind a below-average O Line, and a defense that falls apart at the worst possible times.

this is a poorly-constructed team. I don't care how good Dalvin Cook is. He can't make up for all of the other deficiencies.

in the end, the goal is to outscore the other team. if you have a good defense, you can win with an old-school offense. If you don't have a good defense, the only way to win is to put up as many points as possible as fast as possible, and it's hard to do that by running the ball.
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Am I the only one who thinks Dalvin looks pretty beat up this year? He's not breaking tackles and he's not turning the corner. When you couple that with a subpar offensive line, you don't really have a ball control "old school" offense.
 




howeda7 said:
They're both under contract for two more years, so it's more like Speilman has to come to work every day to earn his while Zim will be paid to go away.
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When you put it that way, Zim wins.
 

jamiche said:
Am I the only one who thinks Dalvin looks pretty beat up this year? He's not breaking tackles and he's not turning the corner. When you couple that with a subpar offensive line, you don't really have a ball control "old school" offense.
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He's not as fast either. Past his prime.
 

I seriously don't know how many more years of Spielman I can take in any capacity. To me he single-handedly represents the long slow downward spiral we've been on since Denny left.

It will be hard for me to keep watching them if he's still has any input into anything with this team.
 



RememberMurray said:
Okay. Makes sense. But...

The Vikings right now have the 11th ranked passing offense in the NFL, and back when they had the opportunity, they went out and signed the best (and most expensive) free agent QB available at the time, Kirk Cousins. So, do the Vikings — 11th in the league in passing yards — really have an "old school" offense? I honestly don't know the answer to that.

Let's say we agree the answer is "yes", the Vikings are currently old school. So now they are going to hire a new coach, tasked with switching over to a "new school" offense that is pass-first, and it is designed (as you say) to score a lot of points in order to simply outscore the opposition. Wouldn't that "new school", pass-first offense require a top QB (very, very expensive and hard to find) and a really good offensive line (expensive and hard to build)?
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I think the point is that - to be a winning team - the GM and the HC have to be in agreement on what type of team they want to be, and then go out and acquire talent that fits the blueprint.

In the Vikes' case, I think a big part of the problem is that Zim and Spielman are not in sync. Zim has one vision for the team and Spielman has a different vision. that is why the team seems to have a lot of mismatched pieces.

So, I would say the new coach is not going to be told what type of offense to run. If they do it right.......first, the Wilfs will hire a GM. The GM will hire a coach - AND make sure the GM and the Coach share a general philosophy for the style of play they want. then they can go to work on building a team that is suited to play that style.

it's like this - if you're going to build a house, you don't go out and buy the materials first, and then draw up blueprints. you draw up the blueprints first, and then you order the materials you need to follow the blueprints
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I think the point is that - to be a winning team - the GM and the HC have to be in agreement on what type of team they want to be, and then go out and acquire talent that fits the blueprint.

In the Vikes' case, I think a big part of the problem is that Zim and Spielman are not in sync. Zim has one vision for the team and Spielman has a different vision. that is why the team seems to have a lot of mismatched pieces.

So, I would say the new coach is not going to be told what type of offense to run. If they do it right.......first, the Wilfs will hire a GM. The GM will hire a coach - AND make sure the GM and the Coach share a general philosophy for the style of play they want. then they can go to work on building a team that is suited to play that style.

it's like this - if you're going to build a house, you don't go out and buy the materials first, and then draw up blueprints. you draw up the blueprints first, and then you order the materials you need to follow the blueprints
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Well said.

I especially agree with your point about hiring the new GM first, and then tasking the new GM with hiring the new coach.

It's been eight years. The time has come.

This will be a total rebuild. The team might be hard to watch for a few seasons. Yes, some people love to bellow about how this team "sucks" right now, but there are far, far deeper depths a team can sink to than the current level. The Vikings were legitimate playoff contenders for most of this season — and have been in almost every season played under the current regime. It will be a new experience for Viking fans to be in the hunt, not for a playoff berth, but for the #1 overall draft pick.

