2018 Offense Autopsy Redux - What really went wrong?

[Raptorman]

Great post and very well thought out. The Pats have a great organization no doubt. But they always have an easy road. Look at that division. BB dominates it. It's a cake walk and he's able to rest and develop his team for the late season push. That's a huge advantage. Us and the Pack had to travel to their place. We stuck with them but came up short. Send them to us and GB it changes the whole thing. But our O has many problems and the OL is only the beginning. Our TE is terrible but there's nothing in the hole. I could go on.

Been down this road before. The Pats division really isn't any different than any other one. At least as I remember the numbers. Maybe I will have to do the math again. The only difference is that they are always the team on top rather than a rotation of teams at the top.

[StumpHunter]

Stump, in 2018 the only things that changed were OC, OL C, LG/RG/RT, and QB. IMO we got better at QB. I do not find it persuasive that the OL personnel changes alone were enough to both offset the improvement at QB and drag down our overall efficacy. I said it during the season as well, the driver was the coaching, specifically the OC. So to me, if you fix the coaching then you should expect improvement on the field.

.

Yeah, Cousins HUGE 8 win season was so much better then his predecessor's
lol.

I do think Cousins is a better QB, but I agree, Case gave us a better season at QB. Evidence of a better OC in 2017, but also evidence that Cousins probably wasn't a good signing. A good QB with these weapons should not need an OC as good as Shurmur to win more than 8 games. JDF should have been good enough.

[Pondering Her Percy]

Yeah, Cousins HUGE 8 win season was so much better then his predecessor's
lol.

I do think Cousins is a better QB, but I agree, Case gave us a better season at QB. Evidence of a better OC in 2017, but also evidence that Cousins probably wasn't a good signing. A good QB with these weapons should not need an OC as good as Shurmur to win more than 8 games. JDF should have been good enough.

He wasn’t though. Not even close to being good enough. Because he had zero balance in his offense and put everything on cousins shoulders. Throw keenum 45 times a game and let me know what happens

[StumpHunter]

I do think Cousins is a better QB, but I agree, Case gave us a better season at QB. Evidence of a better OC in 2017, but also evidence that Cousins probably wasn't a good signing. A good QB with these weapons should not need an OC as good as Shurmur to win more than 8 games. JDF should have been good enough.

He wasn’t though. Not even close to being good enough. Because he had zero balance in his offense and put everything on cousins shoulders. Throw keenum 45 times a game and let me know what happens

You are right, he wasn't a good enough OC for Cousins. Hopefully Kubiak and Stefanski are.

[PurpleKoolaid]

I do think Cousins is a better QB, but I agree, Case gave us a better season at QB. Evidence of a better OC in 2017, but also evidence that Cousins probably wasn't a good signing. A good QB with these weapons should not need an OC as good as Shurmur to win more than 8 games. JDF should have been good enough.

He wasn’t though. Not even close to being good enough. Because he had zero balance in his offense and put everything on cousins shoulders. Throw keenum 45 times a game and let me know what happens

A billion dollar QB shouldnt need a great OC.

[Pondering Her Percy]

He wasn’t though. Not even close to being good enough. Because he had zero balance in his offense and put everything on cousins shoulders. Throw keenum 45 times a game and let me know what happens

A billion dollar QB shouldnt need a great OC.

So what’s Aaron Rodgers excuse for going 6-9-1? Everyone blamed McCarthy right? And they still are. Rodgers is the “best in the game” and won 6 games this year. He shouldn’t need a “great OC” either right? Sorry but that logic doesn’t work pal. Nor did I say the OC needed to be “great” either. Flip was downright terrible

[PacificNorseWest]

Yeah, I can't agree with that. A bad coach, specifically a bad OCm can definitely impede a great QB.

[StumpHunter]

A billion dollar QB shouldnt need a great OC.

So what’s Aaron Rodgers excuse for going 6-9-1? Everyone blamed McCarthy right? And they still are. Rodgers is the “best in the game” and won 6 games this year. He shouldn’t need a “great OC” either right? Sorry but that logic doesn’t work pal. Nor did I say the OC needed to be “great” either. Flip was downright terrible

Not so bad a team didn't hire him right out of the gate this season.

Rodgers missed the playoffs for the first time since his first season starting and his team has been really bad every time he has gotten hurt. Not the example I would use to prove a QB can't carry a team.

