Seahawks post game thread

[Mothman]

Seattle's a good team and playing them in that stadium is difficult. I know players and Zimmer are frustrated (exhibit a: a microphone caught Thielen saying "It's been there all F'n night" in the fourth quarter after he finally got the ball; exhibit b: Zimmer's presser, where his blood is boiling and his contempt for JDF and Priefer are essentially written in blood on his forehead). But I still think they may rally and go at least 2-1 over the last three games and make the playoffs.

As much as I like Zimmer, I am starting to realize that he is a very good D coordinator, but not much more. The team's success hinges on the OC, because Zimm's vision for the entire team is really limited to his side of the ball. I think a lot of blame for not addressing the OL gets assigned to Rick, but my suspicion is that Zimmer has influenced our inflated number of 1st and 2nd round picks going to CBs. Zimmer's global vision for the team is too influenced by his specialty.

I have no doubt he's influenced those CB picks and as you know, I've been saying for a long time that as a head coach, Zimmer makes a good defensive coordinator so I obviously agree with your point about a global vision for the team.

The Wilfs have built a stadium, state-of-the-art practice facilities and put their full confidence in Spielman and Zimmer to build a champion. This relatively healthy 6-6-1 team is the culmination of 5 years of those two basically hand-picking what they wanted, from QBs to CBs to coaches and so on.

After watching last night's game, I don't even care if the Vikings make the playoffs this year. They don't look as if they could do much with the opportunity anyway and it might actually serve them (and us fans) better if the wheels came off and they lost their next 3. Maybe they need the wake up call that kind of finish would provide.

[Pondering Her Percy]

I don’t buy the “mike Zimmer has lost this team”. He’s one of the most respected coaches in the nfl when it comes to his players. The defense wouldn’t be playing as good as they are if he “lost the team”. I posted the problem in black and white in the Cousins thread. It’s flip. If Mike Zimmer lost the team, nobody would be playing hard including the defense. That is not the case. Saying he lost the team is nothing but an easy scapegoat. Do you truly believe a guy like Tom Compton isn’t “blocking as hard” because Mike Zimmer lost him? No. Or Thielen, Diggs, Cousins, etc? No. Like I said, if that was the case, nobody would be trying.

Has flip lost the offense? Yeah. I’m starting to think they have 0 confidence in him. You can tell in pressers that cook hasn’t been happy with his lack of carries. Diggs and Thielens targets are dropping. Thielen showed frustration last game. Flip is now so bad with what he is doing that he is managing to somehow not give cook enough carries AND not getting Thielen and Diggs the ball enough. How is that even possible? Cousins has NEVER been a check down QB. But guys are calling him “Ponder” in the chat (yeah overreaction at its finest). Plays aren’t getting the time to develop anymore, plays are predictable, it’s obvious when we’re passing and when we’re running, our OL can’t hold up long enough for plays to develop, he continues to not commit to the run and now has zero clock management skills given all of his best players still aren’t getting the ball as much as they should.

Guys can blame Zim and Cousins all they want. They aren’t the problem. Flip is the problem.

My thought is that pride is the reason players are playing hard. Even with the defense. To me it seems like they are all going through the motions. I agree that JDF is the main problem for the team right now. But I dit see any fire from anyone outside of kendricks and Thielen.

Hunter? Diggs (especially after the big catch)? Barr finally. Harry is always all over the place. Harris. Mac Alexander has been playing well. Cook was a beast and running hard all night. I still see it with Richardson and linval even though I don’t think they played great last night. I’ve seen fire out of a lot of guys. Especially last night. That defense played very well.

The one that worries me is griff and that’s for other reasons. He doesn’t celebrate anymore, he’s quiet on the field, HE looks like he’s going through the motions but not because of Mike Zimmer. I feel bad for him but something is still going on there. Idk if he’s on something that mellows him out or what but he doesn’t seem the same. It’s too bad.

