How confident are you in Case Keenum in the playoffs?

[John_Viveiros]

Great thread.

I'm a little worried, after the last few weeks where the offense has struggled to push the ball downfield and convert on 3rd down passes.

[VikingLord]

I am 100% confident in Case at this point. He's played well even as defenses adjusted specifically to him. He's kept the mistakes down and even shown better judgment on his throws in my opinion. A lot of the offensive struggles recently came because of an unusual number of dropped passes (like against the Panthers) or penalties (Packers and Bears) that had nothing to do with Case. He's shown he can escape pressure, make tough throws under duress, and run the offense whether they're ahead or trying to catch up.

[VikingLord]

For me, I don't really care how he did or what his stats were prior to being a Viking. My opinion is from what he's done with this team.

Case is a wizard at feeling pressure and extending plays. I love the way he's always looking downfield. I love his passion, his attitude, his humility.

The only knock I have against him is his ball placement on the deep ball. If Case can lead his receivers better and hit them in stride, this team would be almost unstoppable. If case does this along with hitting that wide open receiver, the Vikings would be unstoppable.

The other thing I noticed lately is I believe the coach staff is telling Case not to force anything. He's been a gunslinger this season but not so much in recent games. Instead, he's been more hesitant and has been holding on to the ball and throwing it away more. I guess I wouldn't blame Zimmer with how the defense and the punting team has been playing.

One more thing I noticed while rewatching the bears game was how many times the Bears tipped Keenum's pass at the line of scrimmage. I think I counted 4. Never noticed prior to this game

Yeah, but that isn't Keenum's fault as much as it was great anticipation on the part of a very good Bear front four. The Bear defense was no joke this year. They weren't dominant, but they played well and certainly showed that against the Vikings offense.

The way I see it, the offense has struggled mainly due to the following:

- Dropped passes
- Untimely penalties that put them into unfavorable down and distance situations
- Shuffling on the offensive line due to injuries

The offense does have to correct all of the above to be effective, but none of the above are Keenum's fault, and in many cases Keenum has mitigated each through his play. For example, against the Panthers he threw 2 catchable TD passes there were either ruled incomplete or dropped among several other good passes that were simply dropped. Against both the Packers and Bears, the offense kept going backwards due to holding calls and false starts, with many of the holding calls coming after positive plays.

It's just hard to fault Keenum. I feel like his overall play has improved as the season has worn on to be honest. I think earlier he wasn't sure if he was going to remain the starter once Bridgewater came back and he pressed a bit as a result. Now he knows he's the starter and he honestly seems more confident and comfortable. He still makes a few throws that might come back to haunt him, but for the most part he's been effective and efficient and, if the Vikings can clean up the mistakes on offense they've been making the last several weeks (most of which resulted in wins despite the mistakes), they could roll in the playoffs.

[PacificNorseWest]

Case does tend to float and underthrow deep passes. He also needs to go back to stepping up and under in the pocket when pressured instead of rolling out, which with the rolling out, he tends to come up short on passes because he doesn't have the arm strength to go deep when a receiver is already in his route and while he is on the run. The latter he already fixed once this season, but seems to be going back to the instant rollout on plays. It also depends on the type of pressure received, but there were a couple of occasions against Chicago where he should have stepped up instead of rolling to the side. He tends to do start doing that when he gets pressured frequently.

[Husker Vike]

I am confident in Keenum's ability to manage the game, what does worry me a little is if the Defense has an off day and we get behind early ,will he panic and try to make throws that he just can't. I do believe that he is a better QB just by getting away from Jeff Fischer, as is Goff.

[Boon]

Keenum has earned my confidence in him. Playoffs or not...If he has a bad game, it's not like I'm going to be saying, "man, they should've just started Teddy or Bradford." Obviously something like that would be strong on hindsight, but what have we seen that suggests Case can't be a serviceable, at the least, playoff quarterback? He's not perfect, but he might just be perfect for this team and this run, even if it's only for this season.

Healthy bradford is head and shoulders above keenum. Problem is he's made out of glass.

As far as keenum goes he does worry me. Not that he's gonna make dumb throws, but the guy who wrote the article nailed something i've been seeing since early in the season. His diagnosing is suspect. And his deep ball in the last 5 weeks or so has been terrible. He is rarely on target deep as of late, its a bit concerning. He's badly underthrowing bombs in the games other than green bays, where he overthrew wide open thielen, treadwell and diggs, diggs throw being a bit more contested but an overthrow nonetheless. There was ZERO excuse on thielens.

[PacificNorseWest]

I'm not gonna say 'head and shoulders better,' because they offer different things. Bradford is the "sexier" of the two because of his measurables and he has the arm strength and the best deep ball accuracy in the game. There's absolutely no way, however, that he has the mobility to get away from the defense on some of the plays where Keenum has eluded pressure and a lot of those plays have been huge factors to the Vikings winning games. Bradford needs great protection to be great, Keenum can get by with just good protection and when protection breaks down, he still has a chance to make something happen.

[dead_poet]

So, 1,158 yards(26.7%) of Drew Brees 4,334 yards of passing goes to two players running after they caught the ball. Anyone have a story talking about Brees being a paper tiger? Or for that matter Ben Roethlisberger?

They're not talking about them as paper tigers because they have the credentials and proven track record -- 277 career wins, 3 Super Bowls, 17 Pro Bowls, 8x league passing leaders, thrown for combined over 120,000 yards, 817 touchdowns an average completion percentage of 65.5% and are both probably going to be in the Hall of Fame.

