rf54 Posted September 15, 2020 Author Share Posted September 15, 2020 3 minutes ago, VikeManDan said: It is only one game, albeit against a division rival. The sky is not falling. A agree that this team is nit talent less, I could see 7 to 9 wins and maybe get into the playoffs only to be outed again, but I would rather have a long term plan with great upside vs a struggle to be decent for the next 3 years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RpMc Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 1 minute ago, rf54 said: How do you know this has not been the plan for months? No CBs signed in off season, extend Cousins with a contract that the team can get out of in a year, start Elf and Dozier at Guards, draft 15 rookies? Look, during the game I root for the Vikings as hard as anyone but in reality we are not SB contenders this year. Trading a second round pick for Yannick Ngakoue doesn't fit, signing Michael Pierce doesn't fit There is not a single player in the league that would be okay playing for a team if they came in day one and the coaches/executives/owners said, "we are tanking the season." It's such a horrible take. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rf54 Posted September 15, 2020 Author Share Posted September 15, 2020 1 minute ago, RpMc said: Trading a second round pick for Yannick Ngakoue doesn't fit, signing Michael Pierce doesn't fit There is not a single player in the league that would be okay playing for a team if they came in day one and the coaches/executives/owners said, "we are tanking the season." It's such a horrible take. Duh, you don't tell the players... look at the schedule, how many for sure wins do you see? Now what if you made the changes I listed in my first post? Could they lose 13 - 15 games. Yes, the margin in the NFL is so thin that some minor tweaks could easily make the difference. Zimmer teams are play close games, make a few changes here and there, or don't make obvious upgrades and you turn a win into a loss. The next four games are the Colts, Titans, Texans, and Seahawks. How many of those games do we win if they play like they just did? How are you gonna protect a small lead with the current CBs and pass rush? I've been a Viking fan for 50+ years, I bleed purple, but what is the upside of the current team? Yes, the Ngakoue trade just happened and I will admit that is a hard one to fit into my plan. Maybe Hunter is out longer than we expect, I don't have that answer but I do want to see my Vikings win a championship. I want to see it soon, at the current pace with the current roster and cap situation we just don't have a chance. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babababa Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 11 minutes ago, rf54 said: A agree that this team is nit talent less, I could see 7 to 9 wins and maybe get into the playoffs only to be outed again, but I would rather have a long term plan with great upside vs a struggle to be decent for the next 3 years. 1 minute ago, rf54 said: Duh, you don't tell the players... look at the schedule, how many for sure wins do you see? Now what if you made the changes I listed in my first post? Could they lose 13 - 15 games. Yes, the margin in the NFL is so thin that some minor tweaks could easily make the difference. Zimmer teams are play close games, make a few changes here and there, or don't make obvious upgrades and you turn a win into a loss. The next four games are the Colts, Titans, Texans, and Seahawks. How many of those games do we win if they play like they just did? How are you gonna protect a small lead with the current CBs and pass rush? I've been a Viking fan for 50+ years, I bleed purple, but what is the upside of the current team? Yes, the Ngakoue trade just happened and I will admit that is a hard one to fit into my plan. Maybe Hunter is out longer than we expect, I don't have that answer but I do want to see my Vikings win a championship. I want to see it soon, at the current pace with the current roster and cap situation we just don't have a chance. I've never heard of tanking after 1 game. I've never heard of tanking after 3 games. I've never heard of tanking after 6 games. I've never heard of tanking after 12 games. Why would coaches and players be paid to tank? This isn't professional wrestling -- some scripted drama. Maybe that's the sport you should take interest in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rf54 Posted September 15, 2020 Author Share Posted September 15, 2020 15 minutes ago, babababa said: I've never heard of tanking after 1 game. I've never heard of tanking after 3 games. I've never heard of tanking after 6 games. I've never heard of tanking after 12 games. Why would coaches and players be paid to tank? This isn't professional wrestling -- some scripted drama. Maybe that's the sport you should take interest in. The margin in the NFL is so thin that some minor tweaks could easily make the difference. Zimmer teams are play close games, make a few changes here and there, or don't make obvious upgrades and you turn a win into a loss. The next four games are the Colts, Titans, Texans, and Seahawks. How many of those games do we win if they play like they just did? How are you gonna protect a small lead with the current CBs and pass rush? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikesfan89 Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 Wouldn't spielman be out of a job if they got the first pick? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swede700 Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 I still believe this team can win 9-10 games and will get better as the season goes along. I don't think they're a 7-win operation. I also think if they can make the playoffs, it's all about match-ups at that point. You can't convince me last year that the Chiefs win the Super Bowl if they had to face the Patriots or Ravens. The Titans did them a huge favor by beating both of them. Do the Vikings look like SB contenders right now? Absolutely not. But, can that perception change by the end of the year? Sure, why not? If Danielle comes back healthy and the CBs begin to make significant progress as they get more playing time, I think the defense can be a top-5 defense once again...and that will be the key to this team's success. Kirk is what he is, which is good enough to win in this league...and he has the talent offensively around him or them to be a top-10-15 offense overall. That should be good enough for them to be in contention at the end of the year. 1 game is far too soon to throw in the towel and tank for anyone. While I haven't been alive for 50 years yet, I've certainly seen enough in my fandom to witness the lowest of all lows, which was the Les Steckel year, but to also see the highest of the highs (short of a SB victory) in the 1998 season. Believe you me, I'd rather feel the pain of the latter than the anguish and despair of the former. I don't ever want to witness that again in a tanking for anyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RpMc Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 