[PurpleMustReign]

And I honestly feel bad for cousins in a way because coming into this team, if he had the slightest mess up, every analyst, media, fan, etc is going to throw all the blame on him because of what he got paid. This team could have the last ranked defense in the nfl and Cousins would be getting blamed. As I said in his thread, he’s made his mistakes for sure but he is far from the problem. Seeing his Instagram and what idiotic fans comment on it makes me want to throw up. I literally HATE when our fans or any fans do crap like that. It makes our fan base look horrible. 2 years ago when Thielen fumbled the punt vs Dallas his wife and Thielen himself were getting threats on instagram over it. His wife had ended up posting about all of it after it happened. Adam Thielen of all people was getting threats.

But now those fans have a new guy to threaten. Adam Thielen fumbled against the saints and DRASTICALLY changed the result in that game but fans STILL go after cousins.

There are still quite a few fans out there that know to put most of the blame or flip, but there are still a lot of fans out there that throw it all on Cousins. Again, he’s not the problem. It happens on here. The amount of cousins hate going through the chat every week is ridiculous. I mean being called Ponder? The guy throws for over 4000 yards a year but since he’s throwing check downs the last few games because he has no time for plays to develop because of the OL and flip not adjusting, he’s “Ponder” now? Give me a break guys

It's hard to snip a post on a phone so I apologize for copying the whole thing, but whether fair or not, when you make $84 million, to me you are expected to win almost no matter what. Again, fair or not, that's what happens. Remember years ago when Kevin Garnett signed his first enormous deal? It was a huge risk, but for the most part it was rewarded despite a revolving door of point guards and centers.
JDF is a joke. But cousins deserves a lot of blame too because I have seen replays where he didn't see open receivers and it was well before pressure got to him.

[Mothman]

It's hard to snip a post on a phone so I apologize for copying the whole thing, but whether fair or not, when you make $84 million, to me you are expected to win almost no matter what. Again, fair or not, that's what happens. Remember years ago when Kevin Garnett signed his first enormous deal? It was a huge risk, but for the most part it was rewarded despite a revolving door of point guards and centers.
JDF is a joke. But cousins deserves a lot of blame too because I have seen replays where he didn't see open receivers and it was well before pressure got to him.

He hangs onto the ball too long too and he's thrown some pretty bad INTs this year. Cousins isn't the team's biggest problem but he's clearly been part of their problems.

Of course, this team is riddled with problems.

[TSonn]

As much as I like Zimmer, I am starting to realize that he is a very good D coordinator, but not much more. The team's success hinges on the OC, because Zimm's vision for the entire team is really limited to his side of the ball. I think a lot of blame for not addressing the OL gets assigned to Rick, but my suspicion is that Zimmer has influenced our inflated number of 1st and 2nd round picks going to CBs. Zimmer's global vision for the team is too influenced by his specialty.

I still feel like Zimmer is a good coach - but is he? I mean, I'm pretty sure a mediocre defensive coordinator could have the defense playing great with the amount of draft collateral we've put into the defense since Zimmer's gotten here.

2013
Round 1: Sharrif Floyd (23), Xavier Rhodes (25)

2014
Round 1: Anthony Barr (9)

2015
Round 1: Trae Waynes (11)
Round 2: Eric Kendricks (45)
Round 3: Danielle Hunter (88)

2016
Round 2: Mackenzie Alexander (54)

2018
Round 1: Mike Hughes (30)

Add Harrison Smith as a first round pick in 2012 (pre-Zimmer) and that's a ridiculous amount of talent accumulated from the first 3 rounds of the draft the past 6 years.

[Cliff]

I thought it was a really good defensive effort. They gave they the offense chance after chance after chance. The offense couldn't get it done which eventually wore down the defense. I did not think the offensive play calling was bad either. They seemed committed to the run as long as reasonably possible which everybody wanted and they ran more play action as a result.

