VikingLord wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:51 am
I didn't even know a QB could take a knee on a play like that. I honestly can't recall ever seeing one do that before unless it is a kneel down play. I thought Lynch got flagged for body slamming him.
They should take that rule out though that lets a QB take a knee in a situation like that. He can take a knee immediately after the snap, but if he starts moving with the ball, the option to end the play by simply taking a knee should be over just like the QB can't intentionally ground the ball to get out of pressure either.
Treat it like intentional grounding - if the ball is snapped and the QB starts moving with it, the option to take a knee behind the LOS is over. The QB can slide as a runner, but cannot avoid taking a sack by simply taking a knee.
Actually any player (not just the qb) can give themselves up by taking a knee. And he is not avoiding a sack, it is still ruled a sack. That is totally different than intentional grounding where the qb is trying to save yards by throwing it away. There is no benefit (other than not taking a hit) for taking a knee. Don't see any reason to take that rule out.
I can't recall ever seeing a QB do that in that situation is all, so I was surprised when I saw it.
I do wonder though if a QB could just fake taking a knee there by dipping down but not actually touching the ground, and then if the defensive players let up, just take off. I just watched Zimmer's presser from the day after the Bears game and someone asked him specifically about that play, and he said he watched it and never saw Fields' knee actually touch the ground and there was no whistle to end the play either. If Lynch lets up there and doesn't follow through and the refs don't rule Fields down, were he to decide to continue playing and maybe throw a long TD there, what happens then? Could Zimmer contest that Fields gave himself up on the play, or would the refs allow the result to stand?
If a QB (or any player) is going to give himself up on a given play like that, it needs to be crystal clear to everyone that is what he's doing I think to avoid a situation where a defensive player or the refs don't see it and acknowledge that is what the offensive player is doing. If Fields takes a knee, stay down until the whistle blows. If he gets hit while down, then a flag is justified. If the refs don't blow it dead because its not clear to anyone the offensive player was taking a knee, I don't think it is then fair to throw a flag for unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct or whatever Lynch was flagged for there by continuing and bringing Fields down.
J. Kapp 11 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:11 pm
Yes, the O-line was terrible.
But guess what. So was the Bears'. Yet Justin Fields, a rookie, managed to escape pressure time after time and make plays downfield. If the Bears weren't so inept in the red zone, they would have blown the Vikings out.
I'm tired of the "it's the O-line's fault" excuse. This line is arguably better than the one Kevin Stefanski had to work with, yet Stefanski managed to figure out a way to mitigate pressure. The piss-poor play of this offense is the fault of the OC, and it's the fault of Cousins and the way he falls apart when pressured.
Klint Kubiak knows his quarterback is a basket case under pressure, yet he does nothing to offset it. The whole thing needs to be blown up.
QUICK EDIT: According to PFF, over the past two weeks, Kirk Cousins is 0-for-18 with 2 interceptions when pressured.
We can use bad O-line play to apologize for the quarterback all we want, but to be THAT bad against pressure is inexcusable. At some point, Kirk has to make a play.
Numbers wise, Cousins has usually been pretty solid in the past when facing pressure. I know it was either last year or in 2019 where he actually had better numbers against pressure than he did with no pressure.
But I've been saying this for weeks, what happened to the play action? Cousins is lights out with play action and we hardly ever utilize it anymore. Especially the boots. The fact that Kubiak isnt drawing more of these up is baffling. When you cant get guys open against a secondary that's depleted because you're running your same vanilla pass offense, I dont feel bad. Klint has to figure that out. The reason Stefanski used play action boots so often is because it got Cousins away from our poor interior play. We still have poor interior play and we arent doing anything about it in terms of scheming.
In regards to the OL, you cant complain about the OL a whole lot this year outside of a guys like Udoh and Bradbury. They have been much improved for the most part. However, Monday night was reallyyyy bad. One of the worst, if not the worst showings yet this year from out interior (minus Cleveland). Bradbury and Cole were train wrecks and couldnt spring Dalvin and couldnt protect Cousins. I get that the OL excuse can be overused a lot but I must say, Bradbury and Cole were a REAL problem Monday night
Check my post. I’m agreeing with you.
I'm tired of the "it's the O-line's fault" excuse. This line is arguably better than the one Kevin Stefanski had to work with, yet Stefanski managed to figure out a way to mitigate pressure. The piss-poor play of this offense is the fault of the OC, and it's the fault of Cousins and the way he falls apart when pressured.
