FLIP HAS BEEN FIRED!!!

[Crax]

I can listen to the thought of Zimmer ultimately being responsible, but it's really Spielman. Zimmer may have some influence, but Spielman is the one putting the team together including who the Coach is. If the Vikings finish poorly and get rid of Zimmer, they really need to get rid of Spielman too. He's had a long time as the GM through multiple coaches.

[Mothman]

More than the offensive coordinator?

Not more but the offensive coordinator is under his supervision so he bears some responsibility.

Seems to be if Zimmer is getting hard criticism for JDF, he should get the same credit for Pat last year. All I'm seeing are people (rightfully) praising Pat.

He deserves credit. I haven't seen anybody denying him that but maybe I missed something. I think you see people skip past it for the same reason many Vikes fans give Zimmer a pass when the offense struggles. He's associated himself with the defense to such a degree that many fans don't even seem to see the rest of the team as his responsibility except in a very superficial way. There's been a lot of "Zimmer's unit, the defense, is fine" thinking out there in Vikingland since his very first season. The offense? That's someone else's problem.

Could it be that he's communicated that vision but ultimately the OC has been unable to effectively carry it out?

Sure but that still circles back to the head coach. It's his job to see that it works out. Obviously, by firing Defilippo, he's trying to do that.

His job is to create game plans, but not call the offensive plays. Did he not work with his staff to create game plans last year? I'm not trying to absolve him of all responsibility, but from my chair the offensive dysfunction is more of a product of the offensive coordinator since most of the same pieces were in place last year and the offense thrived.

It might be more a by-product of the offensive coordinator but it's a shared responsibility. The whole team, all 3 units, falls within Zimmer's purview. What goes wrong with the offense or special teams is his responsibility because the team is his responsibility. Priefer, Edwards and Defilippo work for him. He chooses the OC, he and Rick choose the personnel, it's his choice to delegate whatever degree of responsibility gets delegated. If he delegates it all to the OC and the OC blows it then delegating that much responsibility to that particular coach may have been a mistake, no? It doesn't matter if Flip was a hot commodity and nobody saw it coming, it's still a mistake.

Hopefully they get it figured out. I remain skeptical until the offensive line is addressed and upgraded. It all starts from there.

It does and I remain skeptical too.

[J. Kapp 11]

I agree this probably needed to happen, but there's obviously more wrong than just JDF. The offensive line is #1 and Cousins isn't doing his job very well either. The guy I saw last night was spooked, tentative and indecisive. Contrast that to watching a dude like Mahomes play and it's night and day.

I don't know about this talk that somehow Zimmer is to blame. He's been pretty adamant about letting his OCs take control of the offense. Isn't it as likely that Norv and JDF were bad at their jobs? I mean, this argument doesn't hold much weight for me after last year. Zimmer was still head coach last year, right? The Vikings were a top-10 offense, #2 on third downs and #2 in ToP.

Here's the issue for me. Yes, Shurmur did a great job. That's one year out of five, and one offensive coordinator out of four (three really, since Stefanski has yet to call a play). Turner left because his philosophy didn't mesh with Zimmer's. JDF got fired because, by all accounts, he and Zimmer couldn't see eye-to-eye philosophically. At what point do we stop blaming coordinators solely and begin to assign some blame to the head man?

And please understand, I've been as big a supporter of Mike Zimmer as there has been on this board. Again, I think he's a fantastic players' coach. Nobody teaches technique like he does. And he's a very good defensive coach who has really brought this defense back from a very poor start to again become one of the better units in the league. But he's responsible for the entire team, and at some point, he has to own it.

I look at the comments he made last week, where he talked about how sometimes he didn't really know what was going on with the offense during games because he was working with the defense on the sidelines. That's unacceptable. It just is. At least to me. And again, I'm a fan.

I think it's pretty clear that Kirk is not Wilson, Cam or Mahomes out there. He needs better protection in order to be effective. The rate he's being pressured is top-3 in the league this year. How much more apparent does this need to be for Rick?

