Vikings keeping Stefanski as Offensive Coordinator

[Pondering Her Percy]

That is one of the things I do like. He knows the players and knows the positions. I hope we sign a good OL coach

Wouldnt you feel better if he had shown the ability to beat at least one team as OC that wasn't dogspit? I know I would.

Lol dude he’s had 3 games. So since he beat 2 of those teams and didn’t beat the one “good” team that means he isn’t any good? Pretty unfair assessment if you ask me.

[Mothman]

Stefanski was the easy choice which is why Speilman picked him. Also, his 'always being around' holds little weight. A Childress appointee who was never really good at any coaching job, at least enough to keep that job. Blah, Speilman has no idea how to see talent, and Zimmer has little talent on the offensive side of the ball.

You’re throwing blame out to the wrong people. Spielman doesn’t choose the OC. Being kept on this staff for as long as he has, yeah I would say he’s a pretty good coach and it shows he knows many different positions. You don’t even know if he’s a good OC or not. Nobody does. You say Spielman can’t see talent but you can? When it comes to coaches? How do you know if stefanski has talent or not? I’m not saying it’s a good or bad hire because nobody knows yet. Nor do you. So I have no idea what rick Spielman has to do with this or what it has to do with him “seeing talent”. You’re playing the blame game already on your usual punching bags and there is zero blame to throw out there given we haven’t really seen him as an OC outside of 3 games. Being for or against the hire is one thing when you have your reasons but you don’t even know what your reasons are and are blaming the wrong people so what you’re saying carries little weight

That response started off well but please stick to football and try to do less editorializing on your fellow board members.

Thank you.

[Mothman]

Wouldnt you feel better if he had shown the ability to beat at least one team as OC that wasn't dogspit? I know I would.

Lol dude he’s had 3 games. So since he beat 2 of those teams and didn’t beat the one “good” team that means he isn’t any good? Pretty unfair assessment if you ask me.

It is when you re-phrase it into something he didn't write! That's definitely unfair.

He didn't say not beating Chicago meant Stefanski "isn’t any good". He said he'd feel better about the hire if they'd defeated at least one team "that wasn't dogspit" (and the Bears are obviously that one team). Honestly, wouldn't we ALL feel better about the hire if that were the situation?

[Purple Martin]

Wouldnt you feel better if he had shown the ability to beat at least one team as OC that wasn't dogspit? I know I would.

Lol dude he’s had 3 games. So since he beat 2 of those teams and didn’t beat the one “good” team that means he isn’t any good? Pretty unfair assessment if you ask me.

No, dude, he's been with the team for 13 years. It was closer to his 300th game as a Vikings coach. He knows the personnel, he lknows the players, he knows the system in place. He performed exactly the same as Vikings have done for most of those years-beat poor teams and then come out flat-footed and lose to a one-and-out wildcard team when he had to win.

I'm just not sure what impresses people about that.

[Pondering Her Percy]

Lol dude he’s had 3 games. So since he beat 2 of those teams and didn’t beat the one “good” team that means he isn’t any good? Pretty unfair assessment if you ask me.

No, dude, he's been with the team for 13 years. It was closer to his 300th game as a Vikings coach. He knows the personnel, he lknows the players, he knows the system in place. He performed exactly the same as Vikings have done for most of those years-beat poor teams and then come out flat-footed and lose to a one-and-out wildcard team when he had to win.

I'm just not sure what impresses people about that.

Again, it was ONE game. Wouldnt you want a sample size of more than 1 game to judge how talented an OC is? The Chicago loss doesnt impress me but it doesnt make me think Stefanski is an underwhelming hire because he had one loss to the #3 seed in the NFC.

[Pondering Her Percy]

Lol dude he’s had 3 games. So since he beat 2 of those teams and didn’t beat the one “good” team that means he isn’t any good? Pretty unfair assessment if you ask me.

It is when you re-phrase it into something he didn't write! That's definitely unfair.

