Minnesota Sports Forum

bleedspeed177 wrote:I also doubt he is gone, but he sure does seem like the weak link here.

It is pretty amazing what AP has done behind this line. Think of what he would have done behind the Cowboy's line.

Norv has a pretty good resume I doubt he is the weak link. I absolutely get where you are coming from though. It reminds me of back when people were unhappy with Musgrave saying he was a terrible OC didn't know how to use Harvin couldn't develop a QB took forever to use Patterson. Hindsight he got more out of those 2 quirky WR talents than anyone since and we know know Ponder absolutely sucked. He is doing just fine in Oakland with Carr and some other talent. I wasn't exactly a fan of Musgrave but I also wasn't convinced he was the problem either.

Could Norv change some things up to get more out of this offense? That's a question a lot of people have and it's totally valid. Keep in mind that early on they really seemed to struggle getting AP and Teddy to be able to do their best work when each guy seemed to work better out of a formation the other guy didn't seem to work out of as well. That was a big deal. I haven't paid as much attention to that recently. The oline struggling is a big deal. In the run game I think the Vikings have FB, TEs and maybe even WRs that help a lot in that area to offset the line to a certain extent and then you obviously have AP who is terrific. At times Teddy has been a magician just to not get sacked and let's keep in mind he is still in his 2nd year. Basically they have went to playing Russell Wilson Seahawk offense and that's been pretty effective the last few years. :)

The guy I wonder about is Mike Wallace. He seems like a forgotten man will he be ok with not getting touches this year even though he probably still does make an impact just being on the field? Idk maybe he has lost something and the Vikings will move on. I doubt he just isn't that good anymore and if the Vikings want to reward him being a good dude and keep paying him that fat salary they can probably afford doing that another year especially since Teddy is dirt cheap as a starting QB.

To me to a certain extent the NFC is wide open the Packers are out of sync and the other teams don't seem that dominate either in the AFC the Pats are the walking wounded so it's not a nobrainer there like it was like a week or so ago. It's going to be interesting to see how things shake out the next few weeks.

The situation with Teddy and AP reminds me of what is going on in Denver. They are having the problem that Marino had late in his career. Peyton can't move well enough to play under center and they have a lot of trouble running out of the pistol or shotgun. It will be interesting what Bronco's do when Manning is ready to go. I probably will continue with what they are doing now and hope Manning is healthy. If you ever get in a situation where they are down and need to wing it out bring in Manning. Otherwise ride that defense and grind it out on the ground. I always loved that brand of football.

Pulled up Vikes 2016 cap on sportrac. Wallace and Kalil are $11m+ with no dead money. I think they're vapor on Mon after the SB. AP is also $11m+ with no dead money, but if they let Kalil go, they may decide they can afford him if he gets thru the season unscathed.

After that, it could go many directions. Hill has no dead money and Munnerlyn has very little. Robison, Loadholt, and Sullivan have dead money, but less than their total hits, so the decision may be made to try to replace their production in the draft.

As far as backup QB, I have always like TJ Yates.

Norv's play calling has at time been questionable in my completely unqualified opinion. That said, if you cannot throw deep with any success it's going to be more difficult to do everything else. With an OLine that cannot pass block and Teddy's in-accuracy on deep throws when they do to Wallace not catching catchable balls when Teddy is accurate, how exactly is Norv supposed fix that?

IMO this team has been overachieving given the huge holes in the OLine, another year of experience for Teddy and a repaired, healthy OLine will make next season very exciting! Yes playoff teams tend to be built around solid defense and a good running game, but this team has been pretty damn average and was lucky to win many of these games.

JasonIsDaMan wrote:Pulled up Vikes 2016 cap on sportrac. Wallace and Kalil are $11m+ with no dead money. I think they're vapor on Mon after the SB. AP is also $11m+ with no dead money, but if they let Kalil go, they may decide they can afford him if he gets thru the season unscathed.

After that, it could go many directions. Hill has no dead money and Munnerlyn has very little. Robison, Loadholt, and Sullivan have dead money, but less than their total hits, so the decision may be made to try to replace their production in the draft.

As far as backup QB, I have always like TJ Yates.

I agree that Wallace is probably gone, but Kalil will be back and he should be (Vikes picked up his option the same day they picked up Smith's). I've been watching him closely this year, and with the exception of the Packer game when his turf toe was clearly bothering him, he has been by far our best offensive lineman. It's clear to me that he was hurt the past two years when he performed poorly, but I think he is performing close to the same level he did in his rookie year. I'm not very happy about the rest of the line, but Kalil has been dominant this year.

It would have been nice after tonight to have a bigger lead in the do ions but....what a whacky game tonight. I watched the first half then went to play some ball and got home in time to see the last 3 mins...

monsterpile wrote:It would have been nice after tonight to have a bigger lead in the do ions but....what a whacky game tonight. I watched the first half then went to play some ball and got home in time to see the last 3 mins...

After breakfast I'm going to bring a football down to a field and see if I can fling it 70 yards in the air...with a following wind, maybe I can get it halfway there! I guess Olivia Munn isn't sapping his arm strength too much...

longstrangetrip wrote:

monsterpile wrote:It would have been nice after tonight to have a bigger lead in the do ions but....what a whacky game tonight. I watched the first half then went to play some ball and got home in time to see the last 3 mins...

After breakfast I'm going to bring a football down to a field and see if I can fling it 70 yards in the air...with a following wind, maybe I can get it halfway there! I guess Olivia Munn isn't sapping his arm strength too much...

Lol that reminds me of a kid in HS that would throw the ball for us to play 500 for at least an hour. He didn't want to catch he would just throw and he would throw from like 40-50 yards away. It was weird. He didn't have a great arm but he was built like an ox. Maybe he could have been a bullpen arm just have him keep throwing pitches. Lol

If you didn't see it check out the interview Rodgers did on the field after the game. You rarely see a superstar player look so flaberstated and giddy over a mid season win.

This is not going well. We are not this bad, but seems like we are a year away from playing with the elite in this league.

bleedspeed177 wrote:This is not going well. We are not this bad, but seems like we are a year away from playing with the elite in this league.

1. The offense is inept on an average day, decent on it's best with the mess playing along the line.
2. Three of their four best defensive players are out, no surprise they're getting trounced on that end.
3. The refs aren't just bad, they're somehow only bad towards the Vikings. I'm not at all suggesting a fix is in, but I don't remember many games with reffing both this bad and one sided.
4. I said at the beginning of the regular season that the O-Line would result in a lost season. If anything they've exceeded my expectations by a very long mile this season.

The most depressing part of this season to me isn't that they're going to fall flat late, that was to be expected given the schedule. The worst part is the O-Line is soooo bad that we can't even be sure if Teddy can be the guy going forward. In those rare situations he's shown some good upside, he's also shown he can't hit the broadside of a barn if it's more than 10 yards downfield. If asked if Teddy could be the guy to lead the Vikings to the Super Bowl at this point I'm about 90% Porkchop.