Vikings Message Board.Com

YikesVikes wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:24 pm The Vikings are not seeking to be a pass-first or balance the offense. They desire to run the ball first and live off of play action. That's a run-first offense. We were 5th in rush attempts per game with non-mobile QB. Every team ahead of us, QB is capable of running the ball some. We were 30ths in passing attempts per game. This is a silly, silly argument that the stats simply do not hold up to. We are a running team. At home, when the conditions are best to pass the ball (crowd noise, dome) we are dead last in pass attempts. Dead Last! We have an old school coach that has voiced publicly his desire to run the ball. We have drafted OL that a built to run the ball, we have two 2nd round picks at RB. STOP!!!!

Cook and ????????
I agree with you. We definitely want to be a run first team. However, we also want the pass to be a very significant part of our offense as well.

VikingsVictorious wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2020 6:29 am

YikesVikes wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:24 pm The Vikings are not seeking to be a pass-first or balance the offense. They desire to run the ball first and live off of play action. That's a run-first offense. We were 5th in rush attempts per game with non-mobile QB. Every team ahead of us, QB is capable of running the ball some. We were 30ths in passing attempts per game. This is a silly, silly argument that the stats simply do not hold up to. We are a running team. At home, when the conditions are best to pass the ball (crowd noise, dome) we are dead last in pass attempts. Dead Last! We have an old school coach that has voiced publicly his desire to run the ball. We have drafted OL that a built to run the ball, we have two 2nd round picks at RB. STOP!!!!

Cook and ????????
I agree with you. We definitely want to be a run first team. However, we also want the pass to be a very significant part of our offense as well.

Abdullah.

YikesVikes wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:24 pm The Vikings are not seeking to be a pass-first or balance the offense. They desire to run the ball first and live off of play action. That's a run-first offense. We were 5th in rush attempts per game with non-mobile QB. Every team ahead of us, QB is capable of running the ball some. We were 30ths in passing attempts per game. This is a silly, silly argument that the stats simply do not hold up to. We are a running team. At home, when the conditions are best to pass the ball (crowd noise, dome) we are dead last in pass attempts. Dead Last! We have an old school coach that has voiced publicly his desire to run the ball. We have drafted OL that a built to run the ball, we have two 2nd round picks at RB. STOP!!!!

And the Vikings have invested franchise money into a QB who they apparently want to be proficient at handing the ball off. They gave that QB a timely extension, too.

Why would the run-first Vikings not pay Cook literally whatever he wants to keep him happy and productive? Given the stats you listed and the intent you claim they highlight, wouldn't you?

S197 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:45 pm Also SF isn't some sort of unicorn. In 2018, the Rams were third in rushing and NE was 5th. The Eagles were #3 in 2017, 14th in passing. I don't need to go back 20 years, that's literally the last 3 championship teams. Two of the last three years with teams that were not very balanced at all.

Because teams were proficient in rushing doesn't mean they were built to emphasize rushing. More than likely they were able to pile up rushing yards because they got ahead early in a majority of games and had good defenses that protected those leads and could afford to run.

S197 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:45 pm YikesVikes added even more color on the Vikings specifically so no real need to comment further there.

Yup, he did, while also ignoring the elephant. Actually, there are two elephants:

1) Cousins contract
2) The absence of an extension on Cook

If the Vikings really do want to emphasize the run and they still spent all that money to keep Cousins while not keeping Cook, they are beyond incompetent in my view.

S197 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:45 pm And I think what's really getting lost in the shuffle is that I'm not pounding the table saying pay Cook $12M a year. All I'm saying is if you want to keep Cousins, you better make sure you have a very good run game because he is highly reliant on the rushing attack taking pressure off him and his primary strength as a QB is play action, which isn't effective without the run.

Why keep Cousins if you really want to run and just need him to basically hand it off and throw screen passes most of the time? What, for the occasional deep bomb on the odd years you make the playoffs and need a late heave to help win it?

If they are emphasizing the run, then go out and find a cheaper option at QB and make sure Cook gets paid. If Cook is the truly special player and Cousins the average one, and the one guy plays the critical position while the other plays the complementary one, why invest the money in the average, complementary player first, and not just "the" money in that player, but "THE" money?