[StumpHunter]

Yeah, I can't agree with that. A bad coach, specifically a bad OCm can definitely impede a great QB.

That isn't what happened. First, we don't have a great QB. Second, our OC had Cousins having his best season statistically of his career.

[PacificNorseWest]

Yeah, I can't agree with that. A bad coach, specifically a bad OCm can definitely impede a great QB.

That isn't what happened. First, we don't have a great QB. Second, our OC had Cousins having his best season statistically of his career.

This is what was said: "A billion dollar QB shouldnt need a great OC."

This is what I said: "Yeah, I can't agree with that. A bad coach, specifically a bad OCm can definitely impede a great QB."

Can you point to where anything was said about Kirk Cousins?

Secondly, whether you think Cousins is great or not is irrelevant. The ultimate point is that it was clear that in the 2nd half of the season, the offense was struggling due in large part to the OC and his negligence towards the run and PA game. You can take his numbers as a whole all you want, but it's taken way out of context and shouldn't be spun to be a positive for the OC that was fired, which is what you seem to be doing.

[Pondering Her Percy]

So what’s Aaron Rodgers excuse for going 6-9-1? Everyone blamed McCarthy right? And they still are. Rodgers is the “best in the game” and won 6 games this year. He shouldn’t need a “great OC” either right? Sorry but that logic doesn’t work pal. Nor did I say the OC needed to be “great” either. Flip was downright terrible

Not so bad a team didn't hire him right out of the gate this season.

Rodgers missed the playoffs for the first time since his first season starting and his team has been really bad every time he has gotten hurt. Not the example I would use to prove a QB can't carry a team.

Lol ok so let’s see, the top 5 highest paid QBs didn’t make the playoffs this year. Not one of them. Nobody is saying Kirk is great but he was getting at least $84 million on the market no matter what. Any prolific passer is going to make at least that if they hit the market in their prime. Foles is far from a prolific passer and landed $22 mill a year? But yeah he “won” a SB. Let’s see him play an entire season and win a SB instead of taking over an 11-2 team. Either way, those 5 QBs that missed the playoffs? What was the issue there? Their teams let them down, bad OCs, bad play? You say Rodgers team practically let him down. Cousins team didn’t in any way? His OC didn’t? Or his kicker? Or his defense? Or his OL? I keep saying it’s a team game. Two games this year cousins drastically outplays Rodgers. That’s not on Rodgers? It was on his team? But Kirk cousins plays out of his mind against GB on the road and LA but his D and special teams didn’t let him down those games? That’s just a loss chalked up on Kirk. Cousins had his bad games this year but guess what, so did Rodgers, so did other top paid QBs clearly because they didn’t make the playoffs.

Bottom line is, yeah cousins had a good roster around him but there was blame to go all around. Cousins, the OC, the OL, the defense, ST, zimmer, and I can keep going. But I don’t care what anyone says, I’ve been saying this all along, Flip was the biggest blame IMO. He’s the one that has entire control over the offense and how they perform as a whole. Yeah our OC had cousins throwing for career high numbers but if you’re throwing 45 times a game and NOT putting up big numbers, then that usually means you probably aren’t a good QB. Like I said, throw Keenum 45 times a game and you would see a train wreck. He had balance. Kirk didn’t. They relied on the entire offense in 2017 to perform. In 2018 they relied solely on cousins and his 2 WRs to win games. That’s a recipe for disaster with a lot of QBs in the nfl. But nobody is saying Kirk is great, nobody is saying he needs a great OC. He needs an OC that provides balance in an offense and needs the players around him to perform. He’s never had that. Never had a run game in Washington, didn’t have one here somehow because our OC was clueless as to who we had in the backfield. If flip was a “good” OC or “good enough” he wouldn’t have been fired. He was CLEARLY going against what the head coach wanted which was balance. And it led to his firing. Do you think it would be fair for Zim to say “well Kirk is putting up big numbers so we’re going to keep flip because he’s doing one thing well”. No. More volume means more numbers. Especially with a good pure passer like Cousins. But that’s not how you win games. He was fired for a reason.

