Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by VikeFanInEagleLand »

Sandpounder27 wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:43 pm
VikeFanInEagleLand wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:08 am I was 9 years old in 1972 when I started to become interested in sports, My first love was baseball. My dad and brother were big Philadelphia fans. I jumped on the Pirates bandwagon because they were the current champions. The next year, I became interested in football also, and I adopted the Vikings as my team, mainly because my best friend was also a Vikings fan. A Superbowl loss in '73 & '74 followed by the "Hail Mary" loss in '75, and then another Super Bowl loss in '76. Along the way, they have certainly had my hopes high, but ultimately in the end...another let down.

In the recent years, I have been critical of Cousins by stating that I don't feel he has the makeup to take us to the promised land. I definitely think he has the physical tools, just not the mental ones. But I have held out hope that his physical gifts will overcome the shortcomings, and prove me wrong. Maybe with the right teammates beside him he could do it. BUT, after last night, another layer has been piled on top of the losing probabilities. We won't win with Zimmer. I have to admit it. So, indeed any optimism that I had left, was ripped from me last night.
Wow, small world. I am also a Viking fan in eagles land. I was also born in 1963 and a Pirates fan. So you and I share the same agony of 40 plus years of not reaching a Super Bowl or a World Series. I feel your pain!
If you tell me that you were born March 14th, I'd say that things have turned scary.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by VikingLord »

Pondering Her Percy wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:38 am And I can already tell you right now that James Lynch is the best pass rushing DT on this team. He had 13 damn sacks at Baylor last year for a DT!!
I'm still stunned that Lynch lasted to round 4. He's a beast. He plays smart. He plays disciplined. He's a factor and forces the defense to account for him.

I don't know why it took until the Seattle game for him to see the field, but I'd expect we'll be seeing him on the field going forward.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by VikingLord »

VikeFanInEagleLand wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:27 pm
J. Kapp 11 wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:00 pm Why not go back to Mattison there on 3rd down if you're going to run it? Or better yet, throw the ball. Try to put the ball in the end zone and win the game. Mike Zimmer gets so hung up on the clock that I think he neglects the game situation.

This what I really don't get. Once they were in FG range, Zimmer has to make the decision "Are we going to be aggressive and not settle for a FG. Let's put the nail in the coffin and score TD" or "Let's stay on the ground, and run as much time off the clock as we can. If we can get in the end zone...great. If not, let's kick the FG and go up by 8"

So it appears he decides on the second choice UNTIL it's 4th down and then he switches to the aggressive choice. Doesn't make sense. I will not sway in my opinion that you MUST kick the FG. If WIlson can drive the distance (in the rain) and then convert a 2-point conversion (in the rain), and then score again in OT (in the rain)...so be it. You can't give a QB like Wilson the opportunity to just need a TD with almost 2 minutes on the clock.
Well, to be fair to Zimmer his defense had largely neutralized Wilson and the Seahawk offense all game to that point. Had the Vikings offense not turned the ball over twice deep in their own end I doubt the game would have been close enough late for the 4th down decision to be a factor.

Also fair to Zimmer, the defense did force 2 4th downs on the final Seattle drive. Seattle converted one on a play that I'm sure Dantzler is going to relive in his nightmares for weeks and should have been able to stop, and the other required a bullet and really amazing catch for the go-ahead TD late. I mean, my hat is off to Wilson and the Seahawks for making those plays, but it wasn't like they dominated the game by any means. They didn't exactly resemble one of the best teams in the NFL playing against what is arguably one of the worst.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by VikeFanInEagleLand »

VikingLord wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 1:23 pm
VikeFanInEagleLand wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:27 pm


Well, to be fair to Zimmer his defense had largely neutralized Wilson and the Seahawk offense all game to that point. Had the Vikings offense not turned the ball over twice deep in their own end I doubt the game would have been close enough late for the 4th down decision to be a factor.