Klint Kubiak knows his quarterback is a basket case under pressure, yet he does nothing to offset it. The whole thing needs to be blown up.
The reason Kirk’s numbers were better in 2019 and even 2020 was because he had offensive coordinators who did exactly the things you mention. Even this year things were looking better. Look at the games against the Chargers. Kubiak used play action and jet sweep motion and all the eye candy meant to distract defenses and keep his quarterback clean. The Vikings played what was easily their best games of the season. That’s when we were saying that the Vikings were going deep and taking chances. Jefferson was breaking out. They looked like a team that could compete with the best and make noise in the playoffs. But since them, Kubiak has reverted back to the old vanilla playbook. No play action. No jet action. Just line up and run the unimaginative play.
Kirk is who he is. He’s never going to be Aaron Rodgers against pressure. He needs help via scheming. For the most part, he isn’t getting it. My criticism of Cousins is that once in awhile a quarterback simply has to make a play. This is the NFL. Things don’t always go as planned. I think that’s a fair criticism.
Uhhh, the fact that Kubiak is a product of blatant nepotism looms large here. To make a limited QB like Cousins be effective you would need a really sharp experienced OC. We have some kid whose daddy is buddies with a semi - senile dinosaur Head Coach…a train going nowhere.
chicagopurple wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 10:53 pm
Uhhh, the fact that Kubiak is a product of blatant nepotism looms large here. To make a limited QB like Cousins be effective you would need a really sharp experienced OC. We have some kid whose daddy is buddies with a semi - senile dinosaur Head Coach…a train going nowhere.
I love it.
mael·strom
a powerful whirlpool in the sea or a river.
a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil.
chicagopurple wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 10:53 pm
Uhhh, the fact that Kubiak is a product of blatant nepotism looms large here. To make a limited QB like Cousins be effective you would need a really sharp experienced OC. We have some kid whose daddy is buddies with a semi - senile dinosaur Head Coach…a train going nowhere.
Thanks for the laugh. If by some miracle this team sneaks in the playoffs they all will be back. If that happens I can spell out the entire off season before it even happens.
J. Kapp 11 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:05 pm
OK, I'm not a Cousins hater, but he does not get a free pass on this play.
I've watched this play in stop action at least 10 times now. Cousins was looking right at Jefferson the whole time. He saw Jefferson get held. He saw Jefferson get taken to the ground. Yet from the time the grab occurred until Cousins stepped and threw, it was nearly 3 full seconds.
Take a look at this screenshot. Jefferson is down. Cousins is looking right at him and hasn't thrown the ball yet.
This is absolutely inexplicable. It's baffling. It makes no sense. If you KNOW your guy is down, why throw it? Holding happens before you throw the ball. So if you see your guy get held — tackled, even — and you haven't thrown the ball yet, then THROW IT SOMEWHERE ELSE! For example, Osborn is open beyond the sticks. Throw it to him!
Then when he finally did throw it, he unleashed the weirdest, floating lob imaginable. Not a throw you would make if you were actually trying to complete the pass.
Honestly, I have no idea what was going through Cousins' mind. I'm not sure anybody ever does. But it was one of the worst interceptions I've ever seen, and that is NOT a knee-jerk reaction to what I saw live.
I would really like to see the all-22 of that play.
No I'm not giving him a free pass. I'm just saying that I'm guessing this was the entire thought process.
From looking at the pass maybe he tried to stop from throwing it and it came out. Cousins has his fault but I don't think anyone would question his arm. Looking at the screen shot the safety looked to be coming up on Osborne perhaps looking for the pick. Cousins read might have been that safety and if he bit on Osbourn then JJ would be wide open. That's only my guess on his read progression. But I do think he saw JJ fall but it was too late. I highly doubt he was looking at one WR or has the ability to see every WR in a split second but I think the read was the safety. If he stayed back then boom come under.
Numbers wise, Cousins has usually been pretty solid in the past when facing pressure. I know it was either last year or in 2019 where he actually had better numbers against pressure than he did with no pressure.