[CharVike]

For me the past 10 days or so of NFL Free Agency has been painful to a point of making my brain hurt and not because the Vikings didn't do what I, captain arm chair GM thought they should do. They've been bad because I have felt like the majority of fans and all of the local sports media have completely misdiagnosed the main culprits of the 2018 season and it's eventual failure to make the post season. ST, Defense, but above all, Offense all played a role. Here is my assessment of the offense:

What changed on the Vikings 2017 – 2018 on offense

Coaching:
Defense – The Same
ST – The Same
Offense – Shurmer out, JDF in. Sparano out in AUG(!!!!) Barone in

Players:
QB: Keenum out / Cousins in
LG: Easton out in training camp / Compton in
RG: Berger retires / Remmers in
RB: Mckinnon out / get Cook back

First QB: There is no possible scenario where Keenum is not a downgrade from Cousins. I’m sorry, but it just isn’t true. There is a reason Keenum was cut by Denver this offseason.
OL: Guards were obviously downgraded due to injury and retirement.
On a purely player basis it looks like we got worse at OG, but better at QB.

Overall stats:

Stats: 2017 Offense: 382 Points / 1055 plays / 356 Ypg Turnover margin +5 Pts Game 23.9
2018 Offense: 360 Points / 1003 play / 345 Ypg Turnover margin 0 pts Game 22.5

So why was the offense worse? Why fewer plays? Was the downgrade at both guard positions such a massive disaster that it offset any incremental increase from Cousins vs. Keenum? Given that QB is the single most important position in sports I find this argument completely unpersuasive. If we got better at QB, then getting worse at OG should at worse be a push. So what happened?

Answer: Coaching.

Quite simply, JDF was a terrible OC for us. Add in the fact that we lost our OL coach to an untimely death literaly days before training camp started and then a few weeks later we lost our best guard to a neck injury and it adds up to chaos on the OL and chaos on offense in general. That is how the season started. We also saw they he was prone to disasterous game planning errors. The first one was Buffalo, that loss was hideous in that it failed to account for their strength on DL. The next one was NE where BB completely owned him. The last one was SEA, which ultimately cost him his job. JDF couldn’t handle the readjustment phase of his NFL stint as an OC. The likes of BB and Fangio owned him.

So now we get to today and Free Agency. Everyone is mad about the OL. I offer a few salient points:

#1: The biggest issue the team faced going into this season was the offensive coaching staff. IT needed to be better. To that end we made a splash and hired Gary Kubiak. I think this hire has been woefully under-appreciated to this point.

1.5: Do not listen to the local sports media. They are concocting this narrative that Zimmer is protecting his defensive guys to the detriment of the team. This is absurd. This line of reasoning is basically: “We should jettison some of our great core defensive guys to pay some FA OL a ton of money with no guarantee he’ll perform.” If you have a top 5 defense (which we do) why would EVER make that kind of move. IMO, this is the height of idiocy, but it is the media so it is just another day at the office.

#2: The teams cap situation all but guaranteed they wouldn’t make any big signings. The fact they haven’t should be considered at worse par for the course. You can be mad about this, but the cap is what it is. It almost feels like fans are getting mad at a one legged man for not being able to walk on two legs. If there is no cap to spend, then why are you mad they didn’t spend cap they didn’t have?

#3: Look at how NE won the SB. They were able to get competitive play out of a bunch of OL that they picked up late in Free Agency and spent an entire season coaching up so they would be competitive in Decmeber/January. This is the blue print the Vikings must follow. Note I say must because their cap situation demands it. We were never going to build a huge OL in free agency in 2019. So to this point, it circles back to #1: The Coaching hires.

So in conclusion: I feel that the 2018 issues were a combination of three things: JDF was a bad hire, the insurance against JDF being weak died a few days before camp started, and we had injuries concentrated at Guard. I will add that drafting Mike Hughes over Hernandez was probably a mistake, but the timing on that is questionable. When we drafted Tony Sparano was still our OL Coach and Nick Easton was still thought to be our LG.

2019 is going to be all about whether or not Stefanski/Kubiak can get back to the level of competency on offense that we saw with Shurmer/Sparano and if Kubiak can help make our OL more competitive through successful coaching. IMO the incremental (if any) improvement of the OL from September to November will be the key thing to watch next season.

NE has a huge advantage. That don't have one single division game to even worry about. You can train players and hope they develop and still win the game easily. They have a cake walk. We don't have that luxury. And this Hernandez guy gets all the credit on this board as a great pick but how good was he really. I'm sure some rate him as dominate G and others rate him as a busted draft pick. So who really knows.