Also fair to Zimmer, the defense did force 2 4th downs on the final Seattle drive. Seattle converted one on a play that I'm sure Dantzler is going to relive in his nightmares for weeks and should have been able to stop, and the other required a bullet and really amazing catch for the go-ahead TD late. I mean, my hat is off to Wilson and the Seahawks for making those plays, but it wasn't like they dominated the game by any means. They didn't exactly resemble one of the best teams in the NFL playing against what is arguably one of the worst.
I get that there are cases where coaches look at the game and realize that they stopped the other team and forced them to punt. But unlike the rest of the game, when teams realistically have 3 downs to gain a first down, they will use all 4 downs on their last possession, giving them an extra down to get those first downs. Your example proves this out. Had this been at any other time in the game, they would have forced a punt and a FG, but not here on their last possession.

If Zimmer's state of mind was that they were going to go all out in trying to put the dagger in Seattle, then he should have gone for 2 on the previous TD. If he makes that, then another FG puts them up by 9. If they fail, they are essentially in the same situation where a TD puts them up 11 and the game is over.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

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VikeFanInEagleLand wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:52 pm
Sandpounder27 wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:43 pm

Wow, small world. I am also a Viking fan in eagles land. I was also born in 1963 and a Pirates fan. So you and I share the same agony of 40 plus years of not reaching a Super Bowl or a World Series. I feel your pain!
If you tell me that you were born March 14th, I'd say that things have turned scary.
Lol, we are safe, December here.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by S197 »

VikingLord wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 1:11 pm
Pondering Her Percy wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:38 am And I can already tell you right now that James Lynch is the best pass rushing DT on this team. He had 13 damn sacks at Baylor last year for a DT!!
I'm still stunned that Lynch lasted to round 4. He's a beast. He plays smart. He plays disciplined. He's a factor and forces the defense to account for him.

I don't know why it took until the Seattle game for him to see the field, but I'd expect we'll be seeing him on the field going forward.
For what it's worth, Arif Hasan said Lynch had an awful training camp. Worst he's seen since Willie Beavers level of bad. So there's probably a reason he's been inactive. If he can start to contribute then great but I don't think this is a situation where he's been destroying guys and just sitting.

We see this a lot. Wasn't Hercules supposed to be this diamond in the rough? Now he's a bum. Dru Samia was supposed to be a mauler that couldn't be worse than Elflein. We were so wrong. Dantzler was a shutdown corner according to the Vikings Instagram and Adam Thielen. Turns out the guy has really bad ball skills.

I'm not throwing in the towel on guys like Dantzler and Lynch but rookies are going to struggle. Samia I think is beyond hope, throw him in the Rick Spielman bucket of sucking at drafting mid-round linemen (Samia, Beavers, Clemmings, Elflein).

What I'm getting at is this team is REBUILDING. We're not reloading. The problem is we can't properly rebuild because we have huge contracts to Cousins, Barr, Reiff, Rudy, Cook, etc. etc. You don't have to jettison everyone in a rebuild but you can't half #### it either, and Rick half-assed it. And it's been his MO since the day he got here. The guy is pretty good at individually picking players but he has zero vision on how to compose a team. That's why we keep having this dysfunction every other year. It's not bad luck, it's not Zimmer's eye, or losing coaches. It's failure to plan. The problem isn't the OC, or Lynch, or Cleveland, or Samia, or any of those guys, it's systemic. They're all symptoms of the problem, the system is broken and will be until we clean house.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by makila »

VikingLord wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 1:11 pm
Pondering Her Percy wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:38 am And I can already tell you right now that James Lynch is the best pass rushing DT on this team. He had 13 damn sacks at Baylor last year for a DT!!
I'm still stunned that Lynch lasted to round 4. He's a beast. He plays smart. He plays disciplined. He's a factor and forces the defense to account for him.

