New member Mock

[Pondering Her Percy]

Um judging by the name I'm guessing this guy is a female lol " Pondering her Percy"

and by the way...the name was just my fantasy football team name!! Last year it was "Percy Whipped"...maybe Ill stick to that one

[jackal]

awesome post

I really hope we bring in a guy like Matt Moore too.. I am not ready give up ponder (getting close) but i would
like to give him another year to learn and work on fundamentals..

[Mothman]

That was an interesting first post! It's hard for me to think too much about mock drafts at this time of year when draft order hasn't been established and so much can change with both the draft prospects and with the teams in the free agency period leading up to the draft. However, your ideas are good.

I agreed with a lot of your choices regarding veteran players, although I see no reason to release Charlie Johnson, who is at the very least a versatile and capable backup. He should have a role on the team next year. I wouldn't mind seeing Henderson return as a backup either. I'd just like to see them upgrade the starters at those two positions.

I wouldn't fire Musgrave either. I think he's made some odd choices at times and I'm certainly not opposed to an upgrade at OC but I think Musgrave's offense is, to some extent, a consequence of the personnel he has available to him.

[Sutsgold]

Great insight. I would love getting a mlb in first round. A mlb moved from safety ........Seemed to work in chicago with urlacher

[Mothman]

All jokes aside Bowe is good, Moore would be a catastrophe, i've seen enough of that guy to slap him in the same sentence with someone like Rex Grossman. So would Rosario. They have a hybrid TE in Ellison, he can do that job, no need to go get another.

Get Alex Smith, Get Bowe, Fire musgrave and hire the guy who sells fruits at your local farmers market to run the offense, he'd do a better job. Bowe and Smith would be the splash I would make this offseason, and maybe some filler defensive players. Draft the rest

Your post illustrates an interesting dynamic on the board right now: many of the same people who think Musgrave should be fired simultaneously acknowledge that Ponder has been bad, that the Vikes are in serious need of WR help and that they need to improve the interior of the o-line. We can argue the chicken and the egg forever but if the Vikes are in such dire need of improvement at QB, WR and (arguably) on the OL, doesn't it seem likely that those personnel issues have had a real impact on Musgrave's performance? Of course, the opposite could be argued too and maybe it's just a situation where the OC, QB, WRs and aspects of the blocking are all making each other look bad. However, it would be nice to see what Musgrave could do with an offense that was actually built to successfully play a more wide open game.

[GoldenBear91]

I still don't know how to post pictures...

Nice post.

[Mothman]

I still don't know how to post pictures...

Hit reply or quote and then click on the button labeled Img (it's above the window where you type your reply).

You will see img and /img in brackets with a blinking cursor in-between them. Paste the url for your image between the bracketed words (ie: where the cursor is blinking).

That's all you need to know...

... unless you need info on how to find the url for a certain image, how to upload an image, etc. If so, just ask!

[smoothoperator]

excellent post sir. i am agreement on bowe, we need him, no question. he is big, physical, and has some speed. i think if we have percy, bowe, simpson (if we cant find a better option) and jenkins (or some other possesion wr) this team will be dynamically different and effective.

[MrPurplenGold]

I would personally like to see the Vikings go after Jarius Byrd and Henry Melton in free agency. Resign Brinkley, let Henderson walk and draft a WLB, they spend more time in the Nickel these days anyway. Jefferson's a RFA, so they should be able to keep him and there's no way they get rid of Carlson after one year. Johnson's signed on for another year, Fusco is playing better and it's easier to draft a late round draft pick then sign Schwarts to a multi-year deal, so I think you let him walk. Fred Evans is a solid rotational player that shouldn't be looking for a big contract so he shouldn't be too hard to resign and Loadholt should demand an "average" deal for a tackle, maybe 5 years somewhere between 25 - 30 million. Draft 2-WR's, WLB, QB, OG and depth

[Mothman]

Its kind of like a game of shells that't not a scam. The cups spin around with the ball but its hard to keep track of.

But there's also an eye test. As of LATE Musgrave has toned down the calls to god awful levels. But the evidence early on in the year, when Ponder wasn't doing all that horrible, doesn't suggest that its personnel. Its not like Musgrave was calling 20 yard seam routes when the season started. 4 wr sets or anything of the nature. To be honest I have no idea what he's doing. Its almost like he doesn't know what he's doing either. Its confusing. What is he trying to emulate? New England? If you watch a patriots game, and i'm saying New England because the media basically labeled that as our sister offense, they run a heavy 2 tight end offense. However, when they have 2 tight ends they still manage to spread the field, and in essence have 5 wide. Musgraves 2 tight end sets like, don't do this, it doesn't even come close. I find it hard to believe that the same guy who was spamming bubble screens to Harvin when the season started, when we as a whole had almost no idea how Ponder would react with a full offseason, has a magical royal flush hiding somewhere that we haven't seen yet. Coaches don't coach preseason style in the regular season. This isn't the time to experiment, and nothing he's doing is showing me that he has the capacity to call plays for an nfl offense. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's experimenting. But what I do think in a nutshell is that Musgrave has peaked as far as his playcalling is concerned. He's not good. In 2003 he was the OC for the Jaguars, they finished 25th in the nfl in scoring. Their offense wasn't that bad, but they had alot less to work with offensively than we do now. They had a rookie QB and a beast RB (sound familiar?), and basically one WR, Jimmy Smith, with a bunch of scrubs (sound familiar?). And he was doing the same crap in the red zone he's doing here. Now while being similar stats wise, working with less than we have now brings me to my next point...