He didn't say not beating Chicago meant Stefanski "isn’t any good". He said he'd feel better about the hire if they'd defeated at least one team "that wasn't dogspit" (and the Bears are obviously that one team). Honestly, wouldn't we ALL feel better about the hire if that were the situation?

Didnt necessarily mean it like that but again, just because he lost one game out of 3 against the best defense in the NFL, doesnt tell me, yeah I dont feel great about the hire. Sure if we win that game that's great, but then what? Well he beat the Bears but then lost to them in the playoffs. Does that means its an underwhelming hire again? Point being, the sample size of him as an OC is as small as it gets. He took over at seasons end and probably had to use mostly the same stuff already implemented. He had very little time to put in anything he wanted to. Did Pat Shurmur look like a good OC when Turner got hired? No. The rest of the season that year was "meh" (and he had a WAY bigger sample size than Stefanski did). Then look at Shurmur the following year. Not saying Stefanski will follow that exact path but to get any kind of true judgement of the hire, you gotta see what the guy can do over a season. Not 3 games as an interim OC.

[Mothman]

Didnt necessarily mean it like that but again, just because he lost one game out of 3 against the best defense in the NFL, doesnt tell me, yeah I dont feel great about the hire. Sure if we win that game that's great, but then what? Well he beat the Bears but then lost to them in the playoffs. Does that means its an underwhelming hire again? Point being, the sample size of him as an OC is as small as it gets. He took over at seasons end and probably had to use mostly the same stuff already implemented. He had very little time to put in anything he wanted to. Did Pat Shurmur look like a good OC when Turner got hired? No. The rest of the season that year was "meh" (and he had a WAY bigger sample size than Stefanski did). Then look at Shurmur the following year. Not saying Stefanski will follow that exact path but to get any kind of true judgement of the hire, you gotta see what the guy can do over a season. Not 3 games as an interim OC.

I understand and you're making some good points above but an initial reaction isn't a final judgment. Under the circumstances, it seems reasonable for people to react anywhere on the spectrum from disappointed and underwhelmed to excited and optimistic. We'll all be able to better assess the hire at this time a year from now, when Stefanski's been able to coach as OC for a season.

I'm just trying to keep the peace between all of you dudes.

[Cliff]

No, dude, he's been with the team for 13 years. It was closer to his 300th game as a Vikings coach. He knows the personnel, he lknows the players, he knows the system in place. He performed exactly the same as Vikings have done for most of those years-beat poor teams and then come out flat-footed and lose to a one-and-out wildcard team when he had to win.

I'm just not sure what impresses people about that.

Again, it was ONE game. Wouldnt you want a sample size of more than 1 game to judge how talented an OC is? The Chicago loss doesnt impress me but it doesnt make me think Stefanski is an underwhelming hire because he had one loss to the #3 seed in the NFC.

To me the Chicago loss just re-enforced my opinion that the pieces on offense (for many reasons) aren't good enough to beat good teams. I agree the sample size is limited but only for the coaches and to me the players looked basically the same under each OC. They beat up bad teams and got shut down by above average to good teams.

Regardless if you're running more or passing more or whatever. At some point it becomes players vs. players and talent vs. talent. The offense has a combination of weaknesses and talent deficiencies that really exacerbate each other. Specifically the match of Cousins who isn't great under pressure or escaping it and the offensive line which allows way too much for even a more mobile QB. Above-average to good defensive teams are able to exploit that and shut the offense down. Run/Pass ratio be damned.

[Mothman]

Regarding reactions to this hire, it seems to me there are some reasons for optimism:

— The Vikings thought well enough of Stefanski to block him from following Shurmur to NY and Shurmur respected him enough to want him on his staff in NY.

— He just had head coaching interest. That suggests there's some positive buzz about him in league circles.

— He was QB coach in 2017, the best year for the Vikes offense under Zimmer and Keenum's best year as a pro.

