I'm done.

[majorm]

The Vikings are precisely as bad as their record indicates (that's why they have that record) and that's an indictment of the roster, the coaching staff and the front office.

I agree with that. I've never liked that, "...better than their record" stuff. Good teams win the close games. Like New England yesterday. They find ways to win. The bad teams - like the 2013 Vikings - find ways to lose those games. Many ways.

[Webbfann]

I loved this line from Souhan: The coaching staff may have destroyed the season by sticking with established starters instead of playing the best players available.

Destroyed the season. The roster didn't destroy the season, the coaching did. We have a pretty good roster. Its the coaches fault, for failing to play the best players and consistently starting the worst. Not to mention their flawed, high-school level strategic thinking (if they have any strategic thinking at all), playing not to lose, and inability to adjust until the season is 3/4 over. With Cassel at QB and other players getting play time we would easily be in the playoff hunt, and somehow people with their minds made up still fail to see it.

He may be correct but that's pure conjecture and the kind of armchair quarterbacking I expect from Jim "second guess" Souhan, whose NFL coaching record speaks for itself. The Vikes are still snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with those players in larger roles and who knows if those players could have played as well earlier in the season as they have played at times since. It sure didn't look like Rhodes was capable of it. He's clearly improved over the course of the season.

Cassel doesn't seem to be the difference between winning and losing. The "script" plays out the same way when he starts: the games come down to the defense needing to make a stop at the end to preserve a slim lead. Perhaps that's due to coaching and perhaps not but stats aside, the results don't suggest the Vikes would have a better record with Cassel as their starter. Heck, if Robbie Gould hadn't uncharacteristically missed a 47 yard FG attempt last week, the Vikes would have dropped that game too.

I think the final lines of Souhan's column are dead wrong. He wrote:
The Vikings are precisely as bad as their record indicates (that's why they have that record) and that's an indictment of the roster, the coaching staff and the front office.
If they'd won all the close games they've lost, I think they'd be leading the division right now.

By the way, for those interested, here's a link to the column:

http://www.startribune.com/sports/vikin ... 93211.html

[Mothman]

I agree with this statement and am admittedly a little conflicted with Frazier. He has to be an effective leader to motivate his team to play this hard for...well...basically nothing at this point in the season. These kind of leaders are hard to find and one wants to think long and hard before discarding them. Having said that, I am getting to the point that I recognize no matter how good of a leader he is, if he can't make good decisions (personnel decisions, etc.), his great leadership skills really are irrelevant

Well said. I'm conflicted as well but for slightly different reasons. I agree that Frazier appears to be a good leader. I think his most damaging decisions may be in his choice of coordinators, not in his personnel choices. I'm not convinced he's made many damaging personnel decisions. I realize I don't see that issue the way most fans do but I think Frazier was clearly asked to preside over a rebuilding team and develop young players and it seems like he's doing that the way he believes is best and trying to not only win as he goes but to develop his roster into a winner. In my opinion, the degree of damage that's done is highly debatable. Perhaps it has cost the team wins but I think it's also arguable that Frazier's approach has helped a lot of young players become better, more effective players. The patience he showed with Fusco last year paid some dividends this year. Cole has been widely viewed as some sort of indictment of Frazier but Frazier clearly recognized Cole's potential or he wouldn't have kept him around. He and his staff worked with Cole and we have no idea how much that work has contributed to Cole's recent success on the field but I don't think it's fair to view a player they've kept around and worked to develop as a strike against them when he gets an opportunity to play and then plays well.

Rhodes wasn't playing as consistently earlier in the season as he has lately. Maybe not thrusting him into a bigger role early helped his game rather than hindering the team. Robinson was awful early in the season but Frazier was patient with him and over the last few games Robinson played, he appeared to be improving quite a bit. If a team is going to rebuild with younger players there have to some growing pains and in most cases, it seems to me that Frazier's choices with young players have shown signs of paying off long term.

