Texas Vike wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 8:01 pm
J. Kapp 11 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:30 pm
Here's the other thing. Third and long against a Wink Martindale defense. Guess what he's going to do, Klint? He's going to bring the house ... every time. And what do we do? Send everybody out on long-developing routes, so Cousins has no chance. The one time you WANT somebody short, we have nobody short. For God's sake, Kubiak, do you even watch film of your opponent?
...
All in all, a game that has become typical for 2021. Play just well enough to get the lead, then watch the implosion. It's exhausting.
Klint is the worst and this point you raise illustrates his abilities very well. It's obvious to you and me. How can it not be to a guy who does this for a living?
I've gotten to the point that I find myself cheering AGAINST the Vikings once they have let their opponent get close and then take the lead. I feel bad for guys like Kendricks, who deserve a win (or a real team)... so then I feel bad for cheering for a loss, but ultimately, I want them to lose because we absolutely need to shuffle the deck.
Once again this week, I was watching the Purple Daily podcast. Tuesday is Alex Boone day, and it's always incredibly informative. Say what you will about his time with the Vikings ... this guy knows football, and he knows O-line play.
What I'm about to outline here is parroting what he said, to the best of my ability. I'm certainly no expert. It's the 3rd-and-9 play in overtime that you and I have been talking about, where Martindale sends the house and we throw incomplete, essentially losing the game.
It's is a great example of what is wrong with this offense.
Let's start with a screenshot. It tells all.
First, take a count of all the Ravens who are rushing the passer. There are seven. SEVEN! It's insane. There are two on the right, three on the left, and two in the middle. Seven rushers.
Incredibly enough, the Vikings have seven guys in to block. The problem is that the Vikings have failed to slide protection to the correct side.
Cleveland and Cole both have a hat on a hat. To the right, there are two more Ravens rushers against THREE Vikings blockers — Conklin, O'Neill, and Udoh, who is pretty much doing nothing. I mean, that's a problem, right? Seven rushers, seven blockers, but Udoh standing there with nothing to do! To the left, there are three Ravens rushers against just two Vikings, Darrisaw and Cook. So while the Vikings have enough guys blocking to pick up all the Ravens rushers, they failed to identify where they would be coming from. As you can see, there are two rushers and only one Dalvin Cook to pick them up.
According to Boone, the center should have identified where the blitz was coming from and made this call at the line. There was some code he would have called out (very cool to hear Boone talk about it) that would have slid protection to the left. You'd end up with Cleveland taking the guy in the photo who's free on the inside, Cole taking the guy Cleveland is blocking, and Udoh taking the guy Cole is blocking. But Cole didn't do that. He didn't ID where the blitz was coming from, thus not making the call. Therefore, you ended up with a free rusher in Cousins' face, causing the incompletion.
But Cole's failure to ID didn't have to result in disaster.
In that case, COUSINS could have (should have) ID'd it and changed protection at the line. Tom Brady would have done that. Aaron Rodgers would have done that. Any 10-year veteran NFL quarterback would have done that. But not Cousins. He ALSO failed.
Next, look at the middle of the field. There is NOBODY from the Ravens in the area code. All you see is one safety and the back judge. Yet all our receivers run down the field on "go" routes, as called by Kubiak. According to Boone, this should have been an obvious hot read, identified and called by Cousins at the line. If somebody would have run a slant and Cousins got him the ball, he would have run a long, long way. The Vikings easily pick up the first down and likely win the game. But that didn't happen.
Finally, if Cousins was so confused that he didn't know what to do, he could have called timeout, since the Vikings had one remaining. It would have been a rookie thing to do, but he could have done it. Instead, he played the "I just work here" card and ran the play that Kubiak called, exactly as he called it.
So in a nutshell, you start with a silly play call that sent four receivers on "go" routes against a blitz-happy defense. You've also got the center failing to ID the blitz, Cousins failing to ID the blitz, Cousins failing to check to a hot route, and Cousins failing to call timeout. It's a total fail by the entire Vikings offense, from coach to quarterback to offensive line.
Is it any wonder this team sucks on offense?