I give up. Like I said, if they put their money where you and others here say their mouth is, I concede the point. Until that happens, all of you are basically claiming the Vikings braintrust to this point is literally insane in my opinion. They value and want to emphasize something they're neglecting while they shove their resources into something anyone could pretty much do. It makes no sense.

VikingLord wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:18 pm

S197 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:45 pm Also SF isn't some sort of unicorn. In 2018, the Rams were third in rushing and NE was 5th. The Eagles were #3 in 2017, 14th in passing. I don't need to go back 20 years, that's literally the last 3 championship teams. Two of the last three years with teams that were not very balanced at all.

Because teams were proficient in rushing doesn't mean they were built to emphasize rushing. More than likely they were able to pile up rushing yards because they got ahead early in a majority of games and had good defenses that protected those leads and could afford to run.

S197 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:45 pm YikesVikes added even more color on the Vikings specifically so no real need to comment further there.

Yup, he did, while also ignoring the elephant. Actually, there are two elephants:

1) Cousins contract
2) The absence of an extension on Cook

If the Vikings really do want to emphasize the run and they still spent all that money to keep Cousins while not keeping Cook, they are beyond incompetent in my view.

S197 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:45 pm And I think what's really getting lost in the shuffle is that I'm not pounding the table saying pay Cook $12M a year. All I'm saying is if you want to keep Cousins, you better make sure you have a very good run game because he is highly reliant on the rushing attack taking pressure off him and his primary strength as a QB is play action, which isn't effective without the run.

Why keep Cousins if you really want to run and just need him to basically hand it off and throw screen passes most of the time? What, for the occasional deep bomb on the odd years you make the playoffs and need a late heave to help win it?

If they are emphasizing the run, then go out and find a cheaper option at QB and make sure Cook gets paid. If Cook is the truly special player and Cousins the average one, and the one guy plays the critical position while the other plays the complementary one, why invest the money in the average, complementary player first, and not just "the" money in that player, but "THE" money?

I give up. Like I said, if they put their money where you and others here say their mouth is, I concede the point. Until that happens, all of you are basically claiming the Vikings braintrust to this point is literally insane in my opinion. They value and want to emphasize something they're neglecting while they shove their resources into something anyone could pretty much do. It makes no sense.

Viking Lord my apologies to you, but I think your argument is ridiculous. Teams pay a lot of money to the QB. That in no way stops them from being run first teams. Also even if they are run first teams they want to have the best passer possible when they do pass. Have you heard of a team called the Tennessee Titans? They have the NFL's leading Rusher. They are a run first team. The QB is getting $32 million a year. The RB Henry just signed for $12.5 million. The QB is making nearly 3 times what the RB is making.

Cousins contract in no way, shape or form indicates that we want to be middle of the road pass/run blend or higher. How much money we are willing to pay Cook has a little to do with that, but not very much.

Even in a run first offense, the passing attack needs to be good enough to keep defenses off balance and honest . If they always put 8 men in the box to stop the run and the QB can’t take advantage of that, it’s a huge problem

VikingPaul73 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 7:34 am Even in a run first offense, the passing attack needs to be good enough to keep defenses off balance and honest . If they always put 8 men in the box to stop the run and the QB can’t take advantage of that, it’s a huge problem

Absolutely. The best example of this is probably Seattle. They can easily run 40+ times a game but you just can’t sleep on Wilson. And their OL was absolutely awful a few years back but they were able to get it to a point where run blocking was decent, pass blocking was still sub par. But Wilson is so good, he can extend plays and cover up a lot of the line’s deficiencies.

VikingLord wrote: ↑Wed Jul 15, 2020 10:33 am

RandyMoss84 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 3:04 pm Keenum was good that year and I give him major props for that but Vikings made a smart decision letting him go and Keenum has been on the Broncos, Redskins, and now Browns since so it is pretty obvious he was not a very good quarterback on other teams

But that's not the point of this debate.

S197 and Stumphunter are claiming that the Vikings want to be a run-oriented offense. I'm questioning why a team that wants to run needs to pay a premium at QB for a guy like Cousins when a guy like Keenum would more than do for much less money. The fact that Keenum turned in several average or even below average seasons after leaving the Vikings supports my point. They could have paid him less to effectively focus on handing it off to Cook.

I want to get back to this, because I think it is analogous to the discussion about a great RB running for 1200 yards and or an okay RB running for 1100 yards.

The Vikings could have kept Keenum and with the WRs we had, he would have produced. He could have thrown for the 4K yards and 25+ TDs that the really good QBs average.