I like Cousins. I do. I like his arm strength, his accuracy, and his understanding of the offense. He's a competitor. But in many ways, I've really come to miss Case Keenum. His ability to make a play when protection broke down ... I had no idea how badly we'd need that this season. The O-line is an absolute mess and a disaster. Honest to God, if Joe Berger were sitting on his couch, 50 pounds overweight, eating donuts all day, and said, "Y'know, I think I'd like to come out of retirement," I'd give him a uniform and put him directly into one of the guard spots. We are SO HORRIBLE at both guard positions. It's just an abomination.

Spielman needs to fix this O-line over the offseason, or it's not going to matter which of the defensive stars we re-sign. Put Aaron Rodgers with a real coach, and they'll be back. And it's obvious the Bears aren't going anywhere. It seems impossible, but if Spielman doesn't fix this mess, our window is going to slam shut.

[dead_poet]

This is unacceptable.

AGAIN.

@PFF_Sam Vikings OL has now surrendered 190 total pressures. 15 more than any other unit

It's the common thread. Unless you have Russel Wilson, your offense isn't going to go anywhere and you'll be fighting it no matter who your OC is.

[Crax]

Andrew Luck suffered behind a terrible O-Line and this year he's playing well with one that is considered much improved. I look at cousins the same way. He can make the throws, but you have to give him time as he isn't going to scramble around and make plays.

[dead_poet]

Here's the issue for me. Yes, Shurmur did a great job. That's one year out of five, and one offensive coordinator out of four (three really, since Stefanski has yet to call a play). Turner left because his philosophy didn't mesh with Zimmer's. JDF got fired because, by all accounts, he and Zimmer couldn't see eye-to-eye philosophically. At what point do we stop blaming coordinators solely and begin to assign some blame to the head man?

If Zimmer can succeed with one OC to the degree in which he did last year, that leads me to believe that while there is some blame to be put on Zimmer for selecting JDF, the OC whose job it is to coordinate the offense is still the one who bares most of the responsibility for its performance (or lack thereof). I think JDF was canned less about how he wasn't able to mesh with Zimmer's philosophy than he was not being able to put together an effective offense. I mean, is it really rocket science to think maybe running the ball with Dalvin Cook more than 9 times/game is a good idea? And wasn't JDF's role in Philadelphia as the red zone guru? He's been terrible in that capacity. As well as abysmal on third downs (third and SHORT for God sake) and don't get me started on his use of premiere route-runner Stefon Diggs as a gadget player a la Tavon Austin. Heck, reportedly the Seahawks' players were laughing about how the offense was doing exactly what they practiced because we were/are so predictable. JDF was supposed to be this great, young, new OC and he's getting laughed at like he's running a freaking Jeff Fisher offense.

Norv left because he thought he was holding the team back. He said exactly that. The Vikings were 31st in YPG. The two of them gushed about how much they liked and respected each other after he quit.

And please understand, I've been as big a supporter of Mike Zimmer as there has been on this board. Again, I think he's a fantastic players' coach. Nobody teaches technique like he does. And he's a very good defensive coach who has really brought this defense back from a very poor start to again become one of the better units in the league. But he's responsible for the entire team, and at some point, he has to own it.

I don't think Zimmer has shied away from taking responsibility before. I think he's owning the decision to hire JDF by letting him go. I'm not sure what else people think he needs to do or say other than the team just needs to be better? Somehow?

I look at the comments he made last week, where he talked about how sometimes he didn't really know what was going on with the offense during games because he was working with the defense on the sidelines. That's unacceptable. It just is. At least to me. And again, I'm a fan.

Yeah, those comments are dumb, but a little blown out of proportion. But I'm not sure what people expect him to do. Call THOSE plays, too? If he honestly doesn't know what's going on with the offense during the game for God's sake fire him. But I don't think that's really the case.

I've really come to miss Case Keenum. His ability to make a play when protection broke down ... I had no idea how badly we'd need that this season. The O-line is an absolute mess and a disaster. Honest to God, if Joe Berger were sitting on his couch, 50 pounds overweight, eating donuts all day, and said, "Y'know, I think I'd like to come out of retirement," I'd give him a uniform and put him directly into one of the guard spots. We are SO HORRIBLE at both guard positions. It's just an abomination.

You got that right.

[808vikingsfan]

This is unacceptable.

AGAIN.