If and when the Vikings fall that far, and end up with that top draft pick, you can pray to Odin and Thor that our "new school" GM and our "new school" coach don't bungle it.
 
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If they go rebuild we need to get rid of all the highly paid aging players, trade them for whatever draft picks you can get. Hold onto the young Oline players. Then spend a couple years taking on other teams overpriced players, eating that salary to acquire high draft picks. Loading up on first and second round picks, having a bunch of studs on rookie deals is the only way to game the system.

I don't think they will do it and the Vikings will likely stay in 7 and 10 to 10 and 7 purgatory forever.
 

Rodgers was throwing dimes all over. Nex t season he is playing for the niners…. From the nfl md. PA.
 



Wally said:
If they go rebuild we need to get rid of all the highly paid aging players, trade them for whatever draft picks you can get. Hold onto the young Oline players. Then spend a couple years taking on other teams overpriced players, eating that salary to acquire high draft picks. Loading up on first and second round picks, having a bunch of studs on rookie deals is the only way to game the system.

I don't think they will do it and the Vikings will likely stay in 7 and 10 to 10 and 7 purgatory forever.
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There aren't many trades in the NFL for a reason. Trade Cousins for a 1st. Cook for a 2nd. I don't think many other pieces are movable. Both Hunter and Thielen need to re-structure or be cut. Barr is a FA who should not be brought back.
 

Mackey/Judd/Doogie were speculating yesterday that the Wilf's may bring in a new GM but keep Zimmer one more year. Reasoning is that they don't want to try and do both since they may miss out on the coach they want, and also that they don't want to pay Zim $8 million next year and a new coach. Zim would likely be out after 2022 unless the new GM wants him to stay.

Not really loving this strategy, but if you are planning on 2022 being a reset and clear the salary cap year, I suppose it doesn't really matter who the coach is.
 

howeda7 said:
Mackey/Judd/Doogie were speculating yesterday that the Wilf's may bring in a new GM but keep Zimmer one more year. Reasoning is that they don't want to try and do both since they may miss out on the coach they want, and also that they don't want to pay Zim $8 million next year and a new coach. Zim would likely be out after 2022 unless the new GM wants him to stay.

Not really loving this strategy, but if you are planning on 2022 being a reset and clear the salary cap year, I suppose it doesn't really matter who the coach is.
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So the three geniuses are speculating that Zimmer would agree to being a lame duck coach for one last year, on a team that is shedding salary and preparing to hire his successor — because he needs the $8 million more than he cares about his own pride and legacy?

I don't know the man personally, but that really does not match the image I have formed of him at all. I just can't see him rolling over for $8 million. I think he's saved a few bucks, and I don't think he's hurting financially. And he is definitely someone who has some self-respect.
 

RememberMurray said:
So the three geniuses are speculating that Zimmer would agree to being a lame duck coach for one last year, on a team that is shedding salary and preparing to hire his successor — because he needs the $8 million more than he cares about his own pride and legacy?

I don't know the man personally, but that really does not match the image I have formed of him at all. I just can't see him rolling over for $8 million. I think he's saved a few bucks, and I don't think he's hurting financially. And he is definitely someone who has some self-respect.
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Maybe they dont frame it that way to him, who knows......I guess the Wilfs shouldnt have extended him
 

howeda7 said:
Mackey/Judd/Doogie were speculating yesterday that the Wilf's may bring in a new GM but keep Zimmer one more year. Reasoning is that they don't want to try and do both since they may miss out on the coach they want, and also that they don't want to pay Zim $8 million next year and a new coach. Zim would likely be out after 2022 unless the new GM wants him to stay.

Not really loving this strategy, but if you are planning on 2022 being a reset and clear the salary cap year, I suppose it doesn't really matter who the coach is.
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I heard them talking about it, but I doubt 8 million would make much of a difference to the Wilfs. Zygi has a net worth of 1.3 billion and just donated 5 million to his alma mater. I don’t think the money/contract would be an issue.
 

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