2021 Vikings Season Thread

[Mike Sixel]

If he still has a job on Tuesday, I'll be upset. (not real upset, it is just football).

[TheLeviathan]

On 12/3/2021 at 3:58 PM, TheLeviathan said:

I predict a 3 game win streak and a contract extension.  Thoughts?

I could not be more happy to be wrong.  This should seal the end of this regime.

[LVTwinsfan]

2 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

If he still has a job on Tuesday, I'll be upset. (not real upset, it is just football).

He should be fired, he threw this game. It should be tied and it should be overtime now

[Vanimal46]

We played scared and deserved the loss. 3 man rush against a bad OL and a QB who gets just as rattled as Kirk Cousins with pressure. We let them drive down the field uncontested. 

[Mike Sixel]

4 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

We played scared and deserved the loss. 3 man rush against a bad OL and a QB who gets just as rattled as Kirk Cousins with pressure. We let them drive down the field uncontested. 

He's a defensive genius, you know...

[LVTwinsfan]

On 12/2/2021 at 6:18 AM, LVTwinsfan said:

I think the Lions get their 1st win on Sunday, plus the Vikings will split with the Bears, lose to the Packers and the Rams, giving them 10 losses. And Zimmer keeps his job. I could be wrong, they might lose to the Steelers too.

No reason not to believe the rest is also true, 6 or 7 wins is all they get this season

[Mike Sixel]

2 minutes ago, LVTwinsfan said:

No reason not to believe the rest is also true, 6 or 7 wins is all they get this season

I reacted with a laugh, at the Vikings, not you. 

[LVTwinsfan]

4 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

I reacted with a laugh, at the Vikings, not you. 

Like I said earlier, this team is a joke….

except for Jefferson

[Danchat]

Today's analysis: Fire everyone, please. That is all I have to say.

[Mike Sixel]

Wow.

 

[stringer bell]

It looks like 9-8 will make the playoffs for sure and possibly 8 wins might get a spot. There will be more drama before the season ends. 

[cHawk]

49 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

It looks like 9-8 will make the playoffs for sure and possibly 8 wins might get a spot. There will be more drama before the season ends. 

Given that they lost today no win is guaranteed. They have the Rams and Packers coming up, both probable losses

[LVTwinsfan]

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

It looks like 9-8 will make the playoffs for sure and possibly 8 wins might get a spot. There will be more drama before the season ends. 

Not from the Vikings, they won’t win 8

[TheLeviathan]

This team is likely 7-10 or 6-11.  The less wins the better.

Start talking Cousins trades with Denver or Philly or Pitt or the Giants or whomever.  Jefferson, Cleveland, Darrisaw, O'Neill, Irv, Hunter, Kendricks, and some young guys are keepable.  Ditch the rest and blow it up.

[RpR]

2 hours ago, stringer bell said:

It looks like 9-8 will make the playoffs for sure and possibly 8 wins might get a spot. There will be more drama before the season ends. 

That makes the now far longer regular season a complete joke, pathetic, but as football has become the new god for so many , que sera, sera.

[LVTwinsfan]

5 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

If he still has a job on Tuesday, I'll be upset. (not real upset, it is just football).

Yeah he’ll be fired, even though I posted previously they’d probably keep him. Won’t be Tuesday though, I’m looking at Friday. That gives the new coach over a week to get acclimated.

5 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

 

 

[gunnarthor]

That was a pretty impressive loss. Can count up five or six things that, had the Vikings simply not done that, easy win. Run out the clock, kick the winning field goal being near the top. Fortunately, I missed the last two minutes b/c I was on a work call but it looked pretty epic. 

I'm positive Zimmer won't be coaching here next year. Less sure about Spielman but I'd think it's more likely than not that he's gone. 

Also, unrelated, but a 17 game season is really stupid. 

[nicksaviking]

I'm ready to celebrate the implosion, but any thought of firing Zimmer now would have been quashed by the short week.

Either way, my guess is Zimmer won't get canned mid-season since there's no viable HC on the roster to vet for next year (thank god), and he's been here eight years and the Wilfs seem to like him even if they don't like what's happening on the field. I'd guess to the rest of the league, firing your long-time coach with no real replacement on the coaching staff might be seen as spiteful since it wouldn't change a thing about this miserable year.

Anyway, that's my guess, not my hope.

Also, does TJ Watt break the single season sack record in Week 14?

[Vanimal46]

11 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I'm ready to celebrate the implosion, but any thought of firing Zimmer now would have been quashed by the short week.

Either way, my guess is Zimmer won't get canned mid-season since there's no viable HC on the roster to vet for next year (thank god), and he's been here eight years and the Wilfs seem to like him even if they don't like what's happening on the field. I'd guess to the rest of the league, firing your long-time coach with no real replacement on the coaching staff might be seen as spiteful since it wouldn't change a thing about this miserable year.

Anyway, that's my guess, not my hope.

Also, does TJ Watt break the single season sack record in Week 14?

Yeah, if they didn’t fire him after the embarrassment at home against Dallas, they’re not going to fire Zimmer now. I’m good with keeping him as the lame duck HC and clean house after the last game. Plus, I don’t want to have a Leslie Fraiser situation where the team goes on an inexplicable win streak under Patterson and the Wilfs are fooled into thinking he’s the solution at HC. 