Case Keenum entered the season with a sub-59% completion, 24-20 TD-INT ratio and 9-24 record.

Just five months ago we were thinking he was going to be beat out by Taylor Heinike and now we're talking about Case Keenum possibly leading us to a Super Bowl and earning a lucrative extension.

All I'm saying is there's reason to be nervous.

[halfgiz]

What makes me more nervous is.. Zimmer believes once the Vikings gain a reasonable lead his offense can go conservative and then rely on defense to win the game.
I would just as soon keep the pedal to the medal.

[J. Kapp 11]

What makes me more nervous is.. Zimmer believes once the Vikings gain a reasonable lead his offense can go conservative and then rely on defense to win the game.
I would just as soon keep the pedal to the medal.

I agree with this. Love me some Zimmer. But I wish he'd stomp somebody.

On one hand, I get it. Get the lead and shorten the game. But man, it's scary sometimes. I'm watching the Bears drive inside the Vikings 5 with 5 minutes to play, only down 13, and I'm thinking we might actually be in trouble. It's going to bite Zimmer in the butt someday. I sincerely hope it's not during these playoffs.

[Raptorman]

They're not talking about them as paper tigers because they have the credentials and proven track record -- 277 career wins, 3 Super Bowls, 17 Pro Bowls, 8x league passing leaders, thrown for combined over 120,000 yards, 817 touchdowns an average completion percentage of 65.5% and are both probably going to be in the Hall of Fame.

Case Keenum entered the season with a sub-59% completion, 24-20 TD-INT ratio and 9-24 record.

Just five months ago we were thinking he was going to be beat out by Taylor Heinike and now we're talking about Case Keenum possibly leading us to a Super Bowl and earning a lucrative extension.

All I'm saying is there's reason to be nervous.

The point being, and most here might disagree, but most top QB live and die by the YAC. It's part of the game. The myth that the long ball wins just isn't true. Oh, the long ball may win a game or two, and it sure does come in handy. But the short underneath passes is what wins championships.

[PurpleMustReign]

I agree with this. Love me some Zimmer. But I wish he'd stomp somebody.

On one hand, I get it. Get the lead and shorten the game. But man, it's scary sometimes. I'm watching the Bears drive inside the Vikings 5 with 5 minutes to play, only down 13, and I'm thinking we might actually be in trouble. It's going to bite Zimmer in the butt someday. I sincerely hope it's not during these playoffs.

Me too. It almost hurt Tham against Detroit too, and that would have been a deviating game to lose.

Sent from my LG-H872 using Tapatalk

[mosscarter]

I think the key to Case's postseason is how well he can continue to elude pressure. To me, that and throwing on the run out of the pocket are his two biggest assets. He has never had, nor ever will have a beautiful deep ball. And, for the most part he really has taken good care of the ball this season. Overall, considering I watched him play week 3 in Pittsburgh; for as far as he has come he is the MVP in my view. With that said, I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't a little worried, but he has SO earned this opportunity that it is time to just see what happens. Our quarterback situation has always been and, with what I'm seeing will likely be a problem yet again next year so I'm just enjoying the ride. You never know how many first round bye's you'll get to see in your life.

[mansquatch]

The two toughest defenses in the playoffs besides ours are Carolina and Philly. The Rams are probably an honorable mention. Of those three we've played two of them, one win at home, one loss on the road.

Keenum's stats:

Vs. Rams: 27-38 280yd 1TD 0INT 100.8 rating

Vs. Panthers: 27-44 280yd 2TD 2INT 75.9 rating

We obviously lost the game against CAR, but keep in mind one of those INT wasn't Keenum's fault and he lead us back to tying that game late in the 4Q. He was also sacked 6 times in that game, a game where we had 3 of our Starting OL miss time, including both tackles. That was also a game that was the third game in a row on the road, something that notoriously can result in a team laying an egg. The Viking did just that and still almost won the game.

As Kapp said in a different post, the odds of CAR recreating their performance in that game are low. IMO, if both teams revert to their respective means the Vikings come out ahead, way ahead.

As for the Rams, we torched them. They had no answer to our defense. They will have a game of experence to build on, but they will be playing in our house.

In both cases you have to like our chances.

Philly could be scary as we'd play them on the road, but you have to think that such a game would be one where it would be all about ball security since without Wentz we should be able to rely on our defense to shut their offense down. Score 16 points and win sort of thing.

IMO, the only way Keenum becomes an issue is if our Defense cannot hold up and we get behind, forcing him to win the game himself. That is where we would start to see cracks in his game. For that reason the NFC team that scares me the most is New Orleans since of all the teams in the post season they have what looks to be the most potent offense. Still that is hardly a pre-ordained event. We completely shut them down in week one and our defense has shown the ability to stop QBs. You have ot like our chances.

[MikethePurple]

Keenum has played well but I definitely have concern. I think one part that stats don't always describe is ball placement. When you watch games there are plenty of times I've seen Thielen, Diggs, and Rudolph make some amazing catches to compensate for inaccuracies. The offense has been somewhat stagnant the past few weeks which I also think is cause for concern. In Green Bay obviously the weather played a factor but these last few games were against pretty poor teams and the offense still wasn't clicking completely. My concern is against some better teams in the playoffs that have better offenses and defenses we won't be able to count on constant three and outs from the incredible defense or the ability to score few points and grind out wins which seems to have been the formula this season. I'm really concerned if they are playing from behind. The recipe seems to have been suffocating defense, build a lead, and grind the game out while slowly tacking on to the lead.