2018 Minnesota Vikings In-Season Thread

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Our offense is now great, we are going to the super bowl!
 


Leave it to the 2018 Vikings to turn a cakewalk into a nailbiter at home against a middle-tier team. These Vikings are mediocre, and that is very disappointing and sad.
 


cncmin said:
Leave it to the 2018 Vikings to turn a cakewalk into a nailbiter at home against a middle-tier team. These Vikings are mediocre, and that is very disappointing and sad.
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A 41-17 nailbiter?
 



Thanks to Seattle choking in SF today, there's a decent chance the Vikings can move up to the #5 seed and play the Cowboys instead of the Bears in round 1. I like their chances much better in that case.
 



howeda7 said:
Thanks to Seattle choking in SF today, there's a decent chance the Vikings can move up to the #5 seed and play the Cowboys instead of the Bears in round 1. I like their chances much better in that case.
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There's a chance, but decent is pushing it. Seattle plays so well at home, they will give Chiefs a tough time. That being said, I get your point.
 

The Vikings defense has given up a combined 97 net passing yards the last 2 games. Incredible.
 

The Rams choking against the Eagles will make the Bears game tougher. Unless they lose to SF, the Bears will still have a shot at the #2 seed in week 17.
 

Well this is just great..

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/kevin-stefanski-could-interview-for-head-coach-openings-if-vikings-thrive-under-the-offensive-coordinator/

Also listen to KFAN this morning. Had David Morgan on. He was very complimentary of the new OC.

Said they cut the playbook way down to plays they know they are good at and could practice on during week. Made it sound like DeFlippo had this giant playbook and used new plays every week, so they never had much opportunity to practice them.

Also said that the new OC made sure they lined up sooner so it gave Cousins enough time to assess the defense and make a good audible call if neccesary.

Morgan made it really sound like the team was happy with the change.

Also heard last night on one of the national outlets that the thought around the league was DeFlippo was more worried about showing how much of an offensive genius he was to get a head coaching job. So he made his playbook too complex.
 



howeda7 said:
Thanks to Seattle choking in SF today, there's a decent chance the Vikings can move up to the #5 seed and play the Cowboys instead of the Bears in round 1. I like their chances much better in that case.
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I would love to play the cowboys over the bears. Indoors just like home, and not a team we have already played twice.
 


Jury is out until we play on the road, whether this success running the football will hold.
 

JimmyJamesMD said:
Well this is just great..

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/kevin-stefanski-could-interview-for-head-coach-openings-if-vikings-thrive-under-the-offensive-coordinator/

Also listen to KFAN this morning. Had David Morgan on. He was very complimentary of the new OC.

Said they cut the playbook way down to plays they know they are good at and could practice on during week. Made it sound like DeFlippo had this giant playbook and used new plays every week, so they never had much opportunity to practice them.

Also said that the new OC made sure they lined up sooner so it gave Cousins enough time to assess the defense and make a good audible call if neccesary.

Morgan made it really sound like the team was happy with the change.

Also heard last night on one of the national outlets that the thought around the league was DeFlippo was more worried about showing how much of an offensive genius he was to get a head coaching job. So he made his playbook too complex.
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Plenty of Robb Smith parallels there. In a larger sense, though, there have been tons of coordinators - offensive and defensive - that get fired because their system is too complex to teach or execute. Ted Cottrell was one of those.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Plenty of Robb Smith parallels there. In a larger sense, though, there have been tons of coordinators - offensive and defensive - that get fired because their system is too complex to teach or execute. Ted Cottrell was one of those.
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Right. Even Zimmer said he had to simplify some things when the defense wasn't playing great.

You always hear players saying they like to play fast, and in order to do that, you shouldnt need to think too much. That's how complex schemes can be detrimental .
 

We have superior talent at a lot of positions, let them play.
 

per Chip:

The NFL’s most underappreciated player keeps getting the last laugh. Sherels is in his ninth NFL season, tied with Everson Griffen as the longest-tenured Viking. He has lasted nearly a decade because he remains one of the league’s most reliable punt returners and versatile special-teams players.

He showed his value again Sunday when he flipped field position with a 70-yard punt return at a tense moment in what became a 41-17 victory over Miami.