I don't know why it took until the Seattle game for him to see the field, but I'd expect we'll be seeing him on the field going forward.
As pointed out by others regarding other players, Zimmer often doesnt put rookies out there, even if they are the best option. Go figure that when given a chance they might do something...
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by VikingLord »

S197 wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:06 pm For what it's worth, Arif Hasan said Lynch had an awful training camp. Worst he's seen since Willie Beavers level of bad. So there's probably a reason he's been inactive. If he can start to contribute then great but I don't think this is a situation where he's been destroying guys and just sitting.

We see this a lot. Wasn't Hercules supposed to be this diamond in the rough? Now he's a bum. Dru Samia was supposed to be a mauler that couldn't be worse than Elflein. We were so wrong. Dantzler was a shutdown corner according to the Vikings Instagram and Adam Thielen. Turns out the guy has really bad ball skills.

I'm not throwing in the towel on guys like Dantzler and Lynch but rookies are going to struggle. Samia I think is beyond hope, throw him in the Rick Spielman bucket of sucking at drafting mid-round linemen (Samia, Beavers, Clemmings, Elflein).

What I'm getting at is this team is REBUILDING. We're not reloading. The problem is we can't properly rebuild because we have huge contracts to Cousins, Barr, Reiff, Rudy, Cook, etc. etc. You don't have to jettison everyone in a rebuild but you can't half #### it either, and Rick half-assed it. And it's been his MO since the day he got here. The guy is pretty good at individually picking players but he has zero vision on how to compose a team. That's why we keep having this dysfunction every other year. It's not bad luck, it's not Zimmer's eye, or losing coaches. It's failure to plan. The problem isn't the OC, or Lynch, or Cleveland, or Samia, or any of those guys, it's systemic. They're all symptoms of the problem, the system is broken and will be until we clean house.
Yeah, I didn't pay much attention to training camp this year, although I do question how thoroughly anyone could have evaluated the rookie class given the impact the pandemic had on the offseason. All I know is that Lynch dominated in college, especially in his final year of college, so I find it difficult to believe he took a big step backwards once he became a Viking. Samia, OTOH, was pretty average in college and had the benefit of playing on a good team in college, so I wasn't sold on him coming out. Ditto for Hercules. Lot's of hype and hope with those two, while Lynch put it on tape consistently.

My other observation is on your rebuilding comment.

Yeah, I get that for all intents and purposes this looks like a rebuilding team, but how many rebuilding teams find themselves hard up against the cap with all sorts of big name vets signed to large multi-year deals with lots of guaranteed money?

It's like the team is in one mode that everyone just accepts, but if we look at the cap and the deals, you'd think this group should be a Superbowl contender.

That disconnect is what bothers me. It indicates a real problem because most teams that are truly rebuilding have cap flexibility going into future years and will face tough decisions about which of their developing players they drafted are worthy of extensions, how much those extensions should be, and for how long. In other words, about the time most teams are making the calls on extensions for players they drafted like Cook, they're in the Superbowl conversation and have a legit chance of winning one.

The 2020 Vikings? They're making those extension calls and getting into future liabilities with their players and have a 1-4 record. Instead of talking about Superbowl chances, more realistic conversations are happening around their chances at getting the #1 pick in the draft.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

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I thought the coaches did their homework in this game. They Gameplaned well for both the offense and defense. A big problem was the Vikings dominated the first half but could only get in the endzone once. With how thin they are on D, the offense needs to take advantage of every scoring opportunity and absolutely cannot turn the ball over.

Good:
The first half. For a while, they looked like the better team. Disciplined on D, controlling the clock on O. Eric Wilson had a good game.

The bad: The failed 2 pt conversion attempt. Why go for 2? Cook injured , again.

The Ugly:
3rd qtr offense. A terrible opening drive followed by a fumble and an INT by QB1.

