Well, from what I saw yesterday, average time to throw didn’t matter. Cousins had plenty of plays where he held the ball significantly longer than average, and he still had plenty of time and room to throw.StumpHunter wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:46 pmThe biggest difference between this year and these last couple of games is not better Oline play, it is a completely different style of passing attack.VikingLord wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 1:36 pm
You're talking in generalities, which is fine, but as far as the 2021 Vikings are concerned, without a doubt *their* offensive woes started up front more than anywhere else, at least last year and for the 1st half of the game against the Bengals, while the defensive side also struggled all of last year because of a real lack of pressure from the front 4 coupled with poor run defense.
So yes, if you have great line play but nothing else you'll struggle on both sides of the ball regardless, but without great line play your skill position players won't even have a chance to matter.
Not sure what the bone is to pick here. Charvike is just acknowledging the obvious from last year and why I think so many on this board were ready to ship out the baby with the bathwater after the 0-2 start because they saw echoes of last year.
Cousins with protection and an effective running game is a different QB.
The defense with effective pass rush pressure and an ability to limit the run game on early downs is a different overall defense.
Shouldn't be much to argue about there.
We have gone from an average time to throw that is 30th in the NFL, to one that is 4th, from an 8.7 average depth of target to 6,
and from averaging a deep throw on 12.6% of throws to just 5 %.
So the "bone I have to pick" with what he said is what has actually changed to make the pass protection look better.
That could have been good O-line play by us, weak pressure by Seattle, or (as I suspect) some combination of both. But I rarely saw Cousins in trouble.
Also, who cares about how often we throw deep passes? I would take yesterday’s offensive performance every single week without complaint. Our scoring drives were as follows:
7 plays, 70 yards
9 plays, 90 yards
12 plays, 66 yards
16 plays, 50 yards
11 plays, 70 yards
12 plays, 88 yards.
Total time possessing the ball on those drives was 33:06.
You can win a lot of football games doing that. Yes, the Kansas City style of 3-play, 80-yard offense is fun to watch, but what does that do to your defense? What happens when you turn it over, like they did yesterday against the Chargers? I’ll take time-consuming drives that wear out the opposing defense. You could see it in Seattle yesterday … their defensive players were gassed. And they were going down like flies with injuries.
Zimmer was right. Yesterday was probably his team’s best offensive performance in his entire tenure. I, for one, have no complaints.