— Being an interim OC can't be an easy gig and the offense played well against Miami and in the second half against the Lions.

—He's been with the team and his familiarity with the personnel could be advantageous going forward.

Some reasons to feel less enthusiastic about this hire:

— Stefanski's had 3 games as a playcaller and the results were mixed (bad first against DET, bad game against CHI).

— An inexperienced OC may be less than ideal on a team where the head coach basically hands all the responsibility for the offense over to the coordinator (emphasis on "may" because it might not be a problem at all).

— Stefanski was RB coach one season and the Vikings ranked last in the league in rushing that year. However, other factors were clearly involved. Nevertheless, that's not exactly exciting.

------------------
Beyond all of that, there's 2 years as TE coach during which I thought the TEs played fine (you may feel differently).

Stefanski was assistant QB coach from 2009-2013 and with the exception of 2009, that wasn't exactly a period of excellent QB play for the Vikings. Then again, how much influence does the assistant QB coach really have over QB performance anyway? At this point, he does have quite a bit of experience working with QBs so that could be a positive.

Overall, I can't say it's an exciting resumé but clearly, he's impressed some people along the way.

[Pondering Her Percy]

Again, it was ONE game. Wouldnt you want a sample size of more than 1 game to judge how talented an OC is? The Chicago loss doesnt impress me but it doesnt make me think Stefanski is an underwhelming hire because he had one loss to the #3 seed in the NFC.

To me the Chicago loss just re-enforced my opinion that the pieces on offense (for many reasons) aren't good enough to beat good teams. I agree the sample size is limited but only for the coaches and to me the players looked basically the same under each OC. They beat up bad teams and got shut down by above average to good teams.

Regardless if you're running more or passing more or whatever. At some point it becomes players vs. players and talent vs. talent. The offense has a combination of weaknesses and talent deficiencies that really exacerbate each other. Specifically the match of Cousins who isn't great under pressure or escaping it and the offensive line which allows way too much for even a more mobile QB. Above-average to good defensive teams are able to exploit that and shut the offense down. Run/Pass ratio be damned.

I agree with most of your post Cliff. Yes Cousins has been shaky under pressure but let's not forget, for a good portion of the season, he was one of the best QBs out there under pressure. I dont know if the pressure eventually got to him, if things changed on offense, etc. I have no idea why that changed. My guess? Because as the year went on, defenses figured us out. Bobby Wagner even said it after the Seattle game. That we did the same thing all season.

My father coached lacrosse for 22 years at a top HS in our area, I have coached lacrosse and football for 7 now. Both at the HS level. I would say I have a fairly good understanding of coaching and scheme. Not saying I know all by any means. But I've done it long enough and been around it long enough to have a good idea. One thing my father always said to me for years is "never let another teams best player beat you". For those that dont know lacrosse, my father would take his worst starting defender and face guard the other teams best player for all 4 quarters. Completely take him out of the game where he was hardly touching the ball. This would then allow our best two defenders to play straight up man to man on their two "weaker" players. It wouldnt matter who we were playing. The team could be 0-10 and he'd still take every teams best player completely out of the game. He said "they arent going to beat me, so someone else will have to". The amount of elite players/All Americans he shut down over the years was insane. Did it work EVERY time? No. But I would say in all those years, it worked a solid 85% of the time. And as a result, it helped him win A LOT of games over the years. Many coaches just couldnt figure it out because everything ran through their best player for the most part.

What does that have to do with the Vikings? Following Thielen's 100 yards per game streak, he had ONE game over 100 yards in the final 8 games of the season. Diggs also had ONE 100 yard game in those final 8 games. Defenses started to take our best players out of the game. Pete Carroll admitted it and I can guarantee guys like Belichick, Fangio and others did the same. They KNEW we werent going to commit to running the football. So in turn, they took the two guys we rely on most out of the game. They said, "go ahead, let Cook/Murray, Treadwell, Robinson and Rudolph try to beat us because we arent going to let Thielen and Diggs do it". From a coaching standpoint, it was an excellent move by Carroll and others.