I applaud Zimmer for going for it instead of the FG. Put the game in the hands of the players. You don't gain an inch, you deserve to lose. It was an exciting game to watch. I think the contrast in QB play was glaring. Stats don't matter. Blown OL assignments are just an excuse. Make the plays when it counts and you usually end up winning. When you think about it, Seattle doesn't have a very strong team. Their D ranks last, the OL is as bad as the Vikings, They're a below average running team, Yet they are 5-0. i bet if you swap QBs, the Vikings would have completely destroyed the Seahawks.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

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808vikingsfan wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 5:05 pm I think the contrast in QB play was glaring. Stats don't matter.
I'll give Wilson credit for a nice throw on the TD to win the game, but apart from that his play was far from demonstrably better than Cousins, if it was better at all (which I don't think it was).
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

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I follow two CFB teams and both are from the Big 12, so I caught several of James Lynch's full games at Baylor. Lynch didn't just show up in the stats column (13 sacks his final year at Baylor), he was a force to be reckoned with all day. He was a disrupter in ways that made him look like the most dominant guy on the field often. I was surprised to see how low he was projected to go in the draft, presumably because of his measurements and performance at the combine. The fact is, the guy has amazing FB instincts. Super glad to see him get his first sack. Hopefully the coaches give him more plays.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

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Just some random thoughts from an old forum veteran who does not post much anymore:

I get just as mad as the rest of you at various issues this organization can’t seem to overcome, but this season I am taking a 30,000 foot view. And from that level, there are at least 12 teams I am very very glad we are NOT.

There are worse teams for sure, and some of those “worse” teams have a better coaching and/or QB situation than us, so all in all I kind of consider them “ahead” of us. But the other 12? Boy am I glad I don’t have to root for those teams.

All in all we have a decent roster. We can throw stones at every position, but on the whole our roster does not suck head-to-toe. We have some very young guys that are playing and playing well IMO. That gives me hope moving forward. I do not see a painless exit from our salary cap hell, but I have already made peace with that fact. We have some young contributors who we will be very glad to have on 4-5 year “cheap” contracts in the near future.

Gotta be honest, the SEA game did not bother me all that much. Obvious disappointment in the outcome, but we could have lost that game 100 different (and worse) ways. I was very glad to see what the team put out there, including the coaches. I do not second-guess the play call on the 4th down, I was fine going for it and I was fine with the play call. Who knows what had to be pared down without Cook in there? I’da been fine with a FG attempt as well. Honestly that 4th down could have gone sideways about a dozen different ways, and folks would #### no matter what play was called if we did not make it. But I am 100% for the attitude that says “we win this here and now, eff overtime on the road”.

As for young guys who have shown flashes but don’t seem to get more playing time – we are not at practices so again this is something I try not to second guess. We don’t know how well Lynch knows the defensive calls, we do not know if Jefferson has all the routes and/or blocking assignments down pat, etc. I have no problem having a different view than the coaches (I’d play the kids almost no matter what, even if they make mistakes, hell we are 1-4), but I also won’t second-guess the coaches when I have maybe 8% of the facts on individual players and how they stack up for playing time.

I had a good feeling about the coach/player relationship last year after the close KC loss and then the DAL win, then felt worse about it after the last two regular season games, then felt better about it after the NO wildcard win (where BTW we ran goal line spread when the game was on the line). So now I feel relatively good about it after this SEA game, similar to the KC loss last year, like players and coaches are on the same page but need to make 1 or 2 more plays. But lord only knows which way it goes from here. If history holds, we will have some disappointing losses coming up but also a few wins where it looks like we really have our sh## together. I’m saying 5, 6 or 7 wins for the season.

And this gets me to the point of the current regime. I certainly have issues with Zim+staff+Rick, but honestly not HUGE issues. The real issue IMO is how the Wilf’s feel about winning it all on their watch.

If they truly want to be SB winners, then I simply see no way that a rational person sees the current combination of on-field and off-field staff making sense. But yet there were several extensions given this offseason.

The Wilfs are no dummies, so I have to assume “good enough is good enough and maybe we catch lightning in a bottle” is the approach they want to take, for now.

“You can’t fight City Hall”, “I fought the law and the law won”, “Don Quixote never beats the windmill”, etc. all lead me to the point where I know as a fan it is completely and utterly fruitless to moan about anything from Spielman/Zimmer on down. That stuff only makes for turgid forum fodder.