[mansquatch]

NE has a huge advantage. That don't have one single division game to even worry about. You can train players and hope they develop and still win the game easily. They have a cake walk. We don't have that luxury. And this Hernandez guy gets all the credit on this board as a great pick but how good was he really. I'm sure some rate him as dominate G and others rate him as a busted draft pick. So who really knows.

I'll give you that their division is not the strongest, but that doesn't invalidate my main point which is that they still were able to develop an OL over the course of a single season that was competitive against the best of the NFL in the playoffs. Cake division or not, that group delivered in January when it counted most. Also their non-conference schedule is always a bear because they in the AFCCG every single year. (Something like 8 straight) so they are routinely playing tough opponents even if it isn't in their divisional schedule. (Also, when was the last time they played in the wild card round.) That isn't happening on just 6 easy divisional games.

[VikingLord]

I don't have a lot of time to write this post, but I wanted to chime in on one aspect of the OP's post about Keenum out and Cousins in, which should arguably have improved the QB position, especially given the changes on the offensive line.

And here, I think it's important to note that analyzing changes at individual positions doesn't show the impact to the entire unit those players compose in a team sport. In a team sport, altering even a single individual can result in greater than expected changes (positive or negative) to the performance of the entire unit.

I think this effect is what the "Why didn't Cousins play as well as Brady" thread tried to get at, or why we observe vastly difference performance from a given WR who plays with first one QB, and then another QB.

My point is, the net effect of the three main player changes on offense that you listed between the 2017 and 2018 seasons likely had an out-sized impact on the performance of the overall unit, especially given some key differences in how Keenum and Cousins played the position.

- Keenum was more likely to scramble and escape pressure than Cousins
- When he scrambled, Keenum was more likely to throw than Cousins
- Keenum was more likely to throw into coverage and allow his receivers to bail him out than Cousins who seemed to prefer safer throws
- I think Keenum was also more likely to make riskier, downfield throws in general than Cousins

Statistically, these differences between how the two QBs played might not have shown up in the overall season stats. By all measures, Cousins had the better statistical season measured at just the QB position. But I think in the context of the overall offense, and in terms of how defenses had to play against it, the way Keenum played it shifted more of the burden to how the opposing defense had to execute than to how the Vikings offense had to execute. Keenum's willingness and ability to scramble and make downfield attempts to covered receivers minimized OL weaknesses more than Cousin's preference to pass from the pocket and attempt more short, safer throws, and because Cousins' overall tendencies were safer and more predictable, it eased the burden on opposing defenses to execute and shifted more of it back on the Vikings offense.

I'm not going to say that is a bad thing, BUT... if the offense bears more of the execution burden, then the players and components of that offense must execute at a consistently higher level (ala the Patriots and Tom Brady). And that burden falls on everyone on the offense, from the QB to the OL to the skill positions. Catches have to made. Throws have to be accurate and timely. Running has to be effective and consistent. And that is regardless of how well the opposing defense is prepared.

And so if you have an offense that is lacking in its ability to consistently execute, then you can compensate for that with a QB who is less predictable, provided the bulk of the chances he takes turn out in your favor. And that is what I would claim was a big difference between Keenum and Cousins between 2017 and 2018, and maybe had a much larger overall impact on the outcome of the two seasons.

And in that sense, given the ongoing weaknesses and changes to the OL mentioned by the OP, maybe it wouldn't have been the worst idea to keep Keenum around.

It also underscores just how important it is going to be to address the OL deficiencies if the Vikings are going to get the most out of Cousins. They need late-season Patriot's level of performance out of their 2019 OL if we're going to see Cousins show his full potential. I'm really hopeful that some combination of moves between coaching, drafting and FA will make that possible, because his playing style isn't going to change in the next 2 years.

[mansquatch]

I don't have a lot of time to write this post, but I wanted to chime in on one aspect of the OP's post about Keenum out and Cousins in, which should arguably have improved the QB position, especially given the changes on the offensive line.

And here, I think it's important to note that analyzing changes at individual positions doesn't show the impact to the entire unit those players compose in a team sport. In a team sport, altering even a single individual can result in greater than expected changes (positive or negative) to the performance of the entire unit.