Musgraves playcalling is handcuffing the team. But with a good QB, I doubt his mentality would change as far as the playcalling. But in my honest opinion Ponder's quarterbacking is worse than his playcalling. The eye test: he fails. There is nothing about this QB that screams "he's got something". People can bring up Elway, Aikman, Manning, etc....Even in their suckfest streaks, there was still that eye test, and basically It showed that while in a slump, these dudes have the tools and ability to overcome it. THEY LOOKED LIKE QUARTERBACKS. Ponder does not. Mechanics or not, he doesn't have the skills. You cant teach that. You can't teach ability. You also can't pull blood from a stone. You either have it or you don't. I highly doubt Ponder's inability to throw a ball past 15 yards had anything to do with Musgraves playcalling early in the season, but i'm fully convinced that it's a major factor in why Musgraves playcalling has gone from 8 yard routes to 3 yard routes and run spamming.

As far as the receivers go, there's not alot here to go after to be honest. As many have stated before, wideout wise, many teams work with less or equal to what we have now and make it work. Sure they're underacheiving, but that goes hand in hand with a quarterback who cant hit the broad side of a barn past 15 yards. The rest of our receivers are NOT Harvin. They are almost incapable of taking bubble screens 30-40 yards (maybe wright can do this), and without this Musgraves offense looks like the biggest sack of manure in a long time. If we want to break it into percentages, my opinion :60% on Ponder, 30% on musgrave, 10% on the receivers. Adrian is immune to all this nonsense as far as i'm concerned.

Good post.

I put a lot more of it on receivers than you do and I think that both Ponder's performance and that of his teammates has led to the playcalling we've seen lately. I'd direct a percentage of blame to pass protection too because pressure has frequently disrupted pass plays this year and I believe that inability to hold up on slower-developing plays has also led to a lot of short passing. Believe it or not, Musgrave was calling some deeper seam routes earlier in the year. They just weren't getting open, Ponder was missing them or protection would break down before the routes developed. It's been the story of the passing game all season: something usually goes wrong and it's not always the same thing.

I understand what you're saying about the eye test. Ponder doesn't pass it and I don't think the WRs do either. If there are many teams fielding effective passing games with less or equal to what the Vikes have at receiver now, which teams are they?

I'm far from sold on Musgrave but it seems to me he's handcuffed by his personnel and to some extent, that's been true all season. People rag on those bubble screens to Harvin but they were mighty effective. For what it's worth, I'd divide the percentage of responsibility for the poor passing game this way:

Ponder: 35%, Receivers: 25%, Musgrave 20%, O-line 20%

That's for the season. In some games, those percentages would vary greatly.

Just to be clear: you may be 100% right about Musgrave. As I said, I'm not sold on him. It's just that when I put myself in his place and look at what he's working with in the passing game, I can sympathize with the guy. If I put myself in an opposing defensive coordinator's place and look at the personnel the Vikes have on offense, I'd be thinking: stop Peterson, pressure Ponder and we win!

[A.D_blazing]

I put a lot more of it on receivers than you do and I think that both Ponder's performance and that of his teammates has led to the playcalling we've seen lately. I'd direct a percentage of blame to pass protection too because pressure has frequently disrupted pass plays this year and I believe that inability to hold up on slower-developing plays has also led to a lot of short passing. Believe it or not, Musgrave was calling some deeper seam routes earlier in the year. They just weren't getting open, Ponder was missing them or protection would break down before the routes developed. It's been the story of the passing game all season: something usually goes wrong and it's not always the same thing.

I understand what you're saying about the eye test. Ponder doesn't pass it and I don't think the WRs do either. If there are many teams fielding effective passing games with less or equal to what the Vikes have at receiver now, which teams are they?

I'm far from sold on Musgrave but it seems to me he's handcuffed by his personnel and to some extent, that's been true all season. People rag on those bubble screens to Harvin but they were mighty effective. For what it's worth, I'd divide the percentage of responsibility for the poor passing game this way:

Ponder: 35%, Receivers: 25%, Musgrave 20%, O-line 20%

That's for the season. In some games, those percentages would vary greatly.

Good post,mothman.

When it comes to vikings passing game,i put a lot more blame on the OLINE.

[Mothman]

post,mothman.

When it comes to vikings passing game,i put a lot more blame on the OLINE.

Thanks. For some reason, the o-line's role in the team's passing issues gets diminished.

[Texas Vike]

Thanks. For some reason, the o-line's role in the team's passing issues gets diminished.

Who do you guys think is causing the most problems? RG or LG position? Do we need to upgrade BOTH this offseason?

[mondry]

I'd say 30% ponder, 40% WR, 15% o-line, 15% musgrave.

For O-line, they've been some what inconsistent but I don't think they've been worse than say, half the other O-lines in the league.

Musgrave would have a higher % of the blame but when it comes down to it for me, talent is just so much more important.

Ponder gets a big chunk of the blame, he's shown a few flashes of brilliance but way more mistakes.

The WR's get the most blame for me because they simply suck. No Harvin, Simpson has a pinched nerve or whatever so he's useless, burton is a #5, Aroma and jenkins are #4's. So our WR's look like #4, #4, #5, and a hurt guy who's still actually better than our #4's because they're #4's.

Who do you guys think is causing the most problems? RG or LG position? Do we need to upgrade BOTH this offseason?

Probably LG since I think that's CJ. Between Fusco getting more experience / improving and Schwartz I think RG will eventually work itself out.

[Mothman]

Who do you guys think is causing the most problems? RG or LG position? Do we need to upgrade BOTH this offseason?

I'm not sure. Loadholt seems to let a rusher come in free off the edge in just about every game but I'd say the biggest problems are at guard and in blitz pick up (which involves more than just the line). If I had to pick one spot as the weakest, I'd say RG but the pass protection needs to improve at both positions. Sullivan has some issues in this area too. He's a very good run blocker but he gets pushed back too often and when the same thing happens to a guard or two, it leaves Ponder with no room to step up.