The REAL issues, at least in terms of a SB team for the Vikes, are from Spielman/Zimmer on up.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by 808vikingsfan »

VikingLord wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 7:27 pm
808vikingsfan wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 5:05 pm I think the contrast in QB play was glaring. Stats don't matter.
I'll give Wilson credit for a nice throw on the TD to win the game, but apart from that his play was far from demonstrably better than Cousins, if it was better at all (which I don't think it was).
So except for that TD pass (IMO was 10x better than just "a nice throw" since it was 4th down), you don't give RW any credit for the game winning TD drive that started from the 6 yard line? The 17 yd run to get his team out of the endzone, the 4th and 10 pass, him accounting for every yard on that drive? Contrast that to the Vikings potential game winning drive. How many yards did KC account for? zero. Even the coaches don't trust their QB with the ball when it matters. A sweep on 3rd and 4? That close to the endzone?
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by VikingLord »

808vikingsfan wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 3:32 pm
VikingLord wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 7:27 pm

I'll give Wilson credit for a nice throw on the TD to win the game, but apart from that his play was far from demonstrably better than Cousins, if it was better at all (which I don't think it was).
So except for that TD pass (IMO was 10x better than just "a nice throw" since it was 4th down), you don't give RW any credit for the game winning TD drive that started from the 6 yard line? The 17 yd run to get his team out of the endzone, the 4th and 10 pass, him accounting for every yard on that drive? Contrast that to the Vikings potential game winning drive. How many yards did KC account for? zero. Even the coaches don't trust their QB with the ball when it matters. A sweep on 3rd and 4? That close to the endzone?
He had a lot of misses on that final drive. He hardly looked amazing.

The Vikings needed to run clock at the end, so run they did. I don't take that as not trusting Cousins. Had they been behind and needed 95 yards to win as the Seahawks did, they would have called on Cousins to throw.

Why is it so necessary to lionize Wilson, who didn't play all that great along with the rest of the Seahawks, and demonize Cousins, who made some key mistakes but played pretty well along with the rest of the Vikings? I understand the frustration of losing in classic Vikings fashion, and there are many things to criticize on the Vikings, but Cousins was far from the reason the team lost that game. He wasn't on the field when the Seahawks marched 95 yards for the win. He wasn't the ball carrier on the failed 4th down to ice the game. He made some nice plays and generally has overcome some of the worst interior pass blocking I think I've seen in my many years of watching the NFL.

Cousins isn't perfect, but he's not the main problem with this team. Far from it IMHO. He wasn't outplayed by Wilson in the loss, either. I give Wilson credit where I see credit is due, but I'm going to be fair and do the same for Cousins where he earns it.
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Re: Vikes/Seahawks post-game thoughts

Post by J. Kapp 11 »

psjordan wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 8:45 am Just some random thoughts from an old forum veteran who does not post much anymore:

I get just as mad as the rest of you at various issues this organization can’t seem to overcome, but this season I am taking a 30,000 foot view. And from that level, there are at least 12 teams I am very very glad we are NOT.

There are worse teams for sure, and some of those “worse” teams have a better coaching and/or QB situation than us, so all in all I kind of consider them “ahead” of us. But the other 12? Boy am I glad I don’t have to root for those teams.

All in all we have a decent roster. We can throw stones at every position, but on the whole our roster does not suck head-to-toe. We have some very young guys that are playing and playing well IMO. That gives me hope moving forward. I do not see a painless exit from our salary cap hell, but I have already made peace with that fact. We have some young contributors who we will be very glad to have on 4-5 year “cheap” contracts in the near future.