Then there's Patterson. Patterson has come on strong lately and the coaches have been pretty emphatic in stating that earlier in the season, he simply wasn't ready for the larger role they've given him lately. I don't know how anyone outside of the team can know if that's right or wrong but the book on him coming out of college was that he was raw and might need to develop into a larger role with the team that drafted him. Maybe Frazier handled it wrong and has damaged the team but at the very least, it seems to me that Frazier and company have done a good job of getting the Patterson ready to contribute and he's having an impact on games now.

The QB debate has been discussed endlessly so there's no need to re-hash it here.

In the end, I think the Vikes need to consider carefully whether Frazier needs to go or if, perhaps, he needs to improve his staff and be given the chance to field a team with some better quarterback options.

I can't refute this assertion/conclusion. I think we are winding down to the final 3 games of the Frazier era, and I hope that history shows that the Vikings made the right decision moving on from him.

I agree and I share that hope.

[Texas Vike]

He may be correct but that's pure conjecture and the kind of armchair quarterbacking I expect from Jim "second guess" Souhan, whose NFL coaching record speaks for itself. The Vikes are still snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with those players in larger roles and who knows if those players could have played as well earlier in the season as they have played at times since. It sure didn't look like Rhodes was capable of it. He's clearly improved over the course of the season.

Cassel doesn't seem to be the difference between winning and losing. The "script" plays out the same way when he starts: the games come down to the defense needing to make a stop at the end to preserve a slim lead. Perhaps that's due to coaching and perhaps not but stats aside, the results don't suggest the Vikes would have a better record with Cassel as their starter. Heck, if Robbie Gould hadn't uncharacteristically missed a 47 yard FG attempt last week, the Vikes would have dropped that game too.

I think the final lines of Souhan's column are dead wrong. He wrote:
The Vikings are precisely as bad as their record indicates (that's why they have that record) and that's an indictment of the roster, the coaching staff and the front office.
If they'd won all the close games they've lost, I think they'd be leading the division right now.

By the way, for those interested, here's a link to the column:

http://www.startribune.com/sports/vikin ... 93211.html

Interesting. I posted a link to this article in a separate thread, not thinking it would've appeared here in the "I'm done" thread!

But I guess if the debate's happening here… I somewhat agree w/ you Moth, that Souhan's last line misrepresents things. He loves to write these "sound byte" type lines that have more "zinger" quality to them than actual substance.

OTOH, I think if he had said something along the lines of: "Our record is worse than our roster would lead you to believe" and left out the blaming the coaches part, it would be accurate. The D has routinely failed in the last 2 minutes of games this year. That's not all on Frazier. We have some glaring weaknesses on our roster at just about every level of the D. Scheme-wise, especially defensively, we have to figure something out (fire Alan Williams) because this has gotten to be the norm.

[CalVike]

Welcome back , PMR! Great win vs. hot Eagles shows this team has no quit and can put up 48 when they pass for a change. Skol!


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[Reignman]

By a show of hands, who got that sinking feeling after the Eagles pulled to within 27-16 and then went into full panic mode when they pulled to within 27-22 late in the 3rd? Lol I was like, you've got to be kidding me, they're going to blow another game like this.

[thatguy]

By a show of hands, who got that sinking feeling after the Eagles pulled to within 27-16 and then went into full panic mode when they pulled to within 27-22 late in the 3rd? Lol I was like, you've got to be kidding me, they're going to blow another game like this.

I definitely had that.

[LVVikingsfan]

weird i dont even remember 2003 ( i remember 2000 and 1998) Man I love Paul Allen though.

I was at that game. Mike Tice blew it in my opinion. Here's the scenario...It was 4th and 24 and time was running out. The Cardinals were playing hurry up so the Vikings had to keep there defensive players on the field...But the Vikings had 2 timeouts left. They should have used one. Barring a defensive penalty no matter what happened it was the Cardinals last play...they could get a first down but the clock would have run out for sure if they made 24 yards, and it was obvious that they were going to get the play off so Tice should have called time out and got the right defense on the field.