What made me mad, is yeah, go ahead and shut those guys down, but we have Dalvin Cook and he can burn you just as easy. THAT is where Mike Zimmer and this offense went wrong. I think Zim was trying to get to that because of what he kept saying to Flip and eventually firing him, but it went on too long. He should have countered with that much sooner than later and he didnt. To have two elite WRs and (eventually elite IMO) RB, you couldnt ask for much more from a skill position standpoint. Because it gives you balance. It's tough to scheme against. You have to commit to one but let the other go. You have to pick your poison. All those coaches had to do was shut down the WRs and watch our moron of an OC scratch his head not knowing what to do but to continue to throw Cousins 45 times a game. They could easily rush 4 against a weak OL and drop into coverage doubling and tripling our best players and we had zero answer. And then in 3rd and long situations, send a blitz which will get to Cousins almost every time and the play wont have time to develop. I'm not trying to sound cocky but I really feel like I could coordinate a defense against Flip and beat him 9 times out of 10. It was so easy to figure out. And once we got exposed after the bye, teams walked all over us. I didnt really notice it until then. I dont think anyone did but the problem was, NOBODY had an answer on this staff. And I truly believe the answer was....Dalvin Cook. Or a Cook/Murray combo like we did vs Miami.

I will say, Miami wasnt very good but that was the best coordinated game I saw all season. You take pressure off your QB by throwing less, you do roughly a 2:1 split with Cook and Murray and pound the crap out of the ball and you play solid defense. In turn, it resulted in a win, we put up 41 points, Cousins plays well (outside of the missed block pick 6), he throws for his highest YPA on the year at 10.2 (closest to that was 9.0), two touchdowns, Cook and Murray shred Miami's defense and Zim shuts down their offense. Outside of a couple blunders here and there, it's a near perfect game.

In the end, I like the Stefanski hire more and more and think he can do big things with this offense because he understands the importance of balance in an offense. Something Flip didnt get. We need to have an answer when it isnt there for Thielen and Diggs and I would hope Stefanski knows that answer is Dalvin Cook (and obviously getting better pieces on the OL)

[Purple Martin]

No, dude, he's been with the team for 13 years. It was closer to his 300th game as a Vikings coach. He knows the personnel, he lknows the players, he knows the system in place. He performed exactly the same as Vikings have done for most of those years-beat poor teams and then come out flat-footed and lose to a one-and-out wildcard team when he had to win.

I'm just not sure what impresses people about that.

Again, it was ONE game. Wouldnt you want a sample size of more than 1 game to judge how talented an OC is? The Chicago loss doesnt impress me but it doesnt make me think Stefanski is an underwhelming hire because he had one loss to the #3 seed in the NFC.

I would want a larger sample size if the person in question wasn't already a member of a dysfunctional offense for many years (continuity! that everyone raves about), didn't already know the people and system in place, and if that person managed to beat (or show up against) one good team when he had the chance. I don't know he'll end up performing but based on what I saw, there's not much reason to be optimistic. It was the exact same result we've gotten for years: Beat bad teams, lose to the good teams. I think any experienced OC with a .500 record could probably do that.

So Zimmer must be banking on a belief that Stefanski has something he hasnt shown (to me) yet, and if he's wrong they'll both be gone 12 months from now. After 5 years of watching his teams mostly underperform offensively, I have little confidence in Zimmer's offensive decisions.

[Mothman]

I agree with most of your post Cliff. Yes Cousins has been shaky under pressure but let's not forget, for a good portion of the season, he was one of the best QBs out there under pressure. I dont know if the pressure eventually got to him, if things changed on offense, etc. I have no idea why that changed. My guess? Because as the year went on, defenses figured us out. Bobby Wagner even said it after the Seattle game. That we did the same thing all season.