Gotta be honest, the SEA game did not bother me all that much. Obvious disappointment in the outcome, but we could have lost that game 100 different (and worse) ways. I was very glad to see what the team put out there, including the coaches. I do not second-guess the play call on the 4th down, I was fine going for it and I was fine with the play call. Who knows what had to be pared down without Cook in there? I’da been fine with a FG attempt as well. Honestly that 4th down could have gone sideways about a dozen different ways, and folks would #### no matter what play was called if we did not make it. But I am 100% for the attitude that says “we win this here and now, eff overtime on the road”.

As for young guys who have shown flashes but don’t seem to get more playing time – we are not at practices so again this is something I try not to second guess. We don’t know how well Lynch knows the defensive calls, we do not know if Jefferson has all the routes and/or blocking assignments down pat, etc. I have no problem having a different view than the coaches (I’d play the kids almost no matter what, even if they make mistakes, hell we are 1-4), but I also won’t second-guess the coaches when I have maybe 8% of the facts on individual players and how they stack up for playing time.

I had a good feeling about the coach/player relationship last year after the close KC loss and then the DAL win, then felt worse about it after the last two regular season games, then felt better about it after the NO wildcard win (where BTW we ran goal line spread when the game was on the line). So now I feel relatively good about it after this SEA game, similar to the KC loss last year, like players and coaches are on the same page but need to make 1 or 2 more plays. But lord only knows which way it goes from here. If history holds, we will have some disappointing losses coming up but also a few wins where it looks like we really have our sh## together. I’m saying 5, 6 or 7 wins for the season.

And this gets me to the point of the current regime. I certainly have issues with Zim+staff+Rick, but honestly not HUGE issues. The real issue IMO is how the Wilf’s feel about winning it all on their watch.

If they truly want to be SB winners, then I simply see no way that a rational person sees the current combination of on-field and off-field staff making sense. But yet there were several extensions given this offseason.

The Wilfs are no dummies, so I have to assume “good enough is good enough and maybe we catch lightning in a bottle” is the approach they want to take, for now.

“You can’t fight City Hall”, “I fought the law and the law won”, “Don Quixote never beats the windmill”, etc. all lead me to the point where I know as a fan it is completely and utterly fruitless to moan about anything from Spielman/Zimmer on down. That stuff only makes for turgid forum fodder.

The REAL issues, at least in terms of a SB team for the Vikes, are from Spielman/Zimmer on up.
Nice to see you back on the board. This was an excellent post. Loved reading it. I feel much the same way. I actually like our roster. Not every player or every position, but top-to-bottom, given our salary cap situation, it's pretty good. I like our young corners. They're going to learn, and when they do, they'll be just fine. Our O-line doesn't pass block all that well, but they're great in the running game, including Samia. Cousins is fine. I'll never feel like he can pull out a game against a quality opponent when we're behind until he actually wins a game in that situation (don't give me New Orleans ... that game was tied), but I honestly feel that two more years, and he's done.

I've been more outspoken against Zimmer this year, and I feel it's for good reason. I just don't like his approach in the modern NFL. He plays to get the lead, then run out the clock. When he gets a two-score lead, it's even worse.

The perfect example of this "burn clock" mentality was the drive that ended in the failed 4th down conversion. I've said it before on here: My problem wasn't with going for it on 4th down. I would have preferred a QB sneak, but I don't even have that big a problem with the play call. My problem was with the entire sequence. Zimmer's entire thought process. He wasn't trying to score a touchdown to win the game. He was trying to burn clock. And I hate that.

Does anyone here think Andy Reid would have simply tried to run out the clock with a 5-point lead? Bill Belichick? Hell, I don't even think Kevin Stefanski would have done that. Zimmer had one goal for that entire drive, and that was to run out the clock. But we should have been trying to SCORE. We had been running the ball at will. They were gassed. They were on their heels. They were committing 8 guys to stop the run. Why was there not even ONE play-action pass? They would have been powerless to stop it. Go for the TD, get two scores ahead, and it doesn't matter what Seattle does in the last 2 minutes.

So I think you're right. Until there's a change at the top, we're going to come up maddeningly short on a frequent basis. Zimmer's mindset is more in tune to 1996 than 2020.
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