They didn't do that because they knew when Case faced a great team, one that would force him to put up a lot of points against a good defense, he was never going to get it done. His raw production would have been there with the rest of the top 10 QBs, but it would have been because of the system, and when that system broke down, he would not have gotten the job done like a true top 10 QB could.

The same is true for a RB who might get 1K yards on the season in Kubiak's system, but when that system breaks down, he isn't going to be effective in individual games the Vikings need him to be effective in. On the whole he isn't much different than a great RB in the same system, but when you break it down by game you see the great RB carrying the offense when the passing game struggles, and the okay RB never doing that. It is the difference between a couple of wins a season and a couple of close losses.

I think it is debatable that Cook can consistently be that RB for the next 3 seasons, but the argument that "any old back can get 1K yards so why pay a great RB" is tiresome. Not all 1K yard seasons are the same, not all 100 yard games are either. Kubiak understands that, and paid his great RBs when he had them despite his system getting a lot out of mediocre backs. There is a reason for that.

VikingsVictorious wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2020 3:32 pm

VikingLord wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:18 pm

Because teams were proficient in rushing doesn't mean they were built to emphasize rushing. More than likely they were able to pile up rushing yards because they got ahead early in a majority of games and had good defenses that protected those leads and could afford to run.



Yup, he did, while also ignoring the elephant. Actually, there are two elephants:

1) Cousins contract
2) The absence of an extension on Cook

If the Vikings really do want to emphasize the run and they still spent all that money to keep Cousins while not keeping Cook, they are beyond incompetent in my view.



Why keep Cousins if you really want to run and just need him to basically hand it off and throw screen passes most of the time? What, for the occasional deep bomb on the odd years you make the playoffs and need a late heave to help win it?

If they are emphasizing the run, then go out and find a cheaper option at QB and make sure Cook gets paid. If Cook is the truly special player and Cousins the average one, and the one guy plays the critical position while the other plays the complementary one, why invest the money in the average, complementary player first, and not just "the" money in that player, but "THE" money?

I give up. Like I said, if they put their money where you and others here say their mouth is, I concede the point. Until that happens, all of you are basically claiming the Vikings braintrust to this point is literally insane in my opinion. They value and want to emphasize something they're neglecting while they shove their resources into something anyone could pretty much do. It makes no sense.

Viking Lord my apologies to you, but I think your argument is ridiculous. Teams pay a lot of money to the QB. That in no way stops them from being run first teams. Also even if they are run first teams they want to have the best passer possible when they do pass. Have you heard of a team called the Tennessee Titans? They have the NFL's leading Rusher. They are a run first team. The QB is getting $32 million a year. The RB Henry just signed for $12.5 million. The QB is making nearly 3 times what the RB is making.

Cousins contract in no way, shape or form indicates that we want to be middle of the road pass/run blend or higher. How much money we are willing to pay Cook has a little to do with that, but not very much.

Exactly!!

Cook is going to report to training camp

https://www.dailynorseman.com/2020/7/25 ... ta-vikings

starting to turn into a bit of a circus.

VikingPaul73 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:49 am https://www.dailynorseman.com/2020/7/25 ... ta-vikings

starting to turn into a bit of a circus.

It is not a big deal, Cook do not need to talk to Zimmer until training camp starts

DALVIN COOK
RB, MINNESOTA VIKINGS

RB Dalvin Cook is expected to report to Vikings camp today amid ongoing contract talks with the team.
Cook would have faced a $50,000 fine for each day he didn't report to the team, per the league's new CBA. The running back's agent has repeatedly denied reports that Cook would report on time. Fantasy players taking Cook in the first round of best ball drafts can breathe a little easier today. It's a dark day for those who drafted Alexander Mattison in the middle rounds when reports of a possible Cook holdout first emerged.

SOURCE: Chris Tomasson on Twitter
Jul 28, 2020, 1:32 PM ET

Cook could still hold out later, but it's a good beginning. He also would have had to be an idiot to not report today and lose his chance at free agency next year and accrue $50,000 a day in fines.

VikingsVictorious wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:02 pm Cook could still hold out later, but it's a good beginning. He also would have had to be an idiot to not report today and lose his chance at free agency next year and accrue $50,000 a day in fines.

Not really, he is a millionaire so he can afford $50,000 a day in fines