I'm more and more convinced that Cousins isn't the right QB for the way the team is built this season. He just does not move around well and he holds the ball way too long. Maybe if we can get more help on the offensive line it will help get him over the hump. Though with his record in prime time I think he might not deal well with that kind of pressure either.

Minus the last drive (4/6 70 yards TD) which has no real impact on the outcome of the game other than to make it seem like it wasn't the team wasn't help to zero. Really, they were. Definition of garbage time.

Cousins stat line should be: 16/27 for a 59% completion rate, 138 yards, 3 rushes for 5 yards. 0 TD/0 INT. Good luck polishing that turd with two of the best receivers in the league on the roster against an average Seahawks pass defense. One of said receivers audibly complaining that a route had been open "all ******* day" but missed.

JDF hasn't been the best OC ever, but this offense misses a QB that can scramble away from pressure. That seems even more important than arm strength and accuracy at this point. I'm honestly not sure that Shurmur would have had the success that he had with Cousins at QB last year.

Last year the offensive line was also very bad. Keenum was one of the most pressured QBs in the league ... 2nd most, I think. The difference is that he played well under pressure.

I'm not saying Keenum was the answer necessarily. He may not have been able to repeat that effort. I'm not trying to argue that Keenum was definitely the answer but it's clear Cousins isn't - not for this particular set up at least.

[TSonn]

There's gotta be something going on internally with the team. No fire, no chemistry - especially on offense, ever since the bye week. I'm guessing that there's a huge disconnect between Zimmer and Flip and the players are stuck in the middle not knowing who to follow.

Our offense didn't even look this bad when Norv stepped down.

[TSonn]

JDF hasn't been the best OC ever, but this offense misses a QB that can scramble away from pressure. That seems even more important than arm strength and accuracy at this point. I'm honestly not sure that Shurmur would have had the success that he had with Cousins at QB last year.

Last year the offensive line was also very bad. Keenum was one of the most pressured QBs in the league ... 2nd most, I think. The difference is that he played well under pressure.

I'm not saying Keenum was the answer necessarily. He may not have been able to repeat that effort. I'm not trying to argue that Keenum was definitely the answer but it's clear Cousins isn't - not for this particular set up at least.

It seems to be the perfect mix of having a pass-heavy OC, a control the clock (run-first) HC, a pocket QB who thrives on play action, a team that can't run the ball to set up the play action, and an offensive line that's been ignored for 5+ years.

I'm starting to fall off the Kirk bandwagon but the Flip hire seems to be one of the dumbest decisions this team has made since I've been a fan. Even if his offense was firing on all cylinders, Flip and Zimmer have polar opposite football strategies.

[mansquatch]

My review of this game is basically two words: Fire JDF. Defense more than did it's job yesterday. Even ST wasn't really an issue seeing as Wagner committed what should have been a 15 yard foul to block that kick. This game was all about the offensive issues and man did it show. I think in my 25 years of watching the team, this was the single most aggravating game to watch from an offensive standpoint.

I will not be surprised if they fire JDF today. That game was a complete embarrassment on the national stage. (I hate how many times i've said that over the years...)

Also, FWIW, I really miss 2015 hot head Zimmer. Where did he go? I want to see some kind of comment after JDF gets canned like the Davidson firing:

Media Puke: Why didn't you renew Jeff Davidson's contract

Zim-Su: I didn't want to

[Mothman]

I thought it was a really good defensive effort. They gave they the offense chance after chance after chance. The offense couldn't get it done which eventually wore down the defense. I did not think the offensive play calling was bad either. They seemed committed to the run as long as reasonably possible which everybody wanted and they ran more play action as a result.

I'm more and more convinced that Cousins isn't the right QB for the way the team is built this season.

I'm increasingly convinced they're just poorly built and not terribly well-coached. It's beyond ridiculous that offensive line remains a critical issue with this team after so many years of offensive line being a critical issue. Cousins is definitely not the right QB for this offense. JDF isn't the right OC for this coach either which begs the question, why the heck is he the OC?

