Vikings Message Board.Com

mosscarter wrote:at this point it appears zimmer is too overly defensive minded. what has been done to address our offensive line? absolutely nothing and that is the weakest part of our team.

I will see if I can find a spreadsheet I did once. In order to be a consistent winner in the NFL your defense has to hold the other team to under, I think it was 21.4 ppg on average. That is why Zimmer and the Vikings are working on the defense. They know that to win, you need to prevent the other team from scoring. Take the Patriots. Great offense right? Got Brady, the whole offense going. Did you know in the last 10 years their defense has only given up 18.6 ppg? Brady and the offense get the credit. But it's the defense that is winning the games for them. Green Bay's average defense the last 10 years, 21.5 ppg. Oakland's, 26 ppg. The Vikings, 22.7 ppg. So the Vikes are right on the edge of winning.

This is kind of silly. The Vikings defense was one of the worst in football just 2 years ago, which is a big part of the reason why they were bad but not bad enough to draft much higher (because the offense bailed the team out just enough to win just enough to NOT pick any higher). Of course they're going to continue rebuilding that. Especially if you have 3 other teams in the division that spend their top picks on big wideouts to arm their very well paid, established quarterbacks.

If you build a top 5 defense, and have an offense that has played well enough to push one of the worst defenses in the league out of the top 5 spots, you're going to win plenty of games.

Rus wrote:This is kind of silly. The Vikings defense was one of the worst in football just 2 years ago, which is a big part of the reason why they were bad but not bad enough to draft much higher (because the offense bailed the team out just enough to win just enough to NOT pick any higher). Of course they're going to continue rebuilding that. Especially if you have 3 other teams in the division that spend their top picks on big wideouts to arm their very well paid, established quarterbacks.

If you build a top 5 defense, and have an offense that has played well enough to push one of the worst defenses in the league out of the top 5 spots, you're going to win plenty of games.

Well said, and when you have an MVP level running back and a young quarterback you believe in like Bridgewater it's much more important to continue to improve the defense. Our offense will be plenty capable of scoring 25 PPG with Peterson back so if you can get the defense holding teams to under 20 you're going to win a lot of games. I really do see a Seattle Seahawks situation playing out for us over the next 2-3 years. We have all the same ingredients it just depends on how good Zimmer's defense can get and personally I think it can be right up there at the top of the league.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I'd be a lot more comfortable with the Vikes' draft picks if they hadn't let Clint Boling get away. (Or if we had good and concrete reason to believe that David Yankey or someone else currently on the roster could do the job at LG.)

The offensive line was so weak so frequently last year. It's exciting to see the Purple restock the defense the way they have, but there do still appear to be one or more serious holes in the offensive line.

Rieux wrote:Can't speak for anyone else, but I'd be a lot more comfortable with the Vikes' draft picks if they hadn't let Clint Boling get away. (Or if we had good and concrete reason to believe that David Yankey or someone else currently on the roster could do the job at LG.)

The offensive line was so weak so frequently last year. It's exciting to see the Purple restock the defense the way they have, but there do still appear to be one or more serious holes in the offensive line.

I was thinking the same thing in regards to Boling. Yankey has a legit shot, as his only limitation seemed to be strength and weight.
I think they'll manage to play well enough even if it's Berger starting at the start of the season. Having AD(assuming) will really help everything. It's not a solution...but between Yankey,Tiny and the kids they just drafted, we are starting to see some depth being built along the line.
Praying Kalil finds his groove again.

Rieux wrote:Can't speak for anyone else, but I'd be a lot more comfortable with the Vikes' draft picks if they hadn't let Clint Boling get away. (Or if we had good and concrete reason to believe that David Yankey or someone else currently on the roster could do the job at LG.)

The offensive line was so weak so frequently last year. It's exciting to see the Purple restock the defense the way they have, but there do still appear to be one or more serious holes in the offensive line.

I may be in the minority, but I thought Mike Harris played solid filling in at RT last year, and he verbalized a strong desire to win that LG role in particular after he was re-signed. Berger and Harris should give us two decent options at that position. If one of those young tackles can beat those guys out I bet he'll be pretty darn good.

The offense will be upgraded even without help in the draft. I'm not that high on Wallace, but he's an upgrade over Jennings. We get Peterson back. We get Fusco back. We get Loadholt back. Teddy has another year under his belt. The offense isn't going to be lights out or anything this year, but should be able to run the ball pretty well now that we have a QB and WR that can keep defenses honest. That style of offense nicely complements what should be a pretty strong defense.

our receivers still worry me. wallace is a good receiver, but he is short. the only big targets we have are johnson and patterson and both are major question marks. one of them will have to step up. i also suppose it wouldn't hurt to actually have rudolph healthy for a full season.

mosscarter wrote:our receivers still worry me. wallace is a good receiver, but he is short. the only big targets we have are johnson and patterson and both are major question marks. one of them will have to step up. i also suppose it wouldn't hurt to actually have rudolph healthy for a full season.

Patterson is definitely the wild card. I think Johnson is much less a question mark.

I am NOT convinced that picking up ONE OL is the cure. Our OL has been poor at almost every spot for a few years now. I hope Spielman has some trades ready to pull off........

chicagopurple wrote:I am NOT convinced that picking up ONE OL is the cure. Our OL has been poor at almost every spot for a few years now. I hope Spielman has some trades ready to pull off........

well last year it certainly was, but that's considering the fact that Fusco was out for the year and Loadholt and Sullivan were out and battled injuries at points. Also Loadholt had a rough early going.

All in all though, I think Sullivan, Fusco and Loadholt are good starters in the NFL. Kalil is an enigma, who is on his dying breathe with the team, but it's hard to say the team should've made it a priority to replace him this off season. While I'd say each position needed improvements from last year, only LG is ultimately the one position that desperately needed a full change of personnel. The right side should see a boost from a full return from Fusco and Loadholt, while LT is going to be a question mark going forward with Kalil, which is why I think we saw an emphasis grabbing two middle round OT prospects.

Drafting for need is not a good idea.

Norv Zimmer wrote:I really don't believe our line is too terrible. They got rid of johnson and he was the worst. I think Yankee will probably start at left guard. Remember o lineman can be found in later rounds, Sullivan was a 5th I believe and fusco a 6th. I absolutely love the kendricks pick.

We gave up the 4th most sacks last season. Now of course part of that is on the QB, but it's also an Offensive line problem too.

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720pete wrote: We gave up the 4th most sacks last season. Now of course part of that is on the QB, but it's also an Offensive line problem too.

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Agreed but simply getting Fusco back is going to help quite a bit. I feel like we had a good balance of addressing need and increasing depth. You cant fix everything in one draft but I don't see any mistakes really. Just Rick and Zim prioritizing the way they want.

chicagopurple wrote:I am NOT convinced that picking up ONE OL is the cure. Our OL has been poor at almost every spot for a few years now. I hope Spielman has some trades ready to pull off........

Which ONE OL are you talking about? We took three.