@PFF_Sam Vikings OL has now surrendered 190 total pressures. 15 more than any other unit

It's the common thread. Unless you have Russel Wilson, your offense isn't going to go anywhere and you'll be fighting it no matter who your OC is.

It's PFF though. How do they define a pressure? What if the QB misses the first or 2nd read? Is that still considered a pressure? Cousins is still taking more time to throw than over half of the QBs in this league. He's getting pressure (whatever that means), but he's still taking over 2.7sec to pass.


I'd even settle for Bridgewaters or Ponders athletic ability to evade pressure right now. Anything is better than what Cousins does.

[dead_poet]

It's PFF though. How do they define a pressure?

Any hit, hurry or sack.

This is from 2012: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/p ... whole-stor

For a start, this doesn’t include sacks that are on the quarterback for holding the ball too long. We define ‘too long’ as being anything over four seconds

And from this year: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/p ... a-glossary

Under Pressure
Dealing with pressure is a huge part of playing quarterback, especially with the pass-rushers in the NFL and college nowadays and the pass-happy nature of the league. Under pressure passing is any time the quarterback is disturbed from his normal throwing motion from set up to release, or anytime a pressure is registered on a given passing play. Much like deep passing statistics, we then develop individual statistics off of just pressured passing. In addition to the usual suspects of yards, completions, attempts, passer rating and adjusted completion percentage, we also have pressure percentage (the amount of times a QB is pressured compared to total dropbacks) and sack percentage (the amount of time when under pressure a QB is sacked).

I'd even settle for Bridgewaters or Ponders athletic ability to evade pressure right now. Anything is better than what Cousins does.

That's like taking a pill to mask the symptoms of IBS instead of fixing the root cause.

Of course, Teddy was rock solid under pressure so you'll get no argument from me.

[808vikingsfan]

It's PFF though. How do they define a pressure?

Any hit, hurry or sack.

This is from 2012: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/p ... whole-stor

For a start, this doesn’t include sacks that are on the quarterback for holding the ball too long. We define ‘too long’ as being anything over four seconds

And from this year: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/p ... a-glossary

Under Pressure
Dealing with pressure is a huge part of playing quarterback, especially with the pass-rushers in the NFL and college nowadays and the pass-happy nature of the league. Under pressure passing is any time the quarterback is disturbed from his normal throwing motion from set up to release, or anytime a pressure is registered on a given passing play. Much like deep passing statistics, we then develop individual statistics off of just pressured passing. In addition to the usual suspects of yards, completions, attempts, passer rating and adjusted completion percentage, we also have pressure percentage (the amount of times a QB is pressured compared to total dropbacks) and sack percentage (the amount of time when under pressure a QB is sacked).

I'd even settle for Bridgewaters or Ponders athletic ability to evade pressure right now. Anything is better than what Cousins does.

That's like taking a pill to mask the symptoms of IBS instead of fixing the root cause.

Of course, Teddy was rock solid under pressure so you'll get no argument from me.

IMO, it's still not clear what a 'pressure' is. They do define 'under pressure'. So if a QB takes long to throw (under 4 sec?) and gets his normal throwing motion disturbed, it's counted as a pressure? If a QB scrambles away from pressure, buys time and throws without getting his normal throwing motion disturbed, it's not counted as a pressure?

[PurpleMustReign]

Dead Poet... If the Vikings defense sucked, who would you blame? Only Edward's?
My point is... People seem to be giving Zimmer a pass with the offensive struggles because he's a defensive cosch, but like Jim and others said... He's the HEAD COACH. Essentially, outside of maybe Spielman, it's his team. Frankly, the only facet of the team playing well consistently is the defense as the offense and special teams have been God awful for most of the year. It is the head coach's responsiblility to get his staff in order to make the team succeed.
I also think the iine was bad last season but Keenum covered up a lot of the shortcomings. Losing berger and Easton should not lead to this massive drop off in performance. I don't care that it was just one season and I don't care about what Keenum is doing this season, but I believe he masked the OL problems last year.

[dead_poet]

Dead Poet... If the Vikings defense sucked, who would you blame? Only Edward's?

No. Obviously Zimmer is much more involved with the defense. So that'd be on him and I think everyone here would agree. I doubt Edwards' name would even be mentioned in that conversation, which is weird.