Defensively they're obviously built better but they seem to have maxed out how good they can be with Zimmer's system.

I agree that the defensive effort was good. They kept the score close a long time. However, 214 yards rushing allowed is way too much, especially in a game where the Vikes had to know Seattle was going to try to hammer them on the ground. I know I sound like Chicken Little on this issue but I think it's critical to winning and losing.

JDF hasn't been the best OC ever, but this offense misses a QB that can scramble away from pressure. That seems even more important than arm strength and accuracy at this point. I'm honestly not sure that Shurmur would have had the success that he had with Cousins at QB last year.

I doubt it, although I don't know if Keenum could repeat it either. JDF's calls in short yardage situations last night were pretty brutal. Also: the 2018 Vikes run some of the worst-looking screen plays I've ever seen. I'm not sure where that keeps going so wrong but it does.

I didn't think he called a terribly good game last night. Whatever the offensive game plan was, it was barely discernible. Of course, poor execution can make it look that way too but it certainly wasn't resourceful.

Last year the offensive line was also very bad. Keenum was one of the most pressured QBs in the league ... 2nd most, I think. The difference is that he played well under pressure.

I'm not saying Keenum was the answer necessarily. He may not have been able to repeat that effort. I'm not trying to argue that Keenum was definitely the answer but it's clear Cousins isn't - not for this particular set up at least.

Let's face it. Spielman doesn't find answers at QB. He finds plugs, busts and stopgaps.

[Mothman]

It seems to be the perfect mix of having a pass-heavy OC, a control the clock (run-first) HC, a pocket QB who thrives on play action, a team that can't run the ball to set up the play action, and an offensive line that's been ignored for 5+ years.

I'm starting to fall off the Kirk bandwagon but the Flip hire seems to be one of the dumbest decisions this team has made since I've been a fan. Even if his offense was firing on all cylinders, Flip and Zimmer have polar opposite football strategies.

That's the Zimmer/Spielman era in a nutshell and it's why I've ended up so down on both. They don't build sensibly. If Zimmer's vision for the team was a tough defensive unit paired with a strong running game and a deep passing game (as it initially appeared when he hired Turner), why repeatedly short-change the offensive line when good blocking is the key to both good running and deep passing (ie: you need time for the deeper plays to develop)? Why the initial commitment to Bridgewater, who didn't have the arm or downfield accuracy to excel in Turner's offense and was a mismatch for that vision? Here we are 5 years later and we're still looking at mismatches between coach/OC/QB/vision.

The Vikes have plenty of problems but I'm convinced their biggest problem is a team-building problem.

[StpViking]

This years version of the Vikings seems over matched. They can't convert 3rd and short. They can't convert 4th and inches. And it's all happening at the most crucial time of the season.

This team that is suppose to be in its prime has peeked already. Replacing Zimm, Cousins, the OL will not get rid of the fact that this franchise always destroys the fan base's hope. Not sure if we Vikings fans are meant for Superbowl winning teams.

[Texas Vike]

JDF's calls in short yardage situations last night were pretty brutal. Also: the 2018 Vikes run some of the worst-looking screen plays I've ever seen. I'm not sure where that keeps going so wrong but it does.

Agreed with all your points, but these two in particular. Short yardage situations have been atrocious all season. Part of it is that our OL simply doesn't get enough push. But knowing that one would expect JDF to come up with some ways to deal with that. On 4th and 1 when he sent Murray into the pile I almost felt like JDF called for that just to "show" Zimmer that our OL sucks--as if to say, "what do you want me to do? You've taken all the top draft picks to build your D!".

The second point you bring up is so true--our screens are pathetic. There was one last night to the left where Cook had to wait for Reiff to do SOMETHING as he just stood in the way. Finally, Cook just got what he could, which was a few yards. Something is severely off with our screens. It may be coaching it may be execution. Elflein seems to be the only OL that can move and block.