My father coached lacrosse for 22 years at a top HS in our area, I have coached lacrosse and football for 7 now. Both at the HS level. I would say I have a fairly good understanding of coaching and scheme. Not saying I know all by any means. But I've done it long enough and been around it long enough to have a good idea. One thing my father always said to me for years is "never let another teams best player beat you". For those that dont know lacrosse, my father would take his worst starting defender and face guard the other teams best player for all 4 quarters. Completely take him out of the game where he was hardly touching the ball. This would then allow our best two defenders to play straight up man to man on their two "weaker" players. It wouldnt matter who we were playing. The team could be 0-10 and he'd still take every teams best player completely out of the game. He said "they arent going to beat me, so someone else will have to". The amount of elite players/All Americans he shut down over the years was insane. Did it work EVERY time? No. But I would say in all those years, it worked a solid 85% of the time. And as a result, it helped him win A LOT of games over the years. Many coaches just couldnt figure it out because everything ran through their best player for the most part.

What does that have to do with the Vikings? Following Thielen's 100 yards per game streak, he had ONE game over 100 yards in the final 8 games of the season. Diggs also had ONE 100 yard game in those final 8 games. Defenses started to take our best players out of the game. Pete Carroll admitted it and I can guarantee guys like Belichick, Fangio and others did the same. They KNEW we werent going to commit to running the football. So in turn, they took the two guys we rely on most out of the game. They said, "go ahead, let Cook/Murray, Treadwell, Robinson and Rudolph try to beat us because we arent going to let Thielen and Diggs do it". From a coaching standpoint, it was an excellent move by Carroll and others.

What made me mad, is yeah, go ahead and shut those guys down, but we have Dalvin Cook and he can burn you just as easy. THAT is where Mike Zimmer and this offense went wrong. I think Zim was trying to get to that because of what he kept saying to Flip and eventually firing him, but it went on too long. He should have countered with that much sooner than later and he didnt. To have two elite WRs and (eventually elite IMO) RB, you couldnt ask for much more from a skill position standpoint. Because it gives you balance. It's tough to scheme against. You have to commit to one but let the other go. You have to pick your poison. All those coaches had to do was shut down the WRs and watch our moron of an OC scratch his head not knowing what to do but to continue to throw Cousins 45 times a game. They could easily rush 4 against a weak OL and drop into coverage doubling and tripling our best players and we had zero answer. And then in 3rd and long situations, send a blitz which will get to Cousins almost every time and the play wont have time to develop. I'm not trying to sound cocky but I really feel like I could coordinate a defense against Flip and beat him 9 times out of 10. It was so easy to figure out. And once we got exposed after the bye, teams walked all over us. I didnt really notice it until then. I dont think anyone did but the problem was, NOBODY had an answer on this staff. And I truly believe the answer was....Dalvin Cook. Or a Cook/Murray combo like we did vs Miami.

I will say, Miami wasnt very good but that was the best coordinated game I saw all season. You take pressure off your QB by throwing less, you do roughly a 2:1 split with Cook and Murray and pound the crap out of the ball and you play solid defense. In turn, it resulted in a win, we put up 41 points, Cousins plays well (outside of the missed block pick 6), he throws for his highest YPA on the year at 10.2 (closest to that was 9.0), two touchdowns, Cook and Murray shred Miami's defense and Zim shuts down their offense. Outside of a couple blunders here and there, it's near the perfect game.

In the end, I like the Stefanski hire more and more and think he can do big things with this offense because he understands the importance of balance in an offense. Something Flip didnt get.

... and yet when they played the rematch against the Bears in MN, the Vikings had one more called running play than they did in the game @Chicago so did Stefanski "get it" any better? We can argue that was due to game circumstances but we can argue that about some of the games Deflippo called too.