My point is... People seem to be giving Zimmer a pass with the offensive struggles because he's a defensive cosch, but like Jim and others said... He's the HEAD COACH.

I don't think anyone is giving him a pass, especially not in this thread. I'm not giving him a pass either. He's accountable, obviously. But IMO not to the degree at which the OC is/was.

Essentially, outside of maybe Spielman, it's his team. Frankly, the only facet of the team playing well consistently is the defense as the offense and special teams have been God awful for most of the year.

I keep seeing this talking point. Other than the kicker, has the special teams really been as bad as people say? Their coverage units look good. Wile looks like an upgrade. Returns aren't as special without Patterson or Harvin but they don't seem abnormally bad compared to other teams.

It is the head coach's responsiblility to get his staff in order to make the team succeed.

What does "in order" mean? We're not behind the scenes. I can't imagine a guy like Zimmer, who is a "coaching-is-my-life" type of guy, doesn't have an "in order" coaching staff. I still don't see how it's impossible to have an "in order" coaching staff and still have an offensive coordinator that sucks at his job.

I also think the iine was bad last season but Keenum covered up a lot of the shortcomings. Losing berger and Easton should not lead to this massive drop off in performance. I don't care that it was just one season and I don't care about what Keenum is doing this season, but I believe he masked the OL problems last year.

I want to know what changed from the first half of the season to now. Kirk was under similar pressure then and was one of the better QBs at dealing with it. The last 4 games or so? Ponder-esque. Maybe the first half of the season was unsustainable. He does have a lot of variance as a QB.

[dead_poet]

Any hit, hurry or sack.

This is from 2012: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/p ... whole-stor



And from this year: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/p ... a-glossary





That's like taking a pill to mask the symptoms of IBS instead of fixing the root cause.

Of course, Teddy was rock solid under pressure so you'll get no argument from me.

IMO, it's still not clear what a 'pressure' is. They do define 'under pressure'. So if a QB takes long to throw (under 4 sec?) and gets his normal throwing motion disturbed, it's counted as a pressure? If a QB scrambles away from pressure, buys time and throws without getting his normal throwing motion disturbed, it's not counted as a pressure?

If I QB takes 4 seconds or longer, they would knock the QB and probably either not assign "pressure" to the offensive line or assign it directly to the QB. If his throwing motion is disturbed under 4 seconds, that would be a "hurry" and be counted as a pressure. If he scrambles away from pressure, if that occurs under 4 seconds, that would be a hurry and counted as a pressure. That's how I interpret it, anyway.

[Pondering Her Percy]

It's PFF though. How do they define a pressure?

Any hit, hurry or sack.

This is from 2012: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/p ... whole-stor

For a start, this doesn’t include sacks that are on the quarterback for holding the ball too long. We define ‘too long’ as being anything over four seconds

And from this year: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/p ... a-glossary

Under Pressure
Dealing with pressure is a huge part of playing quarterback, especially with the pass-rushers in the NFL and college nowadays and the pass-happy nature of the league. Under pressure passing is any time the quarterback is disturbed from his normal throwing motion from set up to release, or anytime a pressure is registered on a given passing play. Much like deep passing statistics, we then develop individual statistics off of just pressured passing. In addition to the usual suspects of yards, completions, attempts, passer rating and adjusted completion percentage, we also have pressure percentage (the amount of times a QB is pressured compared to total dropbacks) and sack percentage (the amount of time when under pressure a QB is sacked).

I'd even settle for Bridgewaters or Ponders athletic ability to evade pressure right now. Anything is better than what Cousins does.

That's like taking a pill to mask the symptoms of IBS instead of fixing the root cause.

Of course, Teddy was rock solid under pressure so you'll get no argument from me.

Let’s not forget that cousins has been one of the best this season under pressure. His stats dipped the last two games when being pressured. But overall, he’s also been rock solid this year under pressure

[Bowhunting Viking]

Kapp, you talked about managing his staff... What about keeping Priefer around? In five years, he's had four kickers,including what was at one point the second most accurate kicker in NFL history. If it weren't for Marcus Sherels, his punt teams would be God awful. They get burned by fake punts like they are going out of style.
If I were spielman, I'd throw firing Priefer into the mandate as well.