 

[MMMordabito]

On the bright side, we get to kickoff the Bowl Season on Thursday with the American Motors Corp You Couldn't Beat The Lions Bowl.

[stringer bell]

52 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

That was a pretty impressive loss. Can count up five or six things that, had the Vikings simply not done that, easy win. Run out the clock, kick the winning field goal being near the top. Fortunately, I missed the last two minutes b/c I was on a work call but it looked pretty epic. 

I'm positive Zimmer won't be coaching here next year. Less sure about Spielman but I'd think it's more likely than not that he's gone. 

Also, unrelated, but a 17 game season is really stupid. 

The Vikings scored their last touchdown on third-and-goal with 1:50 left. If they ran the ball and kicked the chip shot FG, there would be somewhere between 50 seconds and a minute remaining for the Lions to kick a winning FG. They wouldn't have been able to drain the clock totally. 

Detroit did all they could to hand the Vikings a win--two ill-advised fourth down attempts and two late turnovers--but Minnesota couldn't stop the vaunted Lion two-minute offense.

I do agree about the 17-game season.

[Otto von Ballpark]

4 hours ago, stringer bell said:

The Vikings scored their last touchdown on third-and-goal with 1:50 left. If they ran the ball and kicked the chip shot FG, there would be somewhere between 50 seconds and a minute remaining for the Lions to kick a winning FG. They wouldn't have been able to drain the clock totally. 

I think the clock management issue started before that.

We took over on the Lions 19 with 4:01 remaining (and the Lions with only one timeout). After our first down run gained 5 yards, our next two snaps (2nd and 3rd down) each happened with 10-11 second left on the play clock while the game clock was running. We ultimately got the first down, but we had to take our 1st and goal snap at 2:03, effectively giving the Lions an extra timeout.

Just waiting another ~3 seconds combined, between those two snaps, could have left the Lions with no timeouts and just ~0:24 left to start their drive (albeit only needing a field goal to win).

Edit to add: in this scenario, we could have also potentially scored a touchdown on 3rd down with around 1:06 left. Failing that, we could have taken the FG with 0:24 left.

[Otto von Ballpark]

19 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Wow.

 

I've seen this list making the rounds, but it isn't really accurate.

First of all, it ignores all of the defensive stops on potential game-winning drives in tie games -- at least 4 between the Cincinnati/Baltimore OT games alone. (Apparently every OT loss is automatically an 0-for-1 for the defense by this measure, regardless of circumstance.)

Secondly, it's not even consistent in only looking at "final drives" --  there were 3 drives after what they call the "game-winning FG" in the Arizona game, for example (one defensive stop, and two offensive drives that produced zero points when a FG would have taken the lead).

And in addition to Arizona, there have been other late defensive stops they've made when trailing by 1 score or less, to give the Vikings offense a chance to win or tie (2 more vs Cincinnati, a bunch vs Cleveland, etc.). And stops that gave the Vikings offense the chance to extend the lead to more than 1 score.

Not to say the Vikings defense has been perfect -- of course it hasn't. But they're not "0 for 8" in any meaningful, consistent measure.

[Otto von Ballpark]

20 hours ago, stringer bell said:

It looks like 9-8 will make the playoffs for sure and possibly 8 wins might get a spot. There will be more drama before the season ends. 

Yup. Approximate wild-card odds now, per 538 (playoff odds minus division odds):

Rams 87%
49ers 63%
Washington 34%
Eagles 33%
Vikings 28%
Saints 14%

[Otto von Ballpark]

What team is most likely to make it in at 8-9?

Among the top teams currently at 6 wins or fewer, using 538's "Choose Your Own Results" tool to give each team an 8-9 final record in isolation (without assuming the results of any other games), Washington appears the most likely to make the wild card with an 8-9 record.

Washington 15%/44%/52%
49ers 17-24%
Vikings 12-16%
Eagles 5%/10%/26%

(The 3 figures for Washington and the Eagles reflect the 3 possible head-to-head outcomes: 0-2/1-1/2-0. The 2 figures for 49ers and Vikings represent whether they lose or win in their remaining games vs the Rams.)

[Mike Sixel]

https://www.espn.com/blog/minnesota-vikings/post/_/id/31518/31518-mike-zimmers-underachieving-defense-may-have-sealed-his-fate-in-minnesota

[LVTwinsfan]

MNF with Peyton and Eli is the only NFL worth watching 

[Mike Sixel]

From the Wall Street Journal....

28 out of the 32 NFL teams have a negative expected points added on running plays, meaning that on average, handoffs actually make the situation worse for 28 out of 32 teams. The Eagles, Browns and Bucs are behind the Colts in terms of getting solid yardage out of the run.....

[LVTwinsfan]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

From the Wall Street Journal....

28 out of the 32 NFL teams have a negative expected points added on running plays, meaning that on average, handoffs actually make the situation worse for 28 out of 32 teams. The Eagles, Browns and Bucs are behind the Colts in terms of getting solid yardage out of the run.....

Where are the Patriots in that, they beat the Bills last night with only 1 completion for 12 yards in 3 pass attempts. 

[Mike Sixel]

3 hours ago, LVTwinsfan said:

Where are the Patriots in that, they beat the Bills last night with only 1 completion for 12 yards in 3 pass attempts. 

I just saw an excerpt, so not sure. The point is, stop emphasizing the run.....