That's good stuff about taking away a team's best player or best options. I enjoyed reading it and Ive always thought it was a sound approach. Belichick does that very well in the NFL and has for years. The only problem with countering teams that took away Diggs and Thielen by going after them with Cook is that some of those teams just stuffed the run and shut down the screen game. At that point, the OC has to figure out other ways to attack or just keep running the ball, hope it starts working and hope the defense can keep it close. I'm oversimplifying but that's the gist of it.

It was easy for the Vikes to stick with the run against Miami because the latter stunk at defending it. Flip called a nice balance of run/pass against teams like AZ and DET because the Vikes were able to get production out of their running game against those opponents (if I recall, they did in the second, Stefanski-coached game against DET too). I think he missed an opportunity to do that in NE though.

Anyway, Stefanski may have a better understanding of balance and he may not. We'll have to see. It's critical that the Vikings make the necessary moves to build a better running game so fielding a balanced offense will be easier and more appealing next season.

[halfgiz]

I'm interested to see who we end up with for our OL coach. And we hopefully get some depth and a quality line from some decent coaching.

Here is something I don't understand. Elflein was really struggling at center.And Jones who was a better option at center never made it off of the bench. He graded better than Elfien last year "2017" and the early part of this season when he played center.
A lot of that is common sense...but maybe not.
Who was responsible for making Remmers guard when it really isn't a strong position for him. They kept him there all season.

As far as Stefanski it seems he is never Zimmers first choice.
I wish him good luck!

[VikingLord]

Overall, I can't say it's an exciting resumé but clearly, he's impressed some people along the way.

Here's another reason not to get too excited - Zimmer is doing the hiring.

Zimmer doesn't exactly have a stellar record of hiring when it comes to his OC since he's become a head coach. Not only has there been a lot of turnover at the position, but the way his OCs have left or been fired is not exactly encouraging. It is hard to understand how an established coach like Norv Turner just up and quits in the middle of a season like he did. The firing of Flip is another thing, especially given the obvious problems along the offensive line.

Well, it's a win-now league, but historically, the type of churn we're seeing at the OC spot under Zimmer is unusual by league standards.

Shurmur seemed to be a good hire, but I almost have to wonder if Zimmer simply got lucky with that one.

Not sure on Stefanski at this point. He's an internal hire on a team that had some serious issues this year, and he doesn't have enough of a track record to tell us much about how he'll design and run an offense. I just hope he has some imagination and Zimmer gives him some room on the leash to show what he can do. The one thing that will frustrate me more than anything will be to see more rigidity in the offensive approach next season.

[Dames]

It's completely fair to be unenthusiastic about the re-hire of Stefanksi. He has a lot to prove. I'm choosing to be optimistic about it, mainly because that's something I'm trying to do more of in my life, and being pessimistic just really didn't help me. (I used to call that being realistic, but my wife finally through got to me )

I think this is the make-it-or-break-it year for Zim (and possibly Spielman). That, I believe, is the single most important factor in why Stefanski remains the OC. If I understand correctly, both Zim and Spielman are on their last year of their respective contracts. I've said something similar in another thread, but I'll repeat it here. I don't think there was any realistic chance that the Vikings were landing a top OC this year, due to the lack of guarantee that they will be here more than next year. I think the options were A) Stefanksi B) a different inexperienced OC trying to build a reputation, or C) an OC that is coming here with hopes of getting the inside track at being the HC job in 2020 (if Zim fails).

IMHO, out of those options, Stefanski was the winner. I'm banking on the fact that Zim must understand his situation, and is making a choice of what he thinks is the best way to keep his job after next year. I do not think he chooses Stefanski if he really doesn't think it's his best option to win (especially since they made the choice very quickly). It's likely that they contacted some other options first of course. Maybe the feedback they received was not promising. We don't know. But, Stefanski had the option of moving on also, and he chose to stay (after the Browns job fell though). It was obvious that he and the Vikings made a deal that he would return if the HC job was not offered.

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how Stefanski does with a full off-season to prepare for OC. I'm hoping none of us are disappointed, but I understand it can go either way. if we are disappointed, we may see none of these guys back.