But I've been saying this for weeks, what happened to the play action? Cousins is lights out with play action and we hardly ever utilize it anymore. Especially the boots. The fact that Kubiak isnt drawing more of these up is baffling. When you cant get guys open against a secondary that's depleted because you're running your same vanilla pass offense, I dont feel bad. Klint has to figure that out. The reason Stefanski used play action boots so often is because it got Cousins away from our poor interior play. We still have poor interior play and we arent doing anything about it in terms of scheming.
In regards to the OL, you cant complain about the OL a whole lot this year outside of a guys like Udoh and Bradbury. They have been much improved for the most part. However, Monday night was reallyyyy bad. One of the worst, if not the worst showings yet this year from out interior (minus Cleveland). Bradbury and Cole were train wrecks and couldnt spring Dalvin and couldnt protect Cousins. I get that the OL excuse can be overused a lot but I must say, Bradbury and Cole were a REAL problem Monday night
Check my post. I’m agreeing with you.
I'm tired of the "it's the O-line's fault" excuse. This line is arguably better than the one Kevin Stefanski had to work with, yet Stefanski managed to figure out a way to mitigate pressure. The piss-poor play of this offense is the fault of the OC, and it's the fault of Cousins and the way he falls apart when pressured.
Klint Kubiak knows his quarterback is a basket case under pressure, yet he does nothing to offset it. The whole thing needs to be blown up.
The reason Kirk’s numbers were better in 2019 and even 2020 was because he had offensive coordinators who did exactly the things you mention. Even this year things were looking better. Look at the games against the Chargers. Kubiak used play action and jet sweep motion and all the eye candy meant to distract defenses and keep his quarterback clean. The Vikings played what was easily their best games of the season. That’s when we were saying that the Vikings were going deep and taking chances. Jefferson was breaking out. They looked like a team that could compete with the best and make noise in the playoffs. But since them, Kubiak has reverted back to the old vanilla playbook. No play action. No jet action. Just line up and run the unimaginative play.
Kirk is who he is. He’s never going to be Aaron Rodgers against pressure. He needs help via scheming. For the most part, he isn’t getting it. My criticism of Cousins is that once in awhile a quarterback simply has to make a play. This is the NFL. Things don’t always go as planned. I think that’s a fair criticism.
Yeah 100% a fair criticism. I just dont understand why they tend to stray away from play action. Especially the boots where he is able to get outside the pocket away from our porous interior. This Rams game coming up is a perfect game to go back to that given Donald in the middle. Donald is going to dominate Cole and Bradbury so it's going to be best if we can get Kirk outside the pocket. The Rams havent been playing the greatest lately. This is a very winnable game. They need to implement the right things to not pis# this game away and that starts with play action rollouts.
I envision Kirk and Stafford going toe to toe all game and this being a shootout. Again, we always play to our level of competition. I have a feeling this is going to come down to Zim finding a way to stop this Rams offense and I'm not sure how confident I am in that regard.
The saddest thing in life is wasted talent and the choices you make will shape your life forever.
-Chazz Palminteri
StumpHunter wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:48 am
I won't argue that there were not times drives were stalled because of failures on the Oline, but our QB was pressured the 11th most of any QB this weekend and the large majority of the time he was not pressured on his drop backs.
Cole was an issue in this game no doubt, but he was not the reason the QB played as poorly as he did.
I don't care about a web site making up a grade. Giving up 4 sacks blows. That's not even counting the hits and cracked rib he got. Cook looked like garbage and average 3.2 a pop which is useless. Does he suck that bad? IMO the answer is no. Our OL is garbage. We have one guy that is a starter level player. The other 4 are junk and shouldn't be on the field. My grade is worthless. All Cook needs is a crack and he will do the rest. These 4 stiffs couldn't even create a crack. Our entire offense sucked and the QB gets the blame which is always the case. I always look at the LOS battle. You lose that battle then turn out the lights because the party is over. In all my life I have never seen an OL get destroyed and it leads to great output. Never. If the Bears still had Tribisky they would have kicked our a$$. Them having zero at QB is the only thing that saved us.
VikingLord wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 5:30 pm
I do wonder though if a QB could just fake taking a knee there by dipping down but not actually touching the ground, and then if the defensive players let up, just take off. I just watched Zimmer's presser from the day after the Bears game and someone asked him specifically about that play, and he said he watched it and never saw Fields' knee actually touch the ground and there was no whistle to end the play either. If Lynch lets up there and doesn't follow through and the refs don't rule Fields down, were he to decide to continue playing and maybe throw a long TD there, what happens then? Could Zimmer contest that Fields gave himself up on the play, or would the refs allow the result to stand?