I do agree priefer should be fired. I was complaining about him way back when harvin was traded to Seattle and we played them and he continued to kick to harvin and he went off on us.

I also am on the bandwagon that Preifer needs to go. And I am sure there aren't alot of empty seats on that wagon.
Our special teams are abysmal. I've been a Vikings fan since I understood football, 54 yrs old now. I'm sure alot of guys here are in the same position. Remember the old days of Matt Blair. Back then that guy and others were very well known for blocking punts and FGs. How often do we do that now. Like never. As a matter of fact how often do we even put a legitimate rush on the punter of kicker at all? The other night when the Hawks were punting out of their end zone I thought come on block this kick and fall on it in the end zone and give us a boost. Then the ball was snapped , and we didnt rush 1 person. The whole front line took off back to start coverage blocking. A lost opportunity.
And what kind of curse is there on kickers here, or is it a curse on Preifer that is passed on to kickers. Carlson... drafted and won job over Kai, who wasnt great but was decent enough. Kid couldn't hit anything despite having a dynamite leg. He caused us a tie and losses. So we cut him and bring in one of the most accurate kickers in lg history. A FA who was passing up jobs waiting on a good team to have an opening. So what happens?? Carlson goes to Raiders and becomes special teams player of the week and is hitting everything. Bailey comes here and we are all excited thinking we FINALLY have a kicker hoping to go back to the Fjuad Revaiz years. Well.. fooled again.
Sherels used to be able to rip off some great returns on punts. Our return game on punts and KOs are pretty much non existent anymore. And earlier in season, if the opposing kicking team woulda played attention, they could have scored when our KO returner.. was is Roc? Don't remember, but didnt kneel and just threw ball to ref who backed away from ball. That's bad coaching there.
All I know is like they say football is a 3 phase game. Right now only 1 phase is pulling its weight. And it sucks that we can't count on special teams in any way, shape or form to do something to change the momentum of a game. So I'm sure many will agree that this is also a change that has to be made.

[J. Kapp 11]

I do agree priefer should be fired. I was complaining about him way back when harvin was traded to Seattle and we played them and he continued to kick to harvin and he went off on us.

I also am on the bandwagon that Preifer needs to go. And I am sure there aren't alot of empty seats on that wagon.
Our special teams are abysmal. I've been a Vikings fan since I understood football, 54 yrs old now. I'm sure alot of guys here are in the same position. Remember the old days of Matt Blair. Back then that guy and others were very well known for blocking punts and FGs. How often do we do that now. Like never. As a matter of fact how often do we even put a legitimate rush on the punter of kicker at all? The other night when the Hawks were punting out of their end zone I thought come on block this kick and fall on it in the end zone and give us a boost. Then the ball was snapped , and we didnt rush 1 person. The whole front line took off back to start coverage blocking. A lost opportunity.
And what kind of curse is there on kickers here, or is it a curse on Preifer that is passed on to kickers. Carlson... drafted and won job over Kai, who wasnt great but was decent enough. Kid couldn't hit anything despite having a dynamite leg. He caused us a tie and losses. So we cut him and bring in one of the most accurate kickers in lg history. A FA who was passing up jobs waiting on a good team to have an opening. So what happens?? Carlson goes to Raiders and becomes special teams player of the week and is hitting everything. Bailey comes here and we are all excited thinking we FINALLY have a kicker hoping to go back to the Fjuad Revaiz years. Well.. fooled again.
Sherels used to be able to rip off some great returns on punts. Our return game on punts and KOs are pretty much non existent anymore. And earlier in season, if the opposing kicking team woulda played attention, they could have scored when our KO returner.. was is Roc? Don't remember, but didnt kneel and just threw ball to ref who backed away from ball. That's bad coaching there.
All I know is like they say football is a 3 phase game. Right now only 1 phase is pulling its weight. And it sucks that we can't count on special teams in any way, shape or form to do something to change the momentum of a game. So I'm sure many will agree that this is also a change that has to be made.

I remember Matt Blair very well.

But in fairness, the rules have changed. Matt Blair used to jump up in his teammates' backs about 12 feet in the air to block kicks. You can't do that anymore ... unless your name is Bobby Wagner and you play for the Seahawks in Seattle.