That marked Sherels’ 29th return of 20-plus yards since 2012, the most in the NFL in that span.

Sherels is the only active NFL player with at least 200 career punt returns and eight or fewer fumbles. He’s lost only two fumbles in 231 career returns. None since 2016.

That, more than anything, explains why he keeps a tight grip on his job.

“Turnovers are huge in the game as you can see around the league,” he said.

Returning punts isn’t a glamorous job. It requires looking skyward while 10 defenders make a full-throttle beeline to demolish you. Returners are either brave or wacko.

“I just try to go out there and make plays,” Sherels said.

http://www.startribune.com/marcus-s...l-with-vikings-after-all-this-time/502973551/

Skol Vikes!!
 

per STrib:

What if the Vikings lose to the Bears next Sunday afternoon?

There’s still a chance.

At a possible 8-7-1, the Vikings can still earn the NFC’s No. 6 seed with an Eagles loss or tie against the Washington Redskins.

With the Rams and Bears still wrestling over the No. 2 spot and a first-round bye, the NFL moved a handful of games to the afternoon spots to guarantee Chicago and L.A. won’t know whether they’re locked into a playoff seed before kickoff of their regular season finales. So Vikings-Bears, Rams-49ers, Eagles-Redskins and Seahawks-Cardinals are all set to kick off at 3:25 p.m. CT this Sunday afternoon.

Now, let’s assume the Vikings make it to the postseason. Where are they playing? Here are the scenarios.

At Chicago: This seems the most likely should the Vikings make the playoffs. It requires a Vikings win against the Bears in Week 17 and a Seahawks win against the Cardinals. The Vikings could still return to Chicago with a loss on Sunday against the Bears. In that case, the Vikings need an Eagles tie or loss and a Rams win.

At Dallas: If the Vikings win, and somehow the Seahawks lose to the lowly Cardinals, Minnesota (at 9-6-1) would leapfrog Seattle (at 9-7) for the No. 5 seed and travel to the NFC East-champion Dallas Cowboys during wild-card weekend.

At Los Angeles: The Vikings would return to L.A. against the Rams if Minnesota loses to the Bears, the Rams lose to the 49ers and the Eagles lose or tie against the Redskins. The Vikings would need to lose on Sunday vs. Chicago for this scenario, allowing the Bears to finish in a 12-4 tie with the Rams and move ahead due to the head-to-head tiebreaker Bears win vs. the Rams earlier this season.

http://www.startribune.com/at-chica...-all-the-vikings-playoff-scenarios/503446472/

Skol Vikes!!
 

STrib: Vikings signed Kirk Cousins to win big games like Sunday's against the Bears

On Sunday, with the Vikings’ playoff hopes on the line in a late-afternoon home game against the NFC North champion playing for a first-round bye, Kirk Cousins will step onto the turf at U.S. Bank Stadium and try to match the standard of the last Vikings quarterback in the same situation six years ago to the day.

It was Dec. 30, 2012, when the Vikings found themselves needing to beat the Green Bay Packers at the Metrodome to clinch a wild-card spot, that Christian Ponder delivered perhaps his finest performance in Minnesota. While Adrian Peterson ran for 199 yards, coming within nine of breaking Eric Dickerson’s single-season record, it was Ponder who delivered the strikes that put the Vikings over the top in a wild 37-34 win. He threw three touchdown passes in the game, flipping a go-ahead score to Michael Jenkins as he rolled to his left with 7:54 to play and engineering a game-winning field goal drive to send the Vikings into the playoffs as the NFC’s No. 6 seed.

If the moment provided the Vikings a fleeting jolt of hope they’d found the answer to their QB problems with the 12th pick in the 2011 draft, they’re counting on Cousins to deliver the same kind of return on investment, in a situation almost identical to the one Ponder faced six years earlier.

From a statistical standpoint, Cousins has fashioned one of the most impressive seasons by a quarterback in Vikings history, ranking second in the team record book for completion percentage (70.7), fourth in passer rating (100.9), fifth in yards (4,166) and sixth in touchdowns (29). And yet, at the end of a season during which they fired the offensive coordinator (John DeFilippo) who helped lead the effort to bring Cousins to Minnesota, the Vikings are 8-6-1, needing either a win or an Eagles loss to slip into the playoffs as a wild card a year after they played for the NFC title.