If a QB (or any player) is going to give himself up on a given play like that, it needs to be crystal clear to everyone that is what he's doing I think to avoid a situation where a defensive player or the refs don't see it and acknowledge that is what the offensive player is doing. If Fields takes a knee, stay down until the whistle blows. If he gets hit while down, then a flag is justified. If the refs don't blow it dead because its not clear to anyone the offensive player was taking a knee, I don't think it is then fair to throw a flag for unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct or whatever Lynch was flagged for there by continuing and bringing Fields down.
Interesting question. I'm guessing they would treat it the same as a qb faking spiking the ball and then throwing it since AFAIK there is no rule against faking a slide.
IIsweet wrote: ↑Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:58 pm
On a positive note....
At least the Titans OC is not the Vikings OC.
12 yards total in 1st qtr.
7 passing
5 rushing
It’s like watching the Vikings play tho. A trash line pounding the ball between the tackles and an average qb.
IIsweet wrote: ↑Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:58 pm
On a positive note....
At least the Titans OC is not the Vikings OC.
12 yards total in 1st qtr.
7 passing
5 rushing
It’s like watching the Vikings play tho. A trash line pounding the ball between the tackles and an average qb.
Tennessee's Oline is what a real bad Oline actually looks like. His time to throw is the 4th fastest in the NFL but he has been sacked the most of any QB. Tannehill is getting rid of the ball incredibly quick and still getting destroyed.
Very different from our Oline where the QB has taken longer to throw but been sacked the 2nd least of any QB.
Tenn line has been decimated by injuries and covid recently. Fwiw. Lewan isn't there, their best lineman. Their entire left side was backups. I think LT was a third stringer. They also are playing RBs that...umm..leave a lot to be desired.
StumpHunter wrote: ↑Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:48 am
I won't argue that there were not times drives were stalled because of failures on the Oline, but our QB was pressured the 11th most of any QB this weekend and the large majority of the time he was not pressured on his drop backs.
Cole was an issue in this game no doubt, but he was not the reason the QB played as poorly as he did.
I don't care about a web site making up a grade. Giving up 4 sacks blows. That's not even counting the hits and cracked rib he got. Cook looked like garbage and average 3.2 a pop which is useless. Does he suck that bad? IMO the answer is no. Our OL is garbage. We have one guy that is a starter level player. The other 4 are junk and shouldn't be on the field. My grade is worthless. All Cook needs is a crack and he will do the rest. These 4 stiffs couldn't even create a crack. Our entire offense sucked and the QB gets the blame which is always the case. I always look at the LOS battle. You lose that battle then turn out the lights because the party is over. In all my life I have never seen an OL get destroyed and it leads to great output. Never. If the Bears still had Tribisky they would have kicked our a$$. Them having zero at QB is the only thing that saved us.
Best post of the month CV. You know what your lying eyes are looking at.
VikingLord wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 5:30 pm
I do wonder though if a QB could just fake taking a knee there by dipping down but not actually touching the ground, and then if the defensive players let up, just take off. I just watched Zimmer's presser from the day after the Bears game and someone asked him specifically about that play, and he said he watched it and never saw Fields' knee actually touch the ground and there was no whistle to end the play either. If Lynch lets up there and doesn't follow through and the refs don't rule Fields down, were he to decide to continue playing and maybe throw a long TD there, what happens then? Could Zimmer contest that Fields gave himself up on the play, or would the refs allow the result to stand?
If a QB (or any player) is going to give himself up on a given play like that, it needs to be crystal clear to everyone that is what he's doing I think to avoid a situation where a defensive player or the refs don't see it and acknowledge that is what the offensive player is doing. If Fields takes a knee, stay down until the whistle blows. If he gets hit while down, then a flag is justified. If the refs don't blow it dead because its not clear to anyone the offensive player was taking a knee, I don't think it is then fair to throw a flag for unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct or whatever Lynch was flagged for there by continuing and bringing Fields down.
Interesting question. I'm guessing they would treat it the same as a qb faking spiking the ball and then throwing it since AFAIK there is no rule against faking a slide.
There is a rule about faking a slide, about 3 weeks old.
I love it.