Also: O'Neil got bullrushed non-stop last night. His pre-draft knock of lack of size and power were very evident.

[purplehaze]

And I honestly feel bad for cousins in a way because coming into this team, if he had the slightest mess up, every analyst, media, fan, etc is going to throw all the blame on him because of what he got paid. This team could have the last ranked defense in the nfl and Cousins would be getting blamed. As I said in his thread, he’s made his mistakes for sure but he is far from the problem. Seeing his Instagram and what idiotic fans comment on it makes me want to throw up. I literally HATE when our fans or any fans do crap like that. It makes our fan base look horrible. 2 years ago when Thielen fumbled the punt vs Dallas his wife and Thielen himself were getting threats on instagram over it. His wife had ended up posting about all of it after it happened. Adam Thielen of all people was getting threats.

But now those fans have a new guy to threaten. Adam Thielen fumbled against the saints and DRASTICALLY changed the result in that game but fans STILL go after cousins.

There are still quite a few fans out there that know to put most of the blame or flip, but there are still a lot of fans out there that throw it all on Cousins. Again, he’s not the problem. It happens on here. The amount of cousins hate going through the chat every week is ridiculous. I mean being called Ponder? The guy throws for over 4000 yards a year but since he’s throwing check downs the last few games because he has no time for plays to develop because of the OL and flip not adjusting, he’s “Ponder” now? Give me a break guys. Ponder couldn’t get to 4000 yards if he had double the games Cousins did in a year

Since you defend Cousins on almost every post, answer me this question. Do you consider a guy with a 4-25 record against winning teams a GOOD quarterback?

[Cliff]

I'm increasingly convinced they're just poorly built and not terribly well-coached. It's beyond ridiculous that offensive line remains a critical issue with this team after so many years of offensive line being a critical issue. Cousins is definitely not the right QB for this offense. JDF isn't the right OC for this coach either which begs the question, why the heck is he the OC?

Defensively they're obviously built better but they seem to have maxed out how good they can be with Zimmer's system.

I agree that the defensive effort was good. They kept the score close a long time. However, 214 yards rushing allowed is way too much, especially in a game where the Vikes had to know Seattle was going to try to hammer them on the ground. I know I sound like Chicken Little on this issue but I think it's critical to winning and losing.

Yeah, the offense is actually pretty "bargain bin" outside of the QB. The receivers the Vikings have that are very good are a 4th rounder and undrafted guy. They just happened to have panned out but that's really more luck than anything - especially in Thielen's case. The WR that they actually did make a real investment in isn't panning out. The offensive line ... do I really need to go there?

That said, it's hard to say the team is badly built given the success they had last season. Many of the same pieces are there.

I doubt it, although I don't know if Keenum could repeat it either. JDF's calls in short yardage situations last night were pretty brutal. Also: the 2018 Vikes run some of the worst-looking screen plays I've ever seen. I'm not sure where that keeps going so wrong but it does.

I didn't think he called a terribly good game last night. Whatever the offensive game plan was, it was barely discernible. Of course, poor execution can make it look that way too but it certainly wasn't resourceful.

I don't mean to come across as though I think Keenum would be the key to all of the offense's problem but he was able to get better production from most of the same pieces. He was pressured a lot as well playing behind a bad offensive line. He was just able to play better under pressure. Could he have done it another year? I don't know. In hindsight I wish we would have found out.

I didn't think he called anything particularly special either but I can't think of what Shurmur might have done differently, exactly. Maybe I'm just not savvy enough to know the nuances of the coaching difference but the difference to me is player effectiveness, especially from the QB position. Whether or not he could repeat it aside, Keenum played better for the Vikings in my opinion. At least to this point.

Let's face it. Spielman doesn't find answers at QB. He finds plugs, busts and stopgaps.

Yeah, finding a QB for the team has not been his strong suit. To be fair though, I don't think Cousins was an easy decision. I can't blame him for making it, but in the end he did make it and it was the wrong one.