In the past 15 years, there have been 5 offenses that weren't top 8 in scoring who have won the SB. Of those 5, 2 had the #1 scoring defense in Pitt and Denver.fiestavike wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 7:05 amHonestly, I find that a boring road to go down. Kirk will do really well against teams that don't apply a ton of pressure, and against generally average to below average teams. That Vikings have every reason to expect to have a top 10 offense this year. He is who he is and I don't mean for my comments to lead to yet another debate about the merits of Kirk Cousins. I just meant to talk about the Vikings path to winning a super bowl. The defense theoretically can be good enough to get a team with this kind of offense (one that feasts against weaker teams, but doesn't have the ability to rise to the challenge against playoff caliber defenses) to the championship. In order to do so, they'll have to be a really great unit. If it's another reactive Zimmer unit like we've seen in the past, that is playing on their heels and not playing downhill, this team is going nowhere.808vikingsfan wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 12:22 am
This is where I'm at. No matter how good this team can be, to get deep in the playoffs, you need a QB that can elevate the team when needed. Kirk is not that guy. No matter how good the OL will be, no matter how good the defense might be, Kirk will be Kirk.
Question for those that believe in Cousins. What if the Vikings barely make it over .500 and are one and done in the playoffs this year. He has a "championship roster", rookie QB in CHI, new QB in DET, maybe no Rodgers in GB. Will you still believe in him? Shouldn't this be his "prove it" year for you folks? This is his 10th year in the league. He's 51-51 as a starter. Only one double digit win season. Stafford has 2. At some point, don't you folks have to stop blaming everyone else?
The other 3 were the 2007 Giants, 2011 Giants and the 2012 Ravens. The 2007 and 2011 Giants teams had elite pass rushes that dominated in the playoffs. The Giants didn't give up more than 20 points in any of their 8 playoffs games in those SB runs. The Ravens team wasn't elite statistically anywhere, but got the single greatest playoff statistical performance by a QB in the past 15 years.
Those 3 teams are the closest to what we project too statistically on paper and won because they got hot at the right time. My guess is that even with those 3 teams, if you broke down their rosters even more you would probably see teams that under achieved based on their talent during the regular season, and didn't really pull it together until the playoffs.