expanded playoffs this year as well; the tanking question is a non-question. It's a non-starter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Buck Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 2 hours ago, rf54 said: A agree that this team is nit talent less, I could see 7 to 9 wins and maybe get into the playoffs only to be outed again, but I would rather have a long term plan with great upside vs a struggle to be decent for the next 3 years. As a 50-year fan myself, I would have to agree with you. I would actually be all for tanking for a guy like Trevor Lawrence. The problem is that if we were going to do that, it would have made a lot more sense to do like Jacksonville has done and have a "garage sale" for just about all of our veteran players. I would keep Rick Spielman around as the GM because I think he has done a very good job, but I would have fired Mike Zimmer (even though I do think he is a very good coach) and gone with an offense-minded replacement. As things are, we have a head coach in Mike Zimmer who I'm really starting to doubt whether he can make this team any better than it was in 2017, which wasn't good enough. Right now, I just don't know what their true direction is. Like yourself, I don't see this team winning a Super Bowl in the next 3-4 years based on the trajectory we seem to be on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Buck Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 31 minutes ago, swede700 said: I still believe this team can win 9-10 games and will get better as the season goes along. I don't think they're a 7-win operation. I also think if they can make the playoffs, it's all about match-ups at that point. You can't convince me last year that the Chiefs win the Super Bowl if they had to face the Patriots or Ravens. The Titans did them a huge favor by beating both of them. Do the Vikings look like SB contenders right now? Absolutely not. But, can that perception change by the end of the year? Sure, why not? If Danielle comes back healthy and the CBs begin to make significant progress as they get more playing time, I think the defense can be a top-5 defense once again...and that will be the key to this team's success. Kirk is what he is, which is good enough to win in this league...and he has the talent offensively around him or them to be a top-10-15 offense overall. That should be good enough for them to be in contention at the end of the year. 1 game is far too soon to throw in the towel and tank for anyone. While I haven't been alive for 50 years yet, I've certainly seen enough in my fandom to witness the lowest of all lows, which was the Les Steckel year, but to also see the highest of the highs (short of a SB victory) in the 1998 season. Believe you me, I'd rather feel the pain of the latter than the anguish and despair of the former. I don't ever want to witness that again in a tanking for anyone. After cheering for this team for fifty years and seeing just about every possible way of blowing it before getting to the top of the hill has gotten VERY old, boring, and repetitive. I don't care if we go 0-16 or 16-0. If it doesn't end up in winning a Super Bowl, it's all just another wasted year at this point for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swede700 Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 5 minutes ago, Uncle Buck said: After cheering for this team for fifty years and seeing just about every possible way of blowing it before getting to the top of the hill has gotten VERY old, boring, and repetitive. I don't care if we go 0-16 or 16-0. If it doesn't end up in winning a Super Bowl, it's all just another wasted year at this point for me. While certainly disappointing and old...I don't view it as a waste. I continue to hold out hope that it will eventually happen. But, I've also matured a lot since that Steckel year, when 10-year old self spent a couple of hours bawling my eyes out at how the players just quit on the team. I've learned that football is simply entertainment and enjoyable. It still ruins my week when they lose, but I get over it a lot sooner than I used to...and there are far more important things in life. As Bud has famously said on KFAN..."It's just football...it's not life or death." I love to talk about it here and sometimes get worked up, but in the end, it's just a sport played by humans to entertain other humans. The nuances of the sport that people bring out here are interesting to me and I've learned a lot about it that I certainly didn't know before. But, I also compartmentalize it for what it is...a hobby for me. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Worm Guts Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, rf54 said: How do you know this has not been the plan for months? No CBs signed in off season, extend Cousins with a contract that the team can get out of in a year, start Elf and Dozier at Guards, draft 15 rookies? Look, during the game I root for the Vikings as hard as anyone but in reality we are not SB contenders this year. Most of the prognosticators have us in that upper middle range of the league. If you expected the Vikings to terrible that's fine, but it seems most of the football world did not. Not being in Super Bowl contention isn't the same thing as contending for the first overall pick. Edited September 15, 2020 by Worm Guts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteelKing728 Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 17 hours ago, vikingsrule said: The Vikings look bad this year but there are worse teams. Cousins is good enough to keep them around 8 wins. This team makes the playoffs every other year it seems, made it last year so the writings on the wall. It was week 1 in what will go down as a very weird season for everybody. We don't really look anything. But given the opportunity, yes, I'll take Lawrence in a heartbeat. He's a better prospect than Burrow or Murray. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swede700 Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 17 minutes ago, SteelKing728 said: It was week 1 in what will go down as a very weird season for everybody. We don't really look anything. But given the opportunity, yes, I'll take Lawrence in a heartbeat. He's a better prospect than Burrow or Murray. Personally, I'd also be willing to even take Trey Lance, if he were in the range of where we'll be picking (which he won't be). I'm not sold on Trevor being the end-all, be-all. I think Fields and Lance will be as good...if not even better over the long haul. Maybe I'm alone, but I don't view Lawrence as being the best prospect since Andrew Luck. I just don't. In the end, I could be wrong, but I don't view him as a "special" player. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SemperFeist Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 Zimmer and Spielman just signed extensions, and Cousins is going to be this team’s QB through the 2022 season. This team isn’t looking for a rebuild any time soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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