Mothman wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 11:19 am we need to ask
why it's not happening.
Each year there have been different themes:
2014: Build Defense / AP out all year due to child abuse - Answer: Get AP Back
2015: OL falls apart / Walsh misses kick - Answer: Fix Kicker / Get better on OL
2016: OL injury disaster / Walsh gets cut / TB Injury = Answer: Get Healthy Fix Kicker (AGAIN!)
2017: Really good season / Defense melts down in NFCCG - Answer: Sign better QB / Fix Defense
2018: Sparano dies / JDF / Defense hang over early part of season - Answer find better OC
2019: Early season issue on O, Pass Defense takes step back, big game issues - Answer
?
Through all of this Zimmer has had three major issues in his tenure as Vikings Coach:
1.) Offensive Coach Hiring has been wildly inconsistent
2.) Every Year the team lays 1-2 eggs (Most NFL teams lay at least 1, even Patriots, not sure if this is normal or not for Zim)
3.) Straight up Bad Luck - Teddy Injury / Sparano Death most obvious
A distant #4: Specialist issues - IE Kicking woes - This seems to have worked itself out over the past two seasons.
However, IMO the biggest of them all is item #1.
An interesting trend on that topic: 2015 and 2017 were the only seasons where the Vikings entered the regular season with same OC / QB / OL Coach combination. 2019 is basically the next such season since we are going from Cousins / Stefanski-Kubkiak / Dennison to Cousins / Kubiak / Dennison.
If you want a reason to be optimistic about 2020, the above is a pretty good place to start. I think Items #1 and #3 are the biggest reasons we haven't seen more from Zim. If 2020 doesn't have bad luck, it could be interesting. I'm not ready to mail it in yet on this era of Vikings football although the window is closing.