“For us, playoffs have already started. We know that we have to win this game in order to get into them,” coach Mike Zimmer said. “There has to be a heightened sense of energy and focus and study time. You have to make sure that your bodies are rested and understand it is going to be a physical football game on Sunday.”

The Vikings, put simply, also likely will need Cousins to be better than he was last time they faced the Bears.

http://www.startribune.com/vikings-...es-like-sunday-s-against-the-bears/503531072/

Skol Vikes!!
 

This hasn't been talked about a lot, at least that I've heard - although John Bonnes did tweet about it. We're facing the prospect that Daniel Carlson's missed overtime field goal will be the difference in the Vikings making or missing the postseason (or one difference, depending on how you look at it). The way that it happened so many weeks ago but still within the season, this feels like an undead hand of the Vikings' placekicking curse reaching out of the ground and grabbing the team by the ankle.
 

Bad Gopher said:
This hasn't been talked about a lot, at least that I've heard - although John Bonnes did tweet about it. We're facing the prospect that Daniel Carlson's missed overtime field goal will be the difference in the Vikings making or missing the postseason (or one difference, depending on how you look at it). The way that it happened so many weeks ago but still within the season, this feels like an undead hand of the Vikings' placekicking curse reaching out of the ground and grabbing the team by the ankle.
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If the Vikings cannot beat the Bears at home then they aren’t good enough anyway. This is the first game of the playoffs for the Vikings.
 

cncmin said:
If the Vikings cannot beat the Bears at home then they aren’t good enough anyway. This is the first game of the playoffs for the Vikings.
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I dont trust KC. I hope he proves me wrong.
 

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Skol Vikes!!
 


Charley Walters: Fates of Mike Zimmer, Rick Spielman could hang in balance

Careers could depend on the outcome of Sunday afternoon’s Vikings-Chicago Bears game in Minneapolis.

If the highly invested Vikings were to lose and finish 8-7-1 and out of the playoffs, the question for team owners Zygi and Mark Wilf becomes what to do.

It’s unclear whether Vikings general manager Rick Spielman and head coach Mike Zimmer have either one or two years left on their contracts. But it’s very rare that a team lets a GM and coach go into their final year without an extension. Usually at that juncture, they either receive new deals or are fired.

If the Vikings win Sunday and thus make the playoffs, it’s clear that Spielman and Zimmer will return. If the Vikings lose, it could get ugly this week at the team’s $200 million Eagan complex.

Regarding Zimmer, he has had an influential booster in Bill Parcells, who coached the Giants to two Super Bowls. Parcells is admired by Zygi Wilf. If the Vikings don’t get into the playoffs, it’ll be interesting to see how much influence Parcells still has with Zygi and Zimmer.

If the Vikings were to keep Zimmer and fire Spielman and bring in a new GM, it would seem the new guy would end up reporting to Zimmer.

It rarely works when a GM and head coach aren’t synched up. For instance, last year the Packers fired Ted Thompson as GM and retained coach Mike McCarthy. That didn’t work out, with McCarthy getting fired early this month with a 4-7-1 record. The same could happen soon with Jets GM Mike Maccagnan and coach Todd Bowles.

It still seems unlikely that linebacker Anthony Barr will return to the Vikings. That’s because as a free agent, other teams with more salary space would be able to pay him more than Minnesota. So Barr, 26, needs to play well against Chicago to showcase himself.

Sunday is also a big game for Sheldon Richardson, the Vikings defensive tackle paid $8 million this season and who can become a free agent in March. Richardson said he hasn’t had any conversations with the team about an extension.

https://www.twincities.com/2018/12/...e-zimmer-rick-spielman-could-hang-in-balance/

Skol Vikes!!
 


Time to clean house, GM on down. These guys embarrassed themselves all year.

Bears are stupid as hell to not throw this game though. They could have sent this mediocre team to the playoffs instead of the red-hot defending champs. They might be as dumb as the Queens.
 
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