I think this effect is what the "Why didn't Cousins play as well as Brady" thread tried to get at, or why we observe vastly difference performance from a given WR who plays with first one QB, and then another QB.

My point is, the net effect of the three main player changes on offense that you listed between the 2017 and 2018 seasons likely had an out-sized impact on the performance of the overall unit, especially given some key differences in how Keenum and Cousins played the position.

- Keenum was more likely to scramble and escape pressure than Cousins
- When he scrambled, Keenum was more likely to throw than Cousins
- Keenum was more likely to throw into coverage and allow his receivers to bail him out than Cousins who seemed to prefer safer throws
- I think Keenum was also more likely to make riskier, downfield throws in general than Cousins

Statistically, these differences between how the two QBs played might not have shown up in the overall season stats. By all measures, Cousins had the better statistical season measured at just the QB position. But I think in the context of the overall offense, and in terms of how defenses had to play against it, the way Keenum played it shifted more of the burden to how the opposing defense had to execute than to how the Vikings offense had to execute. Keenum's willingness and ability to scramble and make downfield attempts to covered receivers minimized OL weaknesses more than Cousin's preference to pass from the pocket and attempt more short, safer throws, and because Cousins' overall tendencies were safer and more predictable, it eased the burden on opposing defenses to execute and shifted more of it back on the Vikings offense.

I'm not going to say that is a bad thing, BUT... if the offense bears more of the execution burden, then the players and components of that offense must execute at a consistently higher level (ala the Patriots and Tom Brady). And that burden falls on everyone on the offense, from the QB to the OL to the skill positions. Catches have to made. Throws have to be accurate and timely. Running has to be effective and consistent. And that is regardless of how well the opposing defense is prepared.

And so if you have an offense that is lacking in its ability to consistently execute, then you can compensate for that with a QB who is less predictable, provided the bulk of the chances he takes turn out in your favor. And that is what I would claim was a big difference between Keenum and Cousins between 2017 and 2018, and maybe had a much larger overall impact on the outcome of the two seasons.

And in that sense, given the ongoing weaknesses and changes to the OL mentioned by the OP, maybe it wouldn't have been the worst idea to keep Keenum around.

It also underscores just how important it is going to be to address the OL deficiencies if the Vikings are going to get the most out of Cousins. They need late-season Patriot's level of performance out of their 2019 OL if we're going to see Cousins show his full potential. I'm really hopeful that some combination of moves between coaching, drafting and FA will make that possible, because his playing style isn't going to change in the next 2 years.

VikingLord, I think you missed the main thrust of my post which was that the COACHING also changed, and in the case of OL, the change occured in about the most traumatic way possible. IMO, this was the main variable that ultimately lead to the decrease in offensive efficacy. Your post commits the very error that caused me to make this thread. The players do not exist in a vacuum. The coaches scheme and use them and that contributes to their performance. If you do not believe me then ask Jared Goff if he'd prefer that Jeff Fisher was still his HC. (Just as one example...)

So to that end I would say this: In hiring Kubiak they are addressing the OL issues. They are just not doing it with players.

Also there have been some disagreements on Keenum vs. Cousins and my view that Cousins was a clear upgrade. To be blunt: I stand by my conclusion. Cousins is a superior passer to Keenum. If Keenum was so great, then how come Denver jettisoned him this year after only one season? He couldn't give them competitive QB play despite having a very strong running game behind Lindsey. Cousins gave us 4000 passing yards despite an OC that for the most part couldn't figure out how to incorporate a rushing attack. I humbly sumbit that if you put Keenum in that scenario you'd end up with a 20+ INT season. (People seem to conveinently forget the 2-5 passes a game Keenum would put up in 2017 where you'd be like WTF WAS THAT!?!?!? In 2018 he regressed to his mean) However, back to my main point: Why are we in the situation of an over loaded passing game in the first place? Answer: Because the OC called those plays. Quite visibly against his HC's wishes I might add.

I challenge the detractors in here. Rather than just hammer on your pet peeve of Cousins or the OL, why not challenge my idea? Why wasn't the offensive coaching a major factor? Why didn't losing Tony Sprano just before Trianing Camp contribute to the OL being dysfunctional? Why didn't JDF's game planning